Sunday, July 20, 2008

God's Plan

1:16 PM by Christi Bowman

It's been a while (a good friend pointed this out). I was at a camp where I was able to update and write a little. I came home from that camp and had to madly prepare for the next camp I was working at. I was asked to teach a daily Bible class at RCC, hence the mad preparation. I had no time to update you all because the studying and preparing took more time than I had anticipated. I related to a lot of the material. I LOVED the subject matter. It was social justice. I spent ALL of the week in between the 2 camp sessions praying, studying, and preparing. The camp session came and went quickly. I had a blast. I also learned a lot myself. I got to tell my story of transformation at one of the nightly campfires. I learned that I COULD get up in front of a group of people and enjoy myself. God has given me a story. A story that glorifies Him. Even when I am not in front of a crowd I find myself telling it. It relates to many areas of life. I believe that MANY people are hungry to see the REAL power of God at work today. He is powerful, and mighty, He is alive and He is moving. The closer I get to Him the more I see Him in everything. He talks to me. He guides me. He puts words in my mouth, and ideas in my head. When I listen and obey Him things start to happen and people in need of Him see Him. God is using me and my life has meaning.

Last time I wrote I told you that God had one more thing to walk me through, and I asked for your prayers as I faced that challenge. I told you that God wanted to bring the sins against me to light and He was using me to do it. He did use me and it was amazing, but it was not what I had planned. God has rescued me and because of that I experience a freedom and inner strength and confidence that is beyond my wildest dreams. He told me what I needed to do, and I started planning how to do it. It was a safe plan, and it involved lots of people. He drove me to an alone place, and gave me the strength to do it by myself with Him at my side. I had this profound realization that He gave me a story, and He wants me to tell it, but He wants all the credit. For God to get all the credit I have encountered some pretty scary moments and I have felt alone at times and questioned God's wisdom, but He has always given me strength. And when I have needed Him most I have even felt His presence. This experience has taught me dependence on God and what it feels like to be in His presence. It has taught me to recognize when He comes upon me and how to listen to His direction. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God walks with me all the time. He is intervening constantly.

There is much abuse in my past. Abuse that because of certain circumstances was never brought to light. My parents were never able to protect us from it or deal with it. Because of this repression occurred and it has plagued me ever since. Once I was married and in a safe place, memories of the abuse and past acting out started to haunt me. I started talking about some of this with my husband early on in our marriage, but memories were sketchy at best. Kevin said that if I wanted to know the truth I could pray and ask God to reveal it to me. Kevin said that God may not choose to reveal it quickly, but if God thought that it was necessary He would be faithful and reveal it to me when He knew it was right. I was anxious to know the truth, and one night I asked God to reveal my past to me. Kevin was right, God was faithful, and He did reveal things to me, but He had to bring me to rock bottom, and strip me of everything I relied on first. Be careful for what you pray for. You have no idea what He may have to take you through to answer your prayer.

Once stripped of everything I relied on I had to allow myself to feel deep pain for the second time in my life. I had to face my insecurities, talk through them, and realize where they were coming from. For the first time in a long time I felt things, and I allowed myself to feel them and not shut down. A lot of my walls crumbled, including a good portion of my cynicism. I softened. Softening was uncomfortable but I even allowed my self to slowly walk through that and be affected. Then came Africa. That was the beginning of the end of this healing process. I will pick up here tomorrow.

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