My Testimony: What God has done in my life, I am new.....

Yes, I grew up in a Christian home, a married mom and dad, went to church every Sunday attended bible studies and Calvinettes, lived by the rules for the most part (I assumed drinking, smoking and tattoos were something every young adult did and it was ok).  I got straight A’s, had a lot of friends, and I called myself the run-away bride b/c I did that 3 times.  YUP, I am THAT kind of girl, as someone once told me in shock.  How the Lord brought my husband to the nerve to ask me to marry him, is only by the grace and power of Him b/c God had a plan for my life, God picked him for me, even if I gave no regard to the power or control of God in it at that time.  I was searching for happiness, and I thought I had life all figured out.

I got married, had 2 kids, a brand new home and I didn’t ever ask for help because I claimed I didn’t need any, after all, doesn’t the world and everyone else teach you that what is important is perfection?  HA! I had everything I needed according to the worldly checklist, I could do all things and if something didn’t make me happy, I would move on to the next thing….Searching.  What I didn’t have was real love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness or self control.  I couldn’t find what made Lisa happy. I even did this with my marriage, and traveled close to a dangerous path where if Steve couldn’t make me happy,  maybe I deserved someone else, Lord, maybe I made a mistake.  If He loved me he would do ____, if he loved me he wouldn’t do ______, why is marriage so hard, why is being a mom so hard, why are friendships so hard…. Buying into Satan’s lies he was telling me to make me believe that I deserved more, I deserved better, I deserved happiness. Satan knows the games to deceive and longs for us to live a life of deception and lies.  I was RIDICULOUSLY self-righteous and self-focused.  Thank the Lord I never traveled down the road that ever destroyed my marriage, it could have easily.  Life just didn’t add up and that is when I pulled off the side of the road in 2008 with tears streaming down my face and prayed “Lord, if You are real I need to know, If you are there and if there is something I am missing, I NEED you to show me"

I knew all the rules, I knew about God, but I didn’t KNOW God, I didn’t seek Him b/c I didn’t think I needed Him.  God wasn’t a distant ruler in my life EVER, I just chose not to acknowledge Him. God let me keep on praying because He wasn’t going to bend to MY WILL.  It wasn’t like He was gone, He just let me be.  I would go to church and feel nothing.  I would pray and heard only silence.  To be honest, God’s silence never bothered me because in this world, we live with options, lots of options and self gratifying tools, you can fill the silence up with other things or people…..

And THEN God decided to answer…..

In 2009 I became sick one year after giving birth to my son.  It took me scanning myself (by the hand of God again, through my job as a CT tech.) because no one else would listen to me.   The next day I was admitted to the hospital for 5 days and in the Dr’s office I was told with my husband “if you don’t do anything within one year, you WILL die.”  We left with instructions to move within 5 minutes of the local hospital and to cancel vacation plans because if I started hemorrhaging from my mouth NO ONE would know what to do with me and I would die quickly.  I had developed blood clots in my abdomen and to this day, no one knows why.  By the time we discovered the blood clots ½ of my liver was destroyed and my body developed a whole new blood vessel system to get the blood from another source wrapping like branches around my throat.  Think about a plant, if a branch is killed, (in my case with a blood clot) its going to start growing new branches to get to the stream. This lead to 30+ hospitalizations, and wouldn't you know it, we sold our house while laying in one hospital after trying to sell it for a year and left it to the Lords will to carry us through the process without having any other home in mind.  Our church stepped in and moved our house contents and someone had a rental we could use.  I had my first ambulance ride which was 2 hours long after laying in a hospital for 5 days with no one knowing what to do with my situation, a blood transfusions with a rare allergic reaction to the blood in which blood pooled into my lungs and I could feel myself drowning and my life almost ended, hundreds of procedures to clean out the clots, liver biopsies, wrapping of the veins in my throat to reinforce them from hemorrhaging, testing and more testing, knocking on deaths door 2 times in different ICUs, visits to U of M several times, Cleveland clinic, and Henry Ford hospital in Detroit. I inject myself daily with 2 shots of blood thinner and am currently at 3,000+.  Finally, after being left with 3 different choices from 3 different hospital organizations we were left alone to decide....How would we "fix" me?  The Lord lead us in the decision to a 7 hour abdomen bypass surgery in 2011.  Cut wide open from top to bottom the doctors discovered a new highway system inside and my veins were as thick as ropes from all the blood pressure going through them over the years....How long had they been there?  No one knows.  I give thanks to God for bringing me through my deliveries and for the precious two bundles that I have because instructions were to NEVER get pregnant again.  During those 3 years I was also trying to be a wife and mother to a 1 and 3 year old.  For 3 years I traveled a very dark, lonely, and scary, path.  I wept in anguish.  I cannot describe to you the pain and anguish of my heart..... no one understood and no one seemed to care, but the whole time I knew that Jesus was also there with me, weeping with me, and holding my hand.

