He who strengthens me

Summer 2011

God’s timing is always perfect.  His lessons are often frustrating and gut-wrenching yet, in hindsight, I can see perfection in his methods.

Tim and the kids had left early one Saturday morning to spend a couple days dirtbiking.  Never one to get up early on a Saturday morning without a clearly defined purpose, I went back to bed and just dozed for a while when one of God’s gifts hit me like a ton of bricks.  I had a flashback that revealed a part of the abuse that I had thankfully forgotten for so long.  As a survivor and as a counselor, I know beyond certainty that the abuse is never the child’s fault.  Ever.  Period.  This memory though brought back some of that guilt and it screwed with my head.  And Tim was gone.  I was alone.  Too proud to call someone (because I should be over all this by now!), I stewed in it for most of the day.  Rachel came over, as we had planned a few days before, and we watched a couple of rented movies and talked.  It was all a good distraction for me from the memory I was avoiding but bedtime was coming too quickly and I was uncomfortable with being left alone with the memory.  Rachel sensed something in me and I shared with her what was going on.  I am her mentor, her mother figure in Texas.  It was a role reversal that felt both strange and comforting.  Her love for me was palpable, soothing, and encouraging.

We got up the next morning and went our separate ways to church.  She went to her church and I visited Oak Gardens Church of Christ with my dear friend, Alex.  The singing was so uplifting, I felt the joy of Christ in their souls even while my own soul was wrenched by an old wound.  The sermon that day was on Phil. 4:13 “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.”  I wanted to respond to the altar call but I couldn’t move.  With tears streaming down my face, I understood the lesson God was teaching me.

God’s timing is perfect.  It sure didn’t seem that way when I experienced a flashback without Tim to support me through it.  God’s methods are perfect but it sure didn’t seem that way when I had to spend most of the day alone with a gaping wound.  Without Tim, I felt completely alone with my pain.  Rachel was able to comfort me through the night so that I could get to church and hear the message I needed to hear.  If Tim had been there, I would have never felt the utter aloneness that I needed to feel in order to hear the message.  God used Rachel to comfort me, to put a Band-Aid on a wound, until the true Healer could do His good work.  So, another lesson learned at the hand of God: LEAN ON GOD, LEAN ON THE ONE WHO STRENGTHENS ME.  Guess I wasn’t so alone after all.