"One thing I do know, I was blind but now I see!" John 9:25
Hope is found in a life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ. Every person who has this love relationship with Jesus, has a unique story of the power He has to change a life and the hope He alone can give. It is a story that only they can tell. As Jesus makes a difference in the life of a Christian, their story of hope is a living illustration that Jesus is alive and making a difference one life at a time.
I thought I had come to my breaking point. Inside I was in agony, and my life was in shambles. I had spent three years of my life in misery with a man who was a compulsive gambler. I was severely depressed. I loved this man, but he was not the one who God had for me to spend the rest of my life with.
I was a gay young man that had been sexually abused as a young child until my mid teens. I yearned for the love, attention, and acceptance of my dad that other kids had and I didn't. I came from a dysfunctional family where my dad was an alcoholic and I was his whipping boy. Instead of promoting an atmosphere of love, it developed into a relationship of bitterness and borderline hatred. I yearned to be loved and wanted by my dad. When I was abused by a relative, I turned that love and want into the attention he showed me as a filling of that need.
When I was five years old, my Mom was on her way back to jail and this time they got her on bad enough charges to keep her for a while. It’s not like she kept us anyway. Her Mom, my Granny, did. I always asked God why He didn’t give me a real family. Mom never recovered from being addicted to cocaine. My brother was eight years older than me and he had a bad temper that resulted several times in stitches and bruises for me and my sister. We all had the same mom, but we had different dads. If my Dad is who my Mom says he is, he died when I was six. I never knew him, his family, or any kind of father figure. Mom ended up with "regulars" to support her habit and I struggled along through my childhood. I questioned where God was while my sister and I did without because Mom had a habit and Granny had means just to barely survive.
I was a young religious girl, who did everything my parents and others wanted me to do. I actually forsook myself for the sake of others' happiness. I thought I was okay and was already right with God, because what was I to repent of? I thought I was already a perfect being!
"Praise the LORD from the earth...lightning and hail, snow and clouds, stormy winds that do His bidding, you mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars...kings of the earth and all nations, you princes and all rulers on earth, young men and maidens, old men and children." Psalm 148:7-12
A Trying Time
When I was young I had been taught to love Jesus, but I became a problem child, a troubled teen, and finally a divorced mother with lots of issues and no hope. Years went by that I did not attend church and prayer was very rare. I was full of pride. I did not praise or glorify God at all. During my divorce, I had to move into my mother's house. It was a very trying time for us all.
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