He keeps His promises.........

Hey kid, did you think this was the easy life?

Hey kid, you gotta stand up and deliver

Always getting what you want 

You're gonna have to push aside,

They've got you all encircled and there's nowhere you can hide,

Hey kid, did you think this was the easy life?

Thinking about our early childhood years,

Makes me wonder where it went wrong,

Didn't the things we went through make you strong?

No, that ain't the answer this was meant to be…..

Hey kid did you think this was the easy life? 

i penned those words when i was about fifteen, it was a song, so there's more to it but i can't remember it now.......and that book i threw away long ago-throwing away the past........it was a reaction to the reality that was my life at the time.......my brother had gone off to the navy, leaving home for the first time........mom and i were left alone with my dad.......my brother had a break down while in training, he was put in the psych ward at 2 mil hospital under observation.......i remember the helpless feeling i had when i was told that he had been placed in that ward..........not my brother-the one who was always strong and determined to succeed.........my silent, strong fighter was loosing a battle ..........was history repeating itself?.......it's all a blurry memory now so i don't remember all the facts, i think my mom asked for the doctors to do tests to confirm that my brother wasn't bi-polar like my dad, thankfully he wasn't.........i have a faint memory of a letter or conversation with my brother-he was concerned about mom and i being alone with dad.......he wanted to take care of us.......
reality was: he couldn't.........
i had a similar experience happen to me when i finally plucked up the courage to leave home.......being the last to leave i felt like i was abandoning my mom (my parents were separated by this time).......but i knew that if i stayed i would never pluck up the courage to leave, so when a friend asked me to come and live with her i took that first step towards reality.......
when you're in a co-dependent relationship you don't realise it-unless it is pointed out to you......... so when i left home i didn't realise that i was struggling with adapting to the reality that our family life had been anything but normal............and so i crashed.........the scary thing was i felt like i had no-one to talk to.........co-dependents don't talk about their trials, they just try to get on with life denying what they are really feeling.......
it was around about this time when i ended that long term relationship........the only way i felt that i could start life again was to have a new beginning..........i'm so thankful that it wasn't up to me to rebuild my life........Jesus had already begun His work in me, He had been drawing me to Him before I moved out of home...........i know now that it is only because of His love that I am living a normal family life now........
one or two years after leaving home (it's also a little blurry for me), i met my husband to be.......when he asked me to marry him i was petrified-so much so that i returned the ring he had given to me..........but he never walked away...........
i went for counseling over the next few months, our pastor and his wife took me in for the school holidays (such love!)...........the Lord used a few sessions with a psychiatrist to unlock the past for me: I was afraid to commit, afraid to make a decision that I believed would cause me to destroy another person's life..........but God in His Love gave me the courage to realise that it was a decision I had to make for myself, no one else could tell me who to marry, no one else could say i wasn't marriage material (we had done a personality assessment, at a marriage course, after which we were advised that i shouldn't get married-not to Ray-but in general)..........
sometime in the midst of all this i attended a series of talks about restoring the ancient paths........i don't remember much about the talks but someone prayed for me one night, after they had prayed they said they felt that the Lord was saying that the years that the locusts had destroyed would be redeemed to me............

we attended a friend's fortieth this past week-end.........it was a lovely celebration of his life.......two of his friends gave a speech in which they spoke highly of him, commending him for having integrity, loyalty, wisdom and for achieving great things in his life (he is a principal of a school), his wife had sung a humorous song to him about their life together.........during the evening i looked over at my precious husband......he was wearing a sweatshirt which he owned before we got married, shoes which needed fixing and his shaggy, overgrown beard-he had grown out of protest-needed a trim ( i really don't like cutting his hair-so he jokingly told me he wouldn't trim his beard until i cut his hair)...........i wondered if his friends had noticed..........but, for the first time ever, I realised that i didn't really care if they had.......i had been myself at that party, I wasn't ashamed to be myself-to joke about his hairy unkempt beard, or admit that i was a housewife when asked what I was doing, we couldn't chat about the latest additions to our home or share about the exciting new work experiences we were having, but it was great to hear what other's were doing........i was happy for them........it was a good evening......

when we left the party i had been processing what i had experienced.........i couldn't quite put into words what i felt, but i think i said something to ray like: for the first time i wasn't really bothered about what others were sharing about their lives, i don't feel like i'm doing much compared to them, but it's ok........he replied: that's because you're at rest........you don't need to be doing anything now.....
we got to bed late that night, i knew we could sleep in late the next morning as the kids were sleeping over at friends..........but i was woken around six o'clock by a gentle whisper...........i realised what else i had been processing that night: ray will turn 40 soon, he's been trying to decide what to do to celebrate........we don't have a huge group of friends (and that's ok ;-) and at this present moment we don't have money to host a big party..........but if i could stand in front of a crowd of people to celebrate my husband i wouldn't want to speak of the wonderful places we have travelled to or the career which he has persued, asking his friend's to come up with a list of characteristics which they think define him wouldn't tell people about the man that i know.........the man who told me that he would wait for me to love him when i told him that i didn't think i could ever love him the way he needed to be loved..........the man who told me that he saw potential in me to love and that even if he had to wait till we were old for me to love him.......he would wait.........how do you tell a crowd of people that you are proud to be someone's wife because: while the Lord restored, renewed and rebuilt your life, he waited patiently.............how do you tell a crowd of people that for all of the riches in the world, all of the places to journey to, i would rather have a happy family........i would rather be with a man who allowed me to persue the true Lover of my soul so that i could love him the way that Christ has loved me, unconditionally.....what i have found in Christ is priceless and i am so thankful to My Kinsman Redeemer for giving me the blessing of a good man.........
my love, you mean the world to me..........p.s i think i'm ready to cut your hair now


note:  when i read the link to co-dependency it brought me to tears.........so thankful to the Father for His ability to restore.........i can take no credit for my change of heart.... all glory and honour to Him!

Ephesians 2 vs 6-10 And He raised us up together with Him and made us sit down together in the heavenly sphere in Christ Jesus.  He did this that He might clearly demonstrate through the ages to come the immeasurable riches of His free grace in kindness and goodness of heart toward us in Christ Jesus.  For it is by free grace that you are saved through your faith.  And this is not of yourselves, but it is the gift of God;  Not because of works, lest any man should boast.  [It is not the result of what anyone can possibly do, so no one can pride himself in it or take glory to himself.] For we are God's handiwork, recreated in Christ Jesus, that we may do the good works which God predestined for us, that we should walk in them. [living the good life which He prearranged and made ready for us to live.]

p.s sorry i'm having font problems.......hope it didn't come out too big/small ;-)