I am so glad that you have decided to come into my garden. I love it here this time of year - it's quiet and peaceful, isn't it? Let's go over and sit in the shade of that huge Magnolia . I have some freshly squeezed lemonade ready just for your visit and we can sip and nibble on the banana nut bread fresh from my oven while we chat. How does that sound?
I hope that this time we spend together will be a blessing to you. For many years I struggled with the issue of trust. As a teenager I was abused physically and emotionally. My heart had been hurt too many times to let anyone get close to me. I was always suspicious as to why people liked me. I believed that everyone was just using me, because that was the way it had been in the past. And as I struggled so much with trusting people in relationships I also realized that there was a wall forming between God and me.
I prayed for God to help me to overcome this fear of trusting people for a long time, but nothing seemed to work. And then one night while I was reading my Bible a verse just flew off the pages and hit me.. Mark 11:24 " Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours."
Suddenly I realized that I had been praying but not really trusting and believing that God could provide what I was asking for. It was as though I was thinking: "God, I know you are great and powerful, but if you have time please help me with this problem of mine"
.I had never realized that God never allows anything to interrupt Him when I pray - or that there are NEVER other things on His mind that keep Him from giving me His full attention! Never before had I realized that my fear of trusting people was affecting my relationship with my Savior. Right then and there I asked God to help me realize what areas of my life I was afraid to trust Him with.
The next day I heard a song on the radio called "Let go and Let God be God" and I began to see that one of the reasons I was still afraid to trust people was that I was still blaming myself for what had happened to me so many years ago. Once I finally let go of the fact that I did nothing wrong and did not deserve what happened to me, I was finally able to see that there was nothing wrong with me and that I could still trust people. I began to trust in those around me for the first time and was able to open up and share my again with those close to me.
Over the next few months I dug deeper and deeper into God's word to learn how to trust fully in God, believing that whatever He says is the truth and that I have no reason to doubt or question.
It was in doing this that I found a great definition of faith. Hebrew 11:1 "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see "To have faith in God is to have trust in God. You can't have one without the other. This was the discovery that changed my life. Although I had been saved for eight years, my past relationships with people and being unable to trust became the hindrance in the growth of my faith. Once I realized this, my relationship with the Lord changed instantly. I gave my whole life over to God. Not just a part here and a piece there, but " I surrendered it all" to Jesus. And once you do the same, you too can overcome your fears and doubts and learn to trust.
I will be praying for you. May God bless you!
Love in Christ,
Nikki
