Don't give up

Last week, my program gave us four quizzes, and next week brings two midterms and another quiz. These are stressful times.  A new career depends on passing these classes.  Pressure. 

You have pressures in your life, just as large for you as mine are to me. I recently re-read  something I wrote several years ago that helps put the quizzes into perspective. Skip to the last paragraph if you don't have the time to read it all.


God rescued me from the grave, and now my life is filled with light. Job 33:28

I have been there. I know what the darkness of despair feels like, so when I talk about being filled with the light of God, I'm not a chirpy Pollyanna who never had a problem. Hang on, dear one, because God has a plan for you, and the plan is for good.

God reached into the grave and pulled me out, more than once. Perhaps the most dramatic was when I drove a babysitter home late one night. On the way back from walking her to the front door, a large man jumped out of the darkness and held a knife to my throat, trapping me in the wedge of my open car door. I could feel the metal blade. I looked into his eyes, and they were filled with hate.  He said something. Years later, the exact words came echoing back in my ears. The essence was that he had caught me, and he could do whatever he wanted to me.

I knew there was no one on earth who could help me, and it was completely instinct in me that called out loud, "Jesus."

In a second, the man's face changed: his eyes became confused, as if I'd struck him in the head. He looked into my car, grabbed my purse, and ran off. This was a time before cell phones, so I ran up into the babysitter's apartment and called the police. They wouldn't even take an incident report, because the crime rate in that area was so high, and I couldn't identify the man.

My rational mind knew that he was not in my car, but I couldn't think straight. All the way home I was certain that somehow he was still in the car, or following me. Not until I was in my own house did the nightmare remotely seem over.

Yes, the Lord delivered me that night, and I still praise him for the deliverance. But God allowed me to have enough of that horror to know what it is to drive home alone in the station wagon, knowing that my robber now had my wallet and he knew where my family--my little daughters--lived.

I would still awaken in the middle of other nights in a cold sweat, re-living the terror of being absolutely without power in the presence of another person who wanted to do me harm. It took a long time to recover, and I still over-react if I'm startled (my husband has learned I don't mean to gasp if I don't hear him coming up from behind me--some things are burned too deeply into PTSD brains).  Because of that experience, I was able to work for 20 years in the field of Post-Traumatic Stress and Sexual Trauma recovery. God was able to take my experience and multiply it to help others. 2 Corinthians 1:4"Who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort others with the comfort we ourselves have received from God."

And I can tell you truly that the light is much more dazzling after you have been without it; hope is the sweetest when you thought you'd never taste it again. There were times when I didn't think I could keep on going, days of defeat and interrupted nights. 

I pray God will send you a glimmer of the good to come this very day.  In the meantime, hold on until there are more of them. They will come. God has promised them, and he can be trusted.