With a forlorn tone in my voice, I told my mother, “Nobody understands.” I was venting to my mom about how hard things were in my life at the time. My mom in her wise and loving way, said, “You’re right, nobody does understand, and they never will. Jesus understands though. And He is the only One who will ever be able to fully understand what you’re feeling and what you’re going through.”
It was years ago that my mom’s words helped to jolt me out of my big pity party. It was a defining moment for me that helped to change the course of my thinking. Mama’s words were etched in my heart permanently as a reminder of how Jesus is the only One who can satisfy the longings of the human soul.
During the darkest season of my life, in the 90s, I made a choice to walk away from the things and thoughts that were keeping me from living and walking in the light.
Feeling sorry for myself was a snare in my life that was robbing me of the abundance I was longing for. Self-pity is such a destructive, life-stealing, ugly force that steals beautiful moments of abundant living from anybody who falls prey to it.
As we read in John 16: 33, Jesus said, “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”
When we embrace the fact that Jesus can help us overcome anything and make a conscious decision to focus on His love and not on our difficult situations, then amazingly our problems begin getting solved in the most supernatural ways. That’s exactly what happened in my life.
I was in a pit in 1997, and it was a living hell for me. After my family and my special friend, Bonnie, encouraged me to keep seeking the Lord, I took a hundred and eighty degree turn from my self-destructive thought patterns and chose to pray boldly for help from God. On the days I could barely get out of bed, I would focus on God by reading the Bible. I wrote Bible verses on index cards and hung them in various places so that I would stay focused on the truth of God’s words. And I would turn on my Larnelle Harris C.D. and listen to his song, “I Choose Joy” over and over and over and over until joy came bursting out of my heart.
Once I began taking every thought captive and meditating on the truths of the Bible, then my spirit felt renewed, I began living in peace, and miracles began coming forth.
Transformation begins with us turning away from negativity and taking a step toward Christ. God doesn’t just snatch us out of the darkness. He says if we seek Him with all our hearts, then we will find Him (Jeremiah 29:13).
Are you feeling the darkness closing in on you? If so, I pray that you will begin today to seek God with every fiber of your being. As you are steadfast in your pursuit of Christ, the light will overcome the darkness in your life.
Be encouraged. Jesus has overcome the world!
“This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” 1 John 1:5-7 (ESV)
