I suppose this should have been my first post, but better late than never. If you have taken the time to look at this you deserve to know who I am and my purpose for writing. My purpose for writing is to share some insights God has given me during my season of suffering. I profess no wisdom of my own. I am simply a child of God who has experienced some life altering circumstances. These times of suffering are not uncommon, we all experience them. God uses them to push us to the point of total faith, to the point where faith becomes less an action of our mind and more a center point of our mind, heart, soul, and body. While humanly speaking we will never be perfect in our walk, never be 100% devoted to Christ, He wants us to desire that devotion, that fellowship with Him more than anything else.
Before I tell you of my season of trials I should tell you about the seasons before. I had a very typical middle class childhood. Mom was home, dad worked to take care of us. Life was good. The one issue in my childhood was the one that would drive me to Christ. My dad always wanted something better for his family, a noble goal. However, his definition of that was a bigger home, then a bigger home with land. So we moved often. Once out of state, with a company that promised the moon, then went out of business. So back to California to rebuild. I attended 5 different elementary schools. It wasn't until high school that we settled and I finished school with friends. Unfortunately this moving, my own sensitive nature, and the tendency for kids to pick on the new kid, drove me to depression. I honestly believe if I had heard about God's love and accepted Him shortly before my 15Th birthday, that I would not be alive today.
So as time past my faith and knowledge grew. It was the faith of a young, somewhat sheltered, "good girl". It was genuine but untried. I grew up, married and moved to a new town. We had the typical struggles of most newlyweds. But as time went by we settled in.
Then there was the struggle to have our first child. This tried my faith and my emotions. All our friends were having babies, it seemed everyone was pregnant but me. I wrestled with the "why's" and protested God's fairness to me. God knew my faith could only take so much and He graciously gave us our daughter.
The hardest season began in 1997, when I gave birth to premature twins, though I did not know it yet, I was entering the world of special needs, or disabled children. They were small but healthy, and we expected them to catch up by 2 years of age like most preemies do. Despite getting them help practically from birth, they did not catch up. The girls are 12 years old, but function more like 7 or 8 year olds, they also have the issue of selective mutism. They will not talk to anyone outside of myself, my husband and their older sister. Even then it is only when it is just us no one else can be there. Having the twins complicates everything. They didn't sleep through the night until they were over 4 years old, they did not potty train until over 5, they did not talk until about 5 years old, even walking was delayed, they didn't walk until close to 3. Even now their "issues" complicate everything from where to attend church to family vacations. We do not have a formal diagnosis and it is unlikely they will ever fit into a category.
The next complication came in 2004 when my husband developed MS like symptoms, fatigue, pins and needles sensations in his hands and face, balance problems and mild cognitive impairment. These have now left him disabled to the point that he cannot work. As a result of my not being able to find a job and my husband's medical problems we were forced to go onto welfare.
So to summarize my road of life includes raising special needs twins, poverty, chronic illness of my husband and the normal pressures of raising a teenager, being a homemaker and wife, and etc.
I tell you all of this not to evoke pity, or to make myself sound like some sort of super Christian. But to say that I have learned of God's faithfulness in ways I could never have dreamed. I can in all honesty tell you that I love God more than life, and I need Him day by day more than I need air or water. I can say that no matter what He allows into my life I will praise Him, for He is worthy.
I hope you will find encouragement for your walk and most of all that God will be glorified in all that is said here.
