You can reason with God...

Isaiah 1:18
New King James Version (NKJV)
18 “Come now, and let us reason together,”
Says the Lord,
“Though your sins are like scarlet,
They shall be as white as snow;
Though they are red like crimson,
They shall be as wool.

Today, as like many other days, my heart is heavy for those who don't know Jesus. My own testimony of coming to realize that Jesus is the Son of God was not a direct path from Judaism to Christianity. I took a few detours along the way. Some of my earliest thoughts about God were as a very young child. I remember laying outside in the grass on my back looking up into the sky and thinking about God and wondering Who He was. I also have a vivid memory of a babysitter taking me and my sister to a Catholic church service. I remember seeing all of the stained glass windows with there beautiful images and thinking to myself, "am I not able to believe in this "Jesus" because I "happen" to have been born of two Jewish parents?". Looking back now, I know that God was along side of me even back then. I was an extremely insecure child. I remember fearing that if my parents went out and left me and my sister home with a babysitter, that they may never return home again. I would hide under my bed when we had a babysitter come and watch us. I was riddled with such debilitating fear as a young child.

My experiences with "religion" naturally started with my parents' brand of Judaism. It was more like an agnostic view sprinkled with some Jewish traditions and customs. In my young twenties I married the father of my children. He was and still is a Catholic man. After my kids were born, he convinced me that our children would go to hell if God forbid they died and were not baptized. Not willing to take any chances with that, I went along with the program and had both kids baptized. Next, I took Catechism classes and I was scheduled to be baptized too, but I just didn't believe what I was learning was true. Confessing my sins to a priest, praying the rosary and all the other rituals that I was learning about just didn't sit right within my spirit. I decided NOT to be baptized ( I have been baptized as an adult).

In my continued search for truth, I had a very kind neighbor in Utah give me the Book of Mormon. She told me to pray and read this book and the truth would be revealed to me. I said a little prayer and opened the book. I can honestly say that I never read it all. I opened it up here and there and I would try to read some of it, but it didn't do a thing for me. Who was this Joseph Smith anyway? This didn't sit well with me either.

After leaving Utah in the midst of marital issues and an impending divorce, I returned to my home town in Florida. Now I was a single Mom. I knew that I had a tough and lonely road ahead of me. My sister helped me out by getting an apartment with me to relieve some of my financial burden. She loved my kids (and still does) and at that point in time she was still single (now happily married with two beautiful daughters). I was working as a waitress/bartender at Chili's Bar & Grill. I was living my life the best way I knew how. I dated men here and there. One man in particular that I dated called himself an atheist. The "irony" (which I now know was God working) is that he introduced me to the Christian group "Jars of Clay". Long after we broke up I continued to listen to their music. I was intrigued with their song "Love Song For A Savior". I listened to that song over and over and over again. I just couldn't comprehend how a man could sing to God saying, " I want to fall in love with You" instead of singing these words to a woman. Fall in love with God? How odd is that? But I just couldn't stop thinking about it. The song was so beautiful to me. As I have mentioned in my blog in the past, a neighbor of mine who lived in the apartments where I was living, invited me to church on Wednesday night July 31, 1996. I can't tell you exactly how God spoke to me that night, but I will tell you this.... He absolutely did! After all of my years living with a yearning that could never be filled, guilt and shame that caused great anxiety and depression, I surrendered my life to Jesus Christ and have never looked back. I knew little if anything about my newly acquired faith, but what I was able to comprehend from that night going forward was that my sins were forgiven, I had a clean slate and trust me, I was one grateful young woman! I had finally found true love. In fact the bible says, God is love (1 John 4:8).

For those of you who have the idea that my faith is a "crutch", I'll just say this to you, a "crutch" doesn't give you peace through my current husband's diagnosis of melanoma, my own diagnosis and life with Multiple Sclerosis, healing from a divorce, wayward kids, financial ups and downs and all the other trials that are too many to mention. Only God gives that kind of peace. It surpasses all human understanding (Philippians 4:7). I haven't "bought into anything". I'm not lured into a "cult" as some have suggested in the past. I have been saved by grace alone. It has nothing to do with me or anything I have done or not done ( Ephesians 2:8). There is no other name under heaven by which a man, (or woman), can be saved (Acts 4:12) No pill or person was ever able to fill that void in me. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, no one gets to the Father except through Him (John 14:6). Every knee will bow down to Him ( Philippians 2:10). He is the image of the Invisible God ( Colossians 1:15). He has asked us to come and reason with Him (Isaiah 1:18). Ask Him to reveal Himself to you and I can promise He won't ignore that request! All who call on the name of the Lord will be saved (Romans 10:13). Don't wait even another moment. Don't allow your past, your family, your friends or anyone or anything to separate you from the only One who can save your soul...His name is JESUS.

Joshua 24:15
New King James Version (NKJV)
15 And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”