A wide grin spread across my face as I listened to the lyrics on the radio.
I’m in wide open spaces and I’m running to you now.
I suppose the reason I smiled was the realization of where I stood now compared to where I’d been. I mean, I was running to God now. I was embracing life. I was going towards what God had for me with open arms, and that mindset was in great contrast to the way I had once led my life. Sure, I was running to Him now, but once upon a time I had sprinted in the opposite direction. I guess sometimes running away from life is easier than living in a painful situation, or going in a direction that goes against what you desire for your little world.
When I was twenty I described life like a yard. I pictured my Daddy God sitting on the front porch, and I was the feisty young’un who jumped the fence looking for excitement. I pictured my birth into Christianity as the wayward child returning home sheepishly after many a scuffle. Papa God scooped me up, kissed my booboos, placed a bandage on my skinned knee, and held me until my shame left, and only love and gratitude remained.
Well, if coming up to Daddy’s porch was my salvation, then hightailing it back to the fence’s parameter was the decade that followed. In fact, I didn’t just walk away from God; I ran. I ran, and I didn’t look back. I think when skinned knees never scab over right you figure you just can’t heal. Papa probably offered a healing, but I went with the bandaid instead. And I found out something else too. The further you walk away, the less you’re able to turn around and look back at what you’re missing. It just hurts too bad. So you keep walking away. You run faster. You jump the fence and forget the way back home.
It all started with a boy. Typical, right? Once upon a time, I fell in love. Hard. I found the man I knew God had for me. I dreamed of marriage, children, ministry together, and me cheering from the audience as he played on the worship team. I had it all planned out.
But then life did what it tends to do. It took a turn. An unexpected, upsetting turn. The boy was gone, my heart was broken, and doubt found me.
“Did I hear God right?”
“Had I ever heard Him right?”
I asked God these questions, and I became inflamed at His answers. He said, yes, I had heard Him right. He said, yes, that boy was the boy of my dreams, the man who would become my husband. God said the ministry was still coming, and that He had plans for our future. Together.
I couldn’t take that. I couldn’t take the answer “yes” when all the concrete circumstances around me said “no.” So I turned, and I walked away. I doubted myself, I doubted God. I just doubted it all. I said it all started with a boy, but I guess that’s not really true. It all started with pain. I had hurt and rejection in my life that had started long before a boy. I never really let those hurts heal, so the present pain was just a straw on an already crippled camel. That darn camel broke big time, and I saw no option other than to run. I ran hoping to escape heartache, pain, and anything that told me I’d be okay. I didn’t think I would. Be okay, that is. So I just booked it. It seems to me, in retrospect, that running appears like the best solution. You never figure out, until it’s too late, that running from life only makes it harder to live.
Yet I tried. For ten years, in fact. For ten years I tried to live a life God didn’t have for me. If we look back at it like Papa’s yard, I didn’t just leave the yard; I left the continent. I took a rocket ship billions of light years away from who God made me to be. No wonder my existence felt alien.
Would you like to hear a most peculiar thing? You can’t run from God. If God has a plan for you and a calling for your life, He will bring you back to it again. Yes, the choice is always ours, but He doesn’t let us off the hook that easy. He doesn’t give up. He’s relentless. I reckon I ran so hard and fast that I ran full circle. I looked up and He had brought me back to the beginning. He brought me 1,000 miles across the country back to that boy. He pulled me from the bottom of the bottle, right outta the strip clubs and casinos, lingering hangover and all. He brought me right back to the life He had planned, right back not just to His yard, cause really, it’s all His yard, but back to His love.
He pulled me right onto His lap, into His arms, and He said, “so, are you ready for me to fix this now? No more bandaids.”
I’ve realized since then that “yes” from God is “yes,” and that “not now” doesn’t mean “no.” I married that boy from twenty years ago, just like I was meant to do. I hate I took the circuitous route, but I’m grateful God brought me back to it, and I know He’ll use my story for good.
