Getting To A Place To Breathe Again

Getting To A Place To Breathe Again

By Ashley Thompson

I grew up in the church, and experienced God move in many ways. It was so much easier to experience God when I was younger, the more I grew up the more difficult it became. The more tainted my spirit became, the harder it was for me to dig to feel Gods presence.

I remember I would go in and out of churches and relationship with God. I could not decide what I wanted. Looking back I was so broken, hurt, low self-esteem and all I wanted was to be was accepted. I begged for acceptance not because my parents didn't give it, but there was something more that I was searching for. When searching for something in a dead place, can be so dangerous. I gravitated to wrong people, I battled court cases, and I lost friends while in such a dead place in my life. I often wonder how my mother felt. To be a ordained minister to work in the gift of prophecy and watch your daughter run with no life. Now that I am a mother of three, I can only imagine the hurt she felt. I wonder where I would be if I didn't have a mother who prayed. I remember long nights I would be out, and my mom would pace the hallway praying for me into I returned.

Through everything I have been through you would imagine it would have been easy to run to God's open arms. Unfortunately it was not, I would run sit at his feet for a moment and run back to my vomit. At moments, I would think when will God walk away from me. How many times can I slap him before he dust his hands from me.

Would it have been that fall night around eleven years ago when a shotgun was pointed at my head. Or maybe the time when the car flipped three times, when I was leaving the club. Regardless of how many times death knocked God sent his angels to protect. Even then, I turned my back and revisited my old vomit.

I am not sure at what point I surrendered. I do remember I started to become numb, numb to feeling, numb to pain. I felt as if I was going through the motion and with every bump, and bruise I felt as if it was deserved.

It all shifted when my mother hosted a women's conference and to be honest I didn't want to be there. With hesitation I drug myself to support. I sat in the back of the church and in the mist of praise and worship that's when my life changed. An actual encounter with God happened. Everyone in that room left and it was me and God. God spoke to me so clearly that day, and I could see him actually purging me. I felt his arms around me and at that moment I realized this is what I been looking for God's loving arms. God has always been there for me but I had to get to a place where I could receive his love. It took me being broken and mentally checked out to see. I was like a vase that was smashed into pieces and I kept trying to hold the pieces together, with using whatever was in sight. When water was poured into it the vase water would ease out and eventually it would destroy the vase again. But when that encounter happened, God took his hands and tweaked every piece and re molded me, re shaped me and placed me back on the potters-wheel. That day when I had a visit from God, it changed my life. That day I begin to live!

Article Source: Getting To A Place To Breathe Again