The Well Ministries

It was hard for me to accept that God could love me without my doing anything in return. I had been so used to having to do something for someone to get them to like me. Because of that I kept trying to do things for God so He’d like me too – I volunteered for EVERY job at the church. I worked with the children on Wednesday evenings; Junior Church on Sunday morning; I was President of the Women’s Fellowship for five years; I did the church’s newsletter for many years; I was a member of the Worship Team where I sang and played my flute; I was in church EVERY time the doors were open! But I didn’t receive the acceptance from God that I expected – I wanted to feel a physical love – and when I didn’t receive what I thought, I went further into depression. After about 2 years of that I decided that if God didn’t give me the proof I needed, I would just leave the church.

I spent many nights crying out to God to show Himself to me – to prove Himself. I wanted the earth to shake or to see the “burning bush” but I didn’t get anything. And thus I started running from God. I figured if He didn’t want to show me the proof then He must not really exist.

Many times the depression was so bad it would seem as if there was a black cloud over our house. I spent a lot of time crying. Suicidal thoughts raced through my mind. I remember one time my husband saying, “I just don’t know what to do with you!”

In February 1998 my husband started singing with a Southern Gospel Quartet, Three Rivers Gospel, and their programs were on many Sundays. He was gone three out of four weekends every month so I found excuses to go with them to the concerts instead of going to church. It really wasn’t a hard decision as I wanted to spend time with my husband as well, but I confess, sometimes, it was also an excuse not to go to church.

I dropped out of the worship team. There wasn’t too many of my peers from church that seemed to even care that I stopped going. No one called, no one visited. And on the occasion that I did attend church, I spent most of the service crying and they all just assumed I was “feeling something from God” even though I wasn’t. I was more depressed that no one seemed to care. No one except my sister-in-law, Marcia, and I always thought that it was just because she was family. I know now that she never stopped praying for me.

At a Three Rivers concert one Sunday night in February 1999, (exactly one year prior to the day I originally wrote this story), the group was practicing a new song before the concert. It was a song about placing our troubles in the hands of the Lord. The chorus started: “I thought about it, prayed about it, forgot about it, no doubt about it, I’ve placed it in the hands of the Lord.” The verse made me think:

“Well I rebuke the power of Satan who tries to steal my soul, who puts a little fear and strife, tries to take control. But I know a higher power that is greater than he, I say ‘get behind me Satan,’ and then he has to flee.”

I started thinking about the spiritual teachings we had over the years. I began to think, “what if I could have seen the black cloud coming and I rebuked it before it could have gotten a hold of our lives? It couldn’t have stayed it would have had to flee.”

Little did I realize but I was speaking into existence that prayer. The very next day that cloud lifted over our home and you could sense a difference. I know now that when I faced Satan he couldn’t stay here any longer. He had to run. And that’s what he did. All the while I was running from God He still cared for me and had His hand on my life. He had provided a safe place for me to run to as I had been spending my time at the concerts with a great group of Christians who accepted me for who and what I was.

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