Confident of God's Presence pt2

I wanted to write a continuation of my original post "Confident of God's Abscence".

The night I wrote it I met with two friends who were called in on a "rescue mission". I would like to say that after talking with them I was confident of God's presence, but even after several hours that is not how the story goes. The next night I began reading Angela Thomas' new book My Single Mom Life in the beginning of the book she spends an entire chapter talking about exactly what I was feeling. My Divorce Care group was doing the chapter on forgiveness and the next chapter was reconciliation, but through all of this I still could not feel God. I felt as if I was enclosed in a glass coffin. I could see God on the other side of the glass, but regardless of how much I tried to reach out to God he kept running farther away from me. I felt ridiculed.

One of my closest friends, and one of the two that met with me on the first night talked to me daily about this struggle I was having. I knew he was praying and I knew he was getting frustrated with me because I just could not see it. Josh wrote me an email that week discussing three parables the lost sheep, the lost coin and the prodigal son. In the first two parables those who had lost something went looking for it, but in the last parable the father did not go looking. Instead he sat waiting for the glorious day that the son would return. The decision had to be the son's. The son had to return home in order to reap the benefits that the father was waiting to bestow. I would like to say that at this point I went running home to the Father, but that is not the case.

The next Sunday was baptism Sunday at Blue Ridge Community Church, let me pause here if you have never been to a baptism at BRCC you have missed a taste of heaven! I sat with Josh through the service, through the testimonies, through the lives that have been changed by God's unfailing love and I became more and more angry. I thought if God really did love me then why didn't he touch me the way he had touched them? Why wouldn't he let me catch Him or be caught by Him? The service ended with Amazing Grace (My Chains are Gone) by Chris Tomlin. I love this song and yet I could not sing it. I didn't feel set free. I felt entrapped, bound by chains that were not loosening they were tightening! Josh looked at me after the service had ended and asked what I thought. I asked if I could be honest and told him I was "pissed". He walked away and left me to my unbelief.

I had a job to be done (for church) so I went to complete my assignment. The team leader came to ask how things were going and all I could say was "I'm struggling". She asked for clarification, and again I said "I am struggling." She took me to another room so we could "pray" (that was the last thing I wanted to do), put her arms around me and I began to weep. At this point she told me "no, we aren't going to pray." I was relieved. "We are going to go find Peggy!" Fear and frustration struck me. I had never met this Peggy person, but I had heard stories and I had had three different people under different situations tell me that I needed to talk to her. So Shea drug me around the building looking for this Peggy person.

We found Peggy deep in conversation with another woman. So we sat and waited. After a few minutes, Shea called out to Peggy and told her we were waiting for her. My irritation grew.

When Peggy was able to excuse herself she came over got a quick run down, and I do mean quick! She began by telling me that she believed I was a "believer"--I knew all about God, but I wasn't a Child of God. She kept saying this over and over again. Finally! Something made sense!!!

Not to lessen the impact of the outcome, but we prayed and I became a Child of God. At that moment, while Peggy was holding my trembling body I felt the glass shatter and I felt a vacuum sucking me into God's arms. At that moment I could not be more sure of God's presence and love for me.