Great Read!

Reading. 

It’s something that we all have to do every day. We have to read street signs, contracts, menus, or books. Some people enjoy reading, some loathe it, and some simply do it because they have to. 

This may come as a shock for some but I absolutely do not like reading. I have never been good at it. I’m a little slow at it. My ability to retain information by reading is almost non-existent. My reading level appears to be about that of the average 7^thgrader. 

I have a stack of books that I need and want to read. I have Bible studies that I want to do. I want so much to be a well-educated person. I want nothing other than to be able to recall the information that I have read and apply it to my life or share it with a friend. I want to be a reader, I truly do. I am trying and maybe one day I will get there. Until then I will do the best that I can. 

Just before my husband, our youngest daughter, and myself went out of town for a month, I had coffee with a very dear friend of mine. At that time, she handed me a gift bag with 2 books in it. One was an amazing journal and the other was a book titled The Choice. I had wanted to read and write while away. I hadn’t chosen a book to read just yet so this was perfect. She shared with me that the book had spoken to her and she wanted me to have a copy of it. I chose to take them both with me and promised myself that I would have the book read by the time we got back home, and I did. 

The Choice was written by Dr. Edith Eva Eger, a Holocaust survivor. The book is about how her family was captured by the Nazis, about how what she and her sister had to endure. It’s about survival, new life, and healing. The book is amazing! I cannot imagine the horrors that she encountered. I cannot fathom watching hundreds of people die around me daily. The sights, smells, and emotions that she had to endure were more than a person should ever have to go through. She survived it all. Not without scars, both emotionally and physically. Once she was liberated, she had new issues to deal with. Once someone goes through what she went through, it is hard to bounce back. However, she did it. She worked through the crap and came out better for it on the other side. She eventually did heal from the junk and she went on to share her story in this book. 

I have not been through anything that even remotely compares to what she went through. I have no idea how I would have been going through what she did. I can’t even begin to think of how long it took her to get the place where healing from her past even crossed her mind. And that healing journey, wow, that healing journey. Her story is AMAZING. I would highly recommend this book to everyone. It is a great, personal testimony of how she went from deaths door to receiving healing so that she could go on to help others heal. 

I say all of that to say that, this book has helped me tremendously. It has helped me to see my life in a different light, to not focus on my problems, and myself but to be healed so that I can help others get the healing that they need. I am not the healer, but I know the Healer. I am not a highly educated, book smart, woman. I am a simple woman who God has called to help others. The thing that I have learned in my life is that you cannot help people heal unless you have been healed first. You cannot help people overcome unless you have overcome first. You cannot lead people through things that you have not been through yourself. 

We all have a choice. We can choose to let our pasts define us, or get healing from our past so that we can help others. We can choose to stay in our sin life, or we can repent of our sins, and walk in the way we are supposed to. We can choose to be obedient to the calling on our lives or we can choose to run from that calling. 

I have allowed my past to define me. I have also gotten healing from my past. It no longer defines me. It no longer has a grip on me. I have repented of my sins and am trying to walk out my life in a way that is worth imitating. I am trying to be obedient to my calling. I am not running from it but I am not walking fully in it either. I am trying. 

I have made my share of good and bad choices, just like you have. I have my good traits and I have my bad ones. I am human. I am a broken vessel that is allowing God to put back together into a beautiful mosaic. 

I would love to tell you that He is done with me, however He is not. I am work in progress, just like you. I am a hot mess of a mom, wife, and friend. I have daily battles with my mind. I struggle to know my worth but I choose to listen to what God says about me rather than what the world says about me. 

We have to make choices every.single.day. We have to! If we don’t chose then we will walk through life aimlessly. 

Make wise choices. 

Ones that will make a difference.  Ones that will change the world.