Christianity With Tracey

Well, thankfully, right after I started feeling pulled back to Him, we moved.  Far.  To Virginia!  I had just remarried to my Navy man (he’s retired now after 20 years), and it was time to switch stations.  So, off to Norfolk (well, we moved to Newport News) we went!

The second day I was there I found our church home.  Right away I was accepted with open arms.  No one cared where I had been or what I had done.  Or, at least, they didn’t let on about it.  This turned out to be a wonderful church home for us for the next 4 years.  My husband got saved at this church; and our oldest daughter was baptized.  It was wonderful.  I had met so many friends, and most importantly, had totally dedicated my life to Jesus.  I was growing spiritually, and our family was growing by size!  I gave birth to our first son in Virginia.  It was so different, having a child and not being preoccupied with alcohol and/or drugs.  I just got to totally enjoy him as a baby.  Sigh…it was awesome.

So, since then, things have pretty much been moving forward.  Sure, I go through dry spells where I am not reading the Word every day, not praying enough for my relationship with Him to be functioning as it should be.  But…I don’t ever want to go back.  I don’t ever want to be without Him again.  No one is greater.  His grace is sufficient.

I’ll have to tell you about a big stumble I went through after the birth of my 5^th child sometime…but not today. 

Today’s Our Daily Bread devotional just floored me this morning.

The topic was entitled, “The Chain of Ungrace.”  It was definitely something that I needed to read today.

Last night, my 3yo son woke up with a bad sniffle.  He was sniffling so loud that I was afraid he would wake up my 1yo son, whom I have just started getting to sleep through the night.

While I was trying to quiet him, my husband got angry and said something like, “I’ll take him in to the living room to sleep, since you keep this door shut and it gets so stuffy in here!”

Well, I felt so attacked!  “Oh, sure!  Everything is MY fault!”  I thought to myself over and over.  I was all ready to snub him this morning and possibly give him a piece of my mind AND let him know how wrong he was…until I read this morning’s devotional…

Today’s Our Daily Bread was written by Phillip Yancey.  Some of you may know that he is a very well-known Christian author.  Well, he really hit the nail on the head for me.  He listed “three pragmatic reasons” for him to forgive others, besides the fact that the Father commands us to by saying, “If you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.” (Mark 11:25)  Mr. Yancey’s pragmatic reasons are exceptionally intelligent.

The first reason states, “First, forgiveness halts the cycle of blame and pain, breaking the chain of ungrace.  Without it we remain bound to the people we can’t forgive, held in their vise grip.”  Oh my gosh!  That is EXACTLY what I was feeling.  That is exactly what I feel every time I am angry at someone.  How remarkable that Phillip Yancey said that!

I’m not going to tell you what the rest of them are.  :o)  You really should to and read the devotional here for yourself.  I pray that you are blessed by it as well.

My attitude about my husband is gone now.  :o)

After being saved in 1989, I started attending church near where I lived.  It wasn’t a very good experience.  No one really paid any attention to me.  I didn’t know anyone there.  I was encouraged to go on a sort of “mini retreat” with some of the young people there (I was 21 at the time), and no one hardly paid any attention to me there, either.

So, I basically faded away from that church.  My partying started back up, basically, because that was all I knew.  All of my friends drank, etc., except for Jim; and he had broken up with me.

Fast forward to 2000.  I was working as a bartender, was a single mom, and was miserable.  I can remember standing behind that bar one night (now…I was very pretty, could get almost ANY guy I wanted to ask me out, and had a lot of friends…but my life felt basically empty except for the fact that I had a wonderful 2 year old daughter) and thinking, “Wow…satan has me wrapped around his finger…I’ve got to get out of here…and back to Him.”

 (cont. from 10/4/08)…This is what I wanted!  This is what I needed!  Could this FINALLY be the perfect love I had been searching for?  The perfect “best friend” that I (and don’t all of us) needed in my life?  Someone who would really be there for me, whenever I needed?  Someone who didn’t care about my past?  Someone who only wanted to love me….period.A few days later, the pastor came to my house (er, that is…my basement).  He shared the gospel with me, and I accepted Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior.  I was so thrilled!

Now, I would love to tell you that my life has been perfect and peachy keen ever since, however…it hasn’t.

I wanted to be with Jim wherever he went (uh…please note that I did NOT marry Jim…I am very happily married to my husband Chet), so I went to church with him.  I think it was around the second time going that I felt like the pastor was really speaking to me personally. 

He was speaking about how no matter how much we messed up in life, God was very willing (and wanting!) to forgive us and bring us into His love.  “Jim must have told him about me,” I remember thinking.

I didn’t know why at the time, but I was just sitting on that pew crying my eyes out (and trying to hide it)…

AWANA (which stands for Approved Workmen Are Not Ashamed) is a children’s group.  Many Christian churches have it.  It is a club that generally meets once a week for about 2 hours.

At our church, we meet on Wednesdays from 6:15-8:00pm.

I just love it!  Your children learn Scripture verses, get to play games, have snacks, and hear wonderful Bible stories and messages.

This year 4 out of 5 of my children are in AWANA.  My youngest just started Cubbies, my 6yo is in Sparks, my 9yo in Truth In Training (TNT), and my 12 yo in Trek.

You can learn more about AWANA at www.awana.org.

My kids love it and so much!

I just LOVE the Our Daily Bread website.  It is, by far, my favorite devotional site.

 Our Daily Bread is a devotional site.  What you do is read the Scripture passage, and then read the story (devotional) that goes with it.  It is also great to read the Bible In One Year passages at the bottom of the page.

I love that you can click on the Scripture passage and it will take you right to it.  You can pretty much read any version that you want.

I try to read this every morning.  I have the booklet (from my church), and I also visit thesite sometimes.

Definately an awesome addition to my Christian life.

Jim was a man I met while working in Michigan. He treated me so nicely, I just couldn’t believe it. I thought for sure that he was the man for me.

I told him about how I had had the abortion, and he shared with me how Jesus would definitely forgive me if I just asked. I remember thinking, “Yeah, right. I killed someone, my own child, and God is going to just forgive me for it?” Plus, that wasn’t ALL I had done. I had stolen, lied, cheated…tons of sins that I thought no way could ever be forgiven. Someone has to go to hell. Was it only reserved for the really bad guys?

So now we move forward to be about 1988.  I was living in my brother’s basement, drinking a lot, doing drugs (I’ve tried everything except for shooting up), dating mostly jerks…basically going nowhere.

Just before moving into my brother’s basement, I had gotten pregnant by my then “roommate boyfriend” and had decided not to keep the baby.  He was starting to shove me around and I just couldn’t see living a life with him filled with beatings.  I just couldn’t tolerate that.  So, yes, I got an abortion.  It continues to be my biggest regret in life.  It hurt extremely, both physically and emotionally.  I know that I am forgiven by Jesus, but it still brings tears to my eyes…even as I type this.  This child would have been 20 years old this year.  Wow.

Then, I met Jim.

When I was younger I didn’t know very much about God, let alone Jesus.  Oh, I had my ideas like:  You would go to hell if you killed yourself, God probably hated me because I was so naughty, God probably wouldn’t send me to hell, though, because part of me was good, and so on.I don’t have Christian parents.  My parents never took me to any type of church.  They claim to not believe in God, but that is a whole other story.

I went to church with a cousin of mine a couple of times.  My sister took me to a Catholic church once, and I thought that was neat.  It was so beautiful and formal.