I never get tired of sharing the experiences in my life where God has done great things. Not only is it a chance to testify to others of God’s unfailing mercy and grace, but it also serves as a reminder to me when I am in yet another trial, that he is always faithful. God wants us to remember his good works.
In Joshua 4, God had twelve men, one from each tribe of Israel to build a memorial out of stones from the Jordan River. The memorial was to serve as a permanent reminder of what God had done.
6 Let this be a sign among you, so that when your children ask later, saying, ‘What do these stones mean to you?’ 7 then you shall say to them, ‘Because the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD; when it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off.’ So these stones shall become a memorial to the sons of Israel forever.”
I believe that God intended us to recall his work, whether we choose to make a physical reminder of it or we choose to tell of it. There are quite a few times in my life where God has done the unthinkable, reminding me that nothing is impossible through him. Today, I will share one of those experiences.
6 months before I left my abusive marriage one of the most severe physical altercations took place. The girls were sleeping, and I was in trouble over something that he had ordered me to do, that did not play out in the way he thought it should have. He had been tearing into me verbally for quite some time, when I disappeared in a room on the other side of the house, in the dark with the door closed, crying in distress. He came in, angry that I was crying and began yelling and spitting in my face. As he escalated in rage, he positioned his 250 lb body over top of me, grabbed my arms, and began beating my 105lb body into the floor. While I had grown accustomed to his abusive episodes over the years, this particular night had escalated to far more than it ever had and I was sure I was going to either die or be put in the hospital with severe injuries. In the midst of his fury, I managed to pull away enough to grab my cell phone and frantically began dialing 911, but he took my phone and threw it against the wall before I was able to press send. I was hopeless, I was scared, and I had absolutely no way of escaping. My dialing 911 only made him grow angrier and he pulled me up by my arms and began smashing my head into the dresser that was next to us. When I began screaming as loud as I could to wake the girls up for help, he began suffocating me. I knew I was going to die. It was about this time that something happened that perplexed me. Just as I had accepted the fact that I would not make it through this situation, out of nowhere he grabbed his chest and fell onto the floor in pain and shortness of breath. He kept repeating to me “You gave me a heart attack!” I sat motionless for a few moments staring at him…..then I got up, walked out, and left him on the floor to reap the consequences of his actions. I felt in a state of shock. I wasn’t sure what had just happened. I went into my bathroom to gain composure. There were dark bruises in the shape of large fingers on each arm where he had been squeezing them, marks on my jaw line where he had covered my face, and on the back of my head I could feel bruises where my head had been hit continuously. I cannot begin to explain the emotions I had inside. While I was filled with pain, I was also thankful that I had somehow been given a chance to walk away alive, though I couldn’t understand how. As I began looking back on that evening, it grew clearer to me that God had acted on my behalf, in my weakness. Like any father, intervening after watching his daughter suffer, it seemed to be an action that said, “THAT’S ENOUGH!” Had it not been for that, I doubt I would be here today speaking of it. I am so thankful to him for saving my life that evening. It’s one of those things I’ll never forget.
I thank God every day for rescuing me from abuse. Even more for doing in my life more than I could have ever imagined in my wildest dreams……for giving to me a husband who loves me like Jesus does. I am so blessed! Imagine what it would look like, if we had a trophy for each time God worked for the good in our life. What an awesome reminder it would be to us on a daily basis that God’s promises are true!
I will not die but live, and will proclaim what the LORD has done. Psalm 118:17
