You Are Not Alone!

Chapter 1 Where was God in my life?
We have all asked the question: “Where is God in our lives?” Sometimes it does seem that we are in this life alone and are facing trials and tribulations alone, wishing that there was a God to get us out of the situation. Yes, there are times in our lives when we feel like we are traveling this life all alone. I have felt this way growing up in a blended family.
My parents divorced when I was very young. My dad remarried when I was 5 years old to a cop who had two daughters. This made me the only boy with three sisters! Yes, there were fun times, but there were some sad times as well. My step-mom seemed nice at times, but there were times when I would pray to God that he would remove me from this family. You see, she was sometimes nice, but she had a short temper too. Her yelling used to scare me to death and then there were moments where she would lose her temper, throw things, or hit whoever was in sight. It was at this point that lonely feelings came in and I would pray to what felt like a silent God who did not care, and that is when I started asking the question where is God. I used to believe that if God really loved and cared about me, then he would remove me from this horrible environment. It is hard to love someone who has a short fuse and loses that fuse on any little thing.
Where was God when I was being yelled at, hit by a hairbrush on the leg, kicked in the leg, or being slapped on the arm? I remember a time when I made her so mad that she tried to pop me on the arm with a towel, but my sister intervened and took it for me. Her arm was red and started to whelp and my sister said, “I love you and took the hit just for you.” When she said this, I thought about how Jesus Christ was on the cross and took our place to defeat our sins. God showed me his existence by using my sister. He will show you His existence by using others in your life as well. I know it is hard to imagine the existence of God when you have been or are being abused by someone, especially when that someone is supposed to love and protect you.
I wish that God had come down or sent an angel to tell her, “Hey look I put you in this young man’s life to teach him about my love because he does not know what love is.”
To understand the existence of God you have to first understand the love of God. It is hard to see what love looks like when you are abused and think that love is conditional. For example, I felt like I could only receive love when I was behaving as best as a hyperactive child could and when I was misbehaving I felt like I had to earn the love back. This concept made me feel the same way towards God. You can see why I had a hard time achieving the concept that God is the God of love. While I was searching for the existence of God, I believed that everything about God was based on conditions as it is in human relationships.
The only way that I was truly assured in the existence of God was when I was nine years old. University Park Baptist Church in Odessa, Texas had a revival with the late Rev. Boyce Evans. He was talking to all of the kids on children’s night at the revival about the need of a personal relationship with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I remember after I stepped up front during the invitation that my dad took me into the pastor’s office to talk to me. My dad shared with me the joy and love he had for me in accepting Christ and how proud he was of me. My dad has always told me that he was proud of me. Even today, he still tells me that!
If there was, anything that I would change in my childhood was that my dad would correct my step-mom, by saying, “Do not touch my son, and stop calling him names and making him think that he is good for nothing or stupid.” She was very hard to love it was not until she was diagnosed of cancer that I started to see the good in her. I always prayed for her but I felt like God wasn’t there for me either. Although I accepted Him into my life, I felt like she was never happy for me. In fact, she never told me she was proud of me and never shown me that she loved me. It is hard if you try to find the existence of God from people. It was hard for me to see in her. I was 18 years old and a senior in high school when she passed away. I will never forget the day that I wrote her a letter asking her for forgiveness. Sometimes we need to ask for forgiveness when we are looking for God. In this letter, I asked her to forgive me for my hyperactive self, short attention span, and for the times I was disobedient. I asked for her forgiveness for being stupid and hoped she would forgive me. She did and passed away four weeks after I wrote the letter.
Where was God in my life growing up? God was right there and He did protect me and made me a better person today. Yes, I am still hyperactive, but I am achieving my goals and dreams. You cannot let someone dictate your life for you. Growing up I was letting my stepmom dictate my life instead of allowing God to mold me and reveal to me His life plan for my life.
My life is far from perfect. There were three people that have helped me through everything my Memaw and dad and old deacon. Let me tell you this story to illustrate how God used my Memaw and old deacon on the same night to get my attention.
I was 18 years old, the day my Memaw called and told me that she loved me and prayed that God would go with me wherever it was that I was going. I was going to a club to go dance and enjoy my new fake id… I got to the parking lot and heard a voice that said, I love you and will not forsake you... I went into the bar and was just about to show my fake id until a voice in the corner said, Son, this is no place for a person like you. The voice was an old deacon at a church that I went too. This old deacon had a drinking problem and we sat and talked for a while and he said, "Stephen you have a good family don’t let alcohol, drugs nor women change that and most importantly don’t listen to the Devil, he only tends to hurt you. God loves you and He will be with you in fact, when you walked in I thought you were a preacher fixing to preach to us about the need for God.” You see, God told my Memaw where I was going and she called to tell me that God was with me and then God used the old deacon to show me that the only person I needed was God. It was through my Memaw’s love for God that night that I realized how much God loves me and then it was by the old deacon that I knew how much I love and needed God. God will use the care, love, and sacrifice of your family members, friends, and others to show His love for us.
God has blessed me in many ways and He will bless you too. You see, I am married to a wonderful wife, and now an ordained Assembly of God minister and evangelist. My biological mom is in my life and is married to a great guy they live in East Texas, my sister is married with two kids and lives in Tomball, TX. My dad is remarried to a wonderful woman, who has two kids. In fact, I know have a brother! I now have a sister from my stepdad along with a brother in law, a sister and brother from my stepmom, a sister in law and a brother in law. God has certainly enlarged our family, and now I am waiting for God to bless Sharon and me with a son and a daughter! The funny thing about all this is the fact that my wife and step-mom have the same name and my mom Debbie and mother in law Debbie have the same name.