1 Philippians v 6

I posted part of my story last week and thought I would post some more this morning.

In 2002 my grandma died, we all travelled down to the funeral in Wales and afterwards went to a hotel with the whole family, including family from America, Australia and London etc. I have always found being with my family extremely stressful and I remember getting home and things not being right with me. Sort of woke up one morning and everything was black, spent a lot of time crying and thinking I was mental, Kept my feelings to myself as I didn't understand myself what was wrong. I remember speaking to Chris at church about it and she told me to go to the docs but I have never liked going to the doctors so I didn't. Things came to a head one morning at work and I lost it big time and got sort of hysterical, my boss advised me to make a drs appointment so I did and got one for that same morning, my sister came into work just as I was about to leave for the doctors and i completely broke down and think I scared her. Anyway went to the Doctors and embarrassed myself by crying for 20 minutes before I even spoke to him...he gave me some pills and signed me off sick for a fortnight..didn't want to take pills but I did. I ended up throwing them away after a week or so as I felt I couldn't wait for them to start working and ended up going to see my sister for some speed, how stupid eh and I don't know why I did that. I gave up on God as I thought He had deserted me, didn't go to church for a while and ended up getting a 10,000 bank load, it was christmas and I had no money apart from my sick pay, was massively behind with rent etc and also now having to pay for drugs....I ended up getting some counselling thru the Salvation Army but really hated it so much. I eventually had to return to work the week before christmas as the loan had been spent...started going to church again at some point too. One Sunday (think it was New year 2003) a promise box was passed around to us all and we had to take a verse out and read it out loud. Everyone did theirs but I was so riled and blown away with mine that I refused to read it. Margaret who was sat next to me took it off me and read it, it was Philippians 1 vs 6...Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. I was sort of angry and relieved that finally God had clearly used that verse to remind me he still loved me and reminded me of his promises.

Life got better after that and then in July things were threatening to fall apart again as I had recieved a letter from the council saying I was going to be evicted unless I paid my rent arrears, I was in massive arrears with my council tax, credit card repayments....you name it I owed it.
The bank refused to lower the payments on the bank loan I had took out or to even borrow me any more money to pay my debts off and I could feel myself on the brink again. It was July and time for bible camp and I thought there was no way I could go leaving all this mess behind, I was persuaded to go and try and sort things out when I got back. So Scot and I went to Hollybush with Ian and Chris and had a pretty lovely week. I had been thinking about baptism for a while and had been challenged by God about it through various Bible readings I had done, so decided to go to the baptism seminar, Chris came with me and it was interesting but I wasn't completely convinced by it. The day of the baptisms came and I had a good chat with Ian about it and argued with myself (I can do that very easily hehe) decided to go and watch the baptisms in the river anyway. Watched them getting baptised and I said to God, if they ask is there anyone else who wants to be baptised then I will, my heart was beating so fast and I was stood there thinking please don't ask as I will have to keep my word to God. They had finished the baptisms and it was all over when suddenly I heard the associate pastor ask if there was anyone else who would like to be baptised then they needed to come down to the river bank...I looked at Chris and then shouted 'ME' Chris near enough dragged me down to the riverbank and before I knew it, I was in the water. I remember saying to God that my life was in his hands from now on. I made a public declaration of my belief in Jesus and then crossed my arms and was under the water....I really can't explain the relief I felt, it was really, really lovely. Anyway got home from hollybush the day after and when I walked through my front door I knew that someone had been in and read my mail, and sorted my house out a bit (I had left it in a disgrace with 3 cats running round) panicked a bit but sort of just ignored things, then a few days later my dad came down, he had organised for the cats to go to a cats home (the cat story is a story thats best left untold as its sort of mad) and then arranged for my house to be completely decorated, new furniture, carpets the lot and also paid all my rent arrears, council tax arrears, water arrears etc....he paid for everything. I was shellshocked thats all I can say. I'm not going to even try to get theological regarding baptism and the rights and wrongs of me going back to drugs etc...all I can say is that I believe in the the verseI was given from the promise box and I believe that God honoured my obedience to him regarding getting baptised and as a result of that made everything right...like I said I can't explain where that fits in with theology I just know that God once again stepped in and made things right.

I know this was a long post and I have waffled and waffled. I was talking to Chris at church on Friday and she said its important to remember where we have come from and just how much God has done....I believe that God will use all my experiences bad or good to be a bit more compassionate to people who might be going through the kind of things I have been through.