You see God does LISTEN, God does ANSWER....Is it always the way that we would have chosen, absolutely not but He will reveal who HE is, if we ask Him too.  He proved to me during that time that I am NEVER alone, that He loves me more than I could ever imagine, that His ways are amazing and not a detail left untouched by His hand.  Do I believe this just b/c I was "fixed"....NO!  I believe this b/c I have and seen God.

My life has and always will be forever changed in so many ways.  God saved me both physically and spiritually through this valley of my life and had greater plans for me.  Today I am doing things I would have NEVER imagined doing before b/c I have something new, true love, joy, and peace in ALL things. I am new in Christ and live for Christ and want to tell everyone what He has done for me.  I was once lost, but now am found.  I can look back on the events in my life and it is absolutely amazing to me to see that God loved me the whole time and never let me go….He was leading Lisa into true life today with Him.  I never had a personal relationship with the Lord and now I can’t wait to keep learning more and more about Him.

Let me leave off saying to you this:

Testimonies don’t require an interesting story, nor is it necessary to make Christianity look good by living a perfect life.  Life is Hard.  We ALL will have trials and valleys, and struggles on this side of eternity. Perfect people don’t exist so quit trying to be, you will be forever unhappy if you keep trying!  Its just about telling others about Jesus, about what God has done in your life. Testimonies don’t win someone to Jesus, only He can and I have learned that God doesn’t pull us from the muck and mire to sit us on the sidelines, He wants me to Dance and shine! Marriage is going to be hard b/c you are doing it with 2 very imperfect people, including yourself. I look back now and see myself asking God “what are you thinking Lord?” the question should have been, what was I thinking!!!  People will love me, surprise me, fail me, and amaze me and I will do the same for them. Things are not on this earth to make YOU happy all the time, everything on this side of eternity promises ONE thing, to disappoint or fail.  Life is NOT about me, its about God. Hang tight to the TRUE promises and something that never fails, God. His promises are found in the Bible.  Start reading it, before I knew the Lord, I read it, but it meant nothing to me b/c I was reading it on MY understanding, MY time was precious and I had things to do…

I used to believe that God won’t give you anything you can’t handle….(that’s just bad theology) Of coarse God gives us things we can’t handle b/c that is His way of telling us to get the heck out of the driver seat!!!

I needed a wake up, to recognize my need of HIM, His Holy Spirit, not the power of Lisa.  Life is to make us holy and more like Christ, and be a shining light for Him to give him the glory in all we do and say.  Trials, journeys, being alone, depression, marriage struggles, friendships that have you confused, children and kids, whatever you are struggling with…It might just be the greatest blessing in disguise b/c God always has a plan.  Leave the details of that plan to Him.  It is MUCH greater than the plans you have.  He brings good out of the mess in ways we could have NEVER imagined!!  The plan He had for my life looked NOTHING like what I had planned, but EVERY single day I give thanks to Him for saving my life, both physically and spiritually, b/c it has now affected my life in more ways than I could ever explain and it has had tremendous impact on my marriage, relationships, friendships, family, my ability as a mother and increased my passion for my kids spirituality to understand the WHY they Need Christ.  There is only ONE thing on this earth that can ever give you pure joy and peace and that comes from knowing and having a relationship with the only perfect one, CHRIST!!!

Start looking at yourself, your life, your marriage, your kids, friends, and family the way God does.  My belly is a disaster on the outside, covered with bruises and scars and yet I can look at them confidently in the mirror and say “I am His masterpiece, every detail of my life was filtered thru His hands of AMAZING GRACE AND LOVE, I am beautiful and made in His image!  He doesn’t care what we look like on the “outside” He sees inside and trust me, you can’t fake Him, I tried! God alone saves, God is enough and just alittle FYI, people aren’t attracted to perfect people anyways.  Be real, Be you, be transparent and allow God to shine in areas of weakness.  I wish I would have learned that a LONG time ago.  God wants us to know our testimonies, and He wants us to know that He’s not done writing them.

Psalm 40:5

Many, LORD my God, are the wonders you have done, the things you planned for us. None can compare with you; were I to speak and tell of your deeds, they would be too many to declare.

Jeremiah 29:11

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future

2 Corinthians 12: 8-10

My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. ¹⁰ That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Isaiah 55:8-9

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

John 3:30

He must become greater; I must become less