I handed my friend a copy of A Purpose Driven Life a year or so back. She promptly googled Rick Warren and threw it in the trash. He sits in hot water like a tea bag so I’m not surprised she found some unsavory opinions on the net. I’m not here to defend Rick. I want to highlight how the Lord did a work through an imperfect vessel with the words crafted through him. This isn’t a new thing that God does and it should give us all hope.
My testimony had little weight compared to mystery sources in cyberspace. I wasn’t offended, she struggles with trust at large. Truly, it grieved me because I considered how impossible it is to reach someone in that state. It is a tragedy when a lifeline is tossed in our direction, but because we can’t trust the person on the other end is for our good, we sit in the deep floating in the unknown. At that moment…things seem “under control” even though we know that our life is not sustainable.
Thirteen years ago was a bottom for me. I was living in my ex’s house, not with him, but in one he owned like a piece of property. Our six-year-old son was looking at me to do life better than my parents. The lights and water were getting turned off because I quit a job before securing another, a dumb thing. Jobs always came easy for me, opportunity and luck were always on my side. Surely another vine will appear, I’ll go ahead and jump.
But it didn’t this time.
I was drinking heavily and months went by in a haze. It’s crazy how quickly your mentality switches into “this is my life now” instead of seeing the truth “this is just temporary”.
Somewhere along the way, I inherited a deep green textured hardback that would change my entire trajectory. This isn’t something I would’ve bought so I know it was given to me. I’ve always been a sucker for a snooty-looking book and this one looked expensive…I cracked it open and took a peek.
No matter what life threw at me, there has always remained, a little girl inside with a big imagination hoping there was more to life than this. Every year on this day, Facebook reminds me I was reading A Purpose Driven Life and drinking coffee. I can still see the crappy porch I was sitting on and feel the crispness of the early morning. It’s not a magic book, but the Lord used it. Not because the author was perfect or the words, but because of the things it caused me to consider and the prayers that it inspired. The timing was perfect. I can’t say I remember what I said to God, but I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt, He heard me.
Today, I am an imperfect vessel creating words, trusting the Lord to deliver them to hearts in despair. I was twenty years old when I was pressured to have an abortion with my second pregnancy. It was a devastating decision and for fifteen years I lived in a silent void, between the rock of regret and the hard place of hopelessness.
I’m barely brushing the surface of the symmetrical redemption that has occurred when I tell you, I am now a public advocate for the unborn and women damaged by the abortion industry. He’s taken me from a crappy porch to the inner chambers of the Florida Capital with a promise that, I ain’t seen nothin yet.
I don’t have the book anymore. I don’t even think I finished it, but it caused me to seek the Lord for my purpose and He didn’t forsake the sound of my voice. What transpired after that is chaotic. My life was “under construction” for a long time to ensure that I arrived at the God-designed place.
Thirteen years ago today, I was reading A Purpose Driven Life and drinking coffee. Today, I’m living it…and still drinking coffee. Begin the conversation with Him about yours.