Thursday, May 27, 2010

Devotional 5-28-10

The Realization
My relationship with God has been quite a process over the years. As a teenager, I attended a small Presbyterian Church in my hometown. We had a strong youth group in those days that I enjoyed very much. As a young adult in college, I did not attend church very often. God and I did not talk very often. Then my dear mother became ill. I used to lay my hand on her heart and pray to Him. It seemed that He did not answer my prayers. As she became worse, I became angry with God. Events happened in my life that were sad and hurtful in addition to my mother’s illness. So I became angrier with God. It was not until the night before my mother’s heart surgery that someone said to me that God was tough and could handle my anger. I got down on my knees and prayed for my mother with the understanding that I must put my mother in His hands. I felt peace for the first time in years. My mother lived 12 more years and I thanked God for everyday.

When I went to Israel in 2005, I still felt that I needed to be emotionally touched sometime during that trip. I was always searching. I was at the Olive Grove where Jesus prayed before He was to die, when I heard my mother singing , “I come to the garden alone while the due is still on the roses..” My mother was ok!

A friend of mine recently died. An acquaintance of hers told me that my friend was very anti-religious and was an atheist or at least an agnostic. Then it really hit me—the realization of how sad it would be to not believe in God and a life after death. It would seem that life would have no meaning. Life, Death, and then nothing! How sad to believe that. Sometimes it takes quite a process to get to be where I am. How simple it is…the realization of what it is all about!

Carolee Brown

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