I realize that God can heal all hurts, and if I’m looking for a boy, or anything of this world to fix it, I’ll be left wanting. Maybe that’s what He wanted me to figure out all along.
I realize I can run all I want, but if it’s in the wrong direction, I won’t get anywhere. Unless God wants to take me there.
I’ve learned God’s promises are true, and that true character development is found in the waiting.
I’ve discovered there’s a big ole world out there, but if God’s not in my life then it will feel small and meaningless.
I’ve come to see that only in His plan will I find joy, peace, and contentment. And only when I seek Him first will the rest come. In fact, it will just fall into place when I set my eyes on Jesus.
I can run from pain, but it will follow me like a shadow. I can seek healing from hurt outside of Christ, but that’s just a bandaid.
I can run from life when it gets too hard, but only by running to Jesus will I find my true strength. Life will often times be hard, but we aren’t called to fight it on our own.
Now I run to Him, and there I find freedom, peace, and the life I always wanted.
And they all lived happily ever after.
Michele says
My life is a similar story. My stray into the world also began with a boy, but ended with a phone call. It was a woman with a message from God. She didn’t know me or my family. She actually gave the message to my mom and not me directly, but instantly my mom knew for whom it was meant. This person knew details of my life and struggles I was going thru which I had never shared aloud. God had found me 2000 miles away and was calling me back. Not back to my hometown; on the contrary, he told me to “be still”, to stay physically put, but to come back to him. I was about to move yet again but in obedience to his instructions I stayed. Less than a year later, I knocked on a door looking for a friend I could hike with and found my husband.
This woman was given a message and boldly did what she was told. Her boldness led to a major change in my life and taught me God never leaves us, rather it is us who stray. If God asks you to do something or say something to a stranger, do it. Be that woman. You may just change a life.
brieann.rn@gmail.com says
Thank you for sharing! God is so very good and faithful!
Lisa Pierce says
Michele, thank you for sharing your story!
Denise Bayer says
Your blogs continue to inspire me in new and awesome ways. ?
brieann.rn@gmail.com says
Thank you so much!
Dave says
Jonah is such a good story of our human condition and the escape route we often take to try and forget our maker and His plans for our lives! We enjoyed seeing a live production on the life of Jonah at the Sight and Sound Theatre in Branson, MO! Jonah sure went to the depths of desperation to escape what God had for him to do but God had a whale of a plan to bring him back! God was so patient with Jonah though to show him how much He loves all mankind even when they are far far from Him! I look back now and wonder how God brought me out of the pig pen of this world! It was a long trip that ended on a mountain top in NC when God stirred my soul when the old gospel songs I remember from when I was a child in church came on television one Sunday morning when I was alone in the cabin I was working on! Then, shortly after that encounter He took my mother who was a fine fine Christian example to a little boy growing up! He let me hold her hand as His angels took her home! I will never forget that moment as there seemed to be a stirring of the air in that room when she breathed her last! My sister and others in the room felt it too! God’s angels at work for one of His own! Then He reassured me she was okay as He put a song on the radio titled, Sheltered Safe Within The Arms of God when I was so stressed after she died! He let me know He had her for all eternity and I had to decide if I wanted to go where she was! I said yes Lord and I will never turn back! His loving Holy Spirit wraps me in His love when I have my quiet times listening to praise music to Him! We are His creation and He wants to lovingly direct our paths! Your story is beautiful too Brie and it is a blessing to know He has a daughter who looks to Him for guidance for herself, her family and to touch the lives of those she encounters! Stay the course sweet lady as I know He has big plans for your future!
brieann.rn@gmail.com says
Thank you so much!
Lisa Pierce says
Dave, I enjoyed reading your story. You should start a blog. You have great wisdom and write well what’s in your heart!
Lisa Pierce says
You have such a beautiful way with words. It seems effortless for you to write what is felt in so many hearts. Thank you for sharing a meaningful, and somewhat familiar story. God bless you always. I’m sharing this with a few that are still running, some of my family members.
brieann.rn@gmail.com says
Thank you so much for your encouraging, kind words.