birthday surprise! It's Denise.

Hi dear friends.

Today you will be reading from my cousin Denise. I have seen with my very eyes the transforming work of God through her life. You know that verse that says, "you have taken me from the miry clay and set my feet upon a rock?" Well... Denise is a display of that verse in Psalm 41. God saved her from a dark world and brought her into the marvelous light. It's amazing to witness God doing miracles today! Here is her post:

Trials and Adoration

Life is difficult on our own and my story is proof. I wasted many years of my life in isolation, imprisoning myself, stuck in a bubble that wouldn’t break. Until someone came and burst it for me. A savior, a king, Jesus.

I was always the quiet girl. I went through high school with no friends. I always thought that this was part of my personality until later when I realized it was something much more than just painful shyness. I was suffering from severe depression and anxiety. Life got better though. I met Jesus and He told me that I would not have to worry anymore. I started making friends and I gained confidence but most of all, hope. The years went by and there were days where I would doubt and I would start drifting away from God. But He never ceased to remind me of His wonders and how awesome He is. This past year has been a very long year for me. My mother passed away after eight years of battling with cancer and my father left to Afghanistan to work, leaving me and my younger siblings behind. That doesn’t even begin to describe all the trials I have been through just this past year. But one thing I do know, I have a God who loves me and He is more powerful than anything I could ever go through.

While my mother was in the hospital, I felt my world flipping upside down very quickly. The verse the Lord gave me was, 1 Peter 5:7, “Give all your worries and cares to God, for He cares about you.” This verse kept coming up over and over and I had this overwhelming feeling that God would get me through this. When my mom died, I felt like I needed God more than ever now, and I just wanted to cling to Him for dear life. How could I do this or anything for that matter without Him?
It’s during times like these, that a lot of people feel the closest to God. We get so caught up in life that God needs to slow us down so we can hear Him. In Hosea 2:18, it says, “But then I will win her back once again. I will lead her to the desert and speak tenderly to her there.”

I love God so much and I am humbled to know that the creator of the universe loves me and cares about me. We think our problems are huge and overwhelming but compared to how huge God is, even our greatest problems are minuscule.

“Then King David went in and sat before the Lord; and he said: “Who am I, O Lord God? And what is my house, that you have brought me this far? And yet this was a small thing in your sight, O Lord God.....” 2 Samuel 7:18-19a

We may go through periods where we are in the desert but then there are periods where we think we have it all under control. We get caught up with day to day life and we may even stop thinking about God completely. We are doing well at work or at school and we make sure everyone knows what a great job we did. We forget about the One who got us there in the first place. This is called pride and it’s a very ugly thing. We begin to worship ourselves and our possessions and we put other things before God. But what a lot of us forget is that there is another kind of pride. This is the pride that I was caught up in, and often, still am. It’s the kind of pride that turns up when we are not doing well. When we start having a pity party with ourselves and start asking questions like, “Why me?” and, “No one cares about me” and “Why does it always have to be me?” The common factor here in both types of pride is, Me. It’s always about “Me” and not “He”. He is the one who should receive the glory. He is the one who is going to pull us out of this.

“Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name goes all the glory for your unfailing love and faithfulness.” Psalm 115:1

What I have learned through all of this,is to not to do things my way, but to do them His way. I need to trust in Him and He will be able to handle everything for me. We need to praise Him when we are up and praise Him when we are down.

My prayer for you is that the Lord would pour His spirit upon you and that you would see Him for who He is. He is more than we could ever ask for. He sent His only Son to die for us on the cross so that we might live. God bless you and may you seek Him so that He can be the filler of that empty space in your heart that you have been searching for.

“The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” John 10:10