What might have been....

if  you could go back in time and be a spectator of my life, there isn't much I would be proud for you to see. I was a preacher's daughter, with a rebellious heart.
In retrospect I understand the teenage me much better now than I did then. It wasn't so much that I wanted to be a sinner, or that I wanted to hurt the few people that cared for me. I just wanted to fit in with my older friends, it was that from the time I was 12 yrs old I had been talked about and lied on, I was hurting and scared and trying to prove I was neither.
By the time I was 16 people didn't have to lie on me anymore, I gave them plenty to talk about. I remember going to bed at night afraid I would die and wake up in Hell or that the Rapture would take place and I would be left....alone. I would freak out if I couldn't find my parents all of a sudden and not know where they were, thinking the Rapture had taken place and I had missed it.
You would think a preacher's kid who knows right from wrong, won trophy's for Scripture memorization, sang in church since I was 3yr old....you would think of all people I would have it all together. Sometimes, sad as it is, it's those of us who grow up in church, who can tell you every bible story you want to know and who can sing you every hymn by heart.....it is those that the church somehow losses. We see the faults of those who are not living like they claim or like Jesus himself instructs us.
Mostly though, it was an excuse for me to do as I wanted, then I discovered, there really was nothing I wanted in the world. I wanted peace of mind when I went to bed at night, I wanted to be Loved, I wanted to be excepted for who I was yet I wanted to be changed, I wanted to be happy, I wanted to feel that feeling I used to feel when I had prayed through, you know that peace that you feel that is better than anything this world could offer......I was so sure I never would again.
So the Summer I was 16, our Youth group was going to a camp in Missouri (SP?), JR was preaching it.
I had decided I wasn't going to go, instead I was going to stay home. I had come to the conclusion that I could never change, that I had made to many mistakes and God had been so merciful to me that He wouldn't give me another chance at salvation. I wanted to die. I felt dead inside already.
Then one day I was outside and I was just standing at the garage looking out in the back yard thinking of how miserable I was, and the thought came to me, 'Why don't you just go to youth camp this one last time, if God doesn't help you then when you get back home you can end your life then, what difference is one week going to make? What do you have to lose?"  My heart had become so hardened and I felt so unworthy, used and unloved that I hadn't cared what happened to me, I didn't care what I did, I felt I wasn't worth loving, I felt that I deserved every wrong thing that happened to me I hated who I had become.
So I went. That one trip saved my life.God was so merciful to me that week. He restored me, in ways I can't explain. I wish I could say from that moment on that I was faithful to Him, but there have been times since that I  have failed Him. He however hasn't failed me.
There may be times when I am low just from the pressures of Life or the attacks of the Devil trying to make me give up or give in. There have been times when I have laid in the bed and cried telling God, I quit, I am done, I can't do this anymore.....He has always been there to pick me up, give me strength to face just one more day, one more battle, and one more trial of Life.  He has given me peace of mind so that when I go to bed at night, I don't fear sleep.  And the Bible says He has bottled each of those tears, that they are precious to Him.
So last night as I listened to JR Alexander preach I cried for the sinner and the backsliders who were there, because I remember.....and I pray I never forget.........what might have been.

I Corinthians Chapter 6:9-11
9. Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,

 10.  Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

  11. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.