[guestpost]Aleta is a House Mom at Haven of Hope Fruitdale. I know her story will bless you.[/guestpost][featured-image single_newwindow=”false”]
Yet in my sin, He knew me. And what sin I was in. In first grade when the teacher asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I didn’t throw up my hand and say “A rebellious, backsliding, lying, cheating, stealing adulteress with a habit of popping pills.” Yet at the age of 47, I was just that!
Born the granddaughter of a Holiness preacher, I had a call on my life early and at the age of 3 years I was already singing for God in Church. “Amazing Grad how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me…”
I didn’t know at 3 years old that I would later make decisions and choices in my life that would bring me to a firsthand desperate need for that Amazing Grace and become the living melody resonating the rest of the words to those verses.
See, growing up, I was the good girl. I served God, never partied, God had blessed this girl from the Bayou with an education and opened doors for me to work with two Ivy league medical programs. I was blessed.
Yet, I began to believe a lie. The lie that I was missing out, or missing something and not really living. So, I walked away from God. This began my descent into the abyss. “For there is a way that seemeth right unto a man but the end there of is death.” Proverbs 14:12
[shareable]I was a dead woman walking. ~ Aleta Patronas[/shareable]
I had a huge hole that I desperately tried to fill with my career, material things, relationships, pills, etc. But, I was still empty. Proverbs 13:18 tells us that “Poverty and shame shall be to him that refuseth instruction.” I had lost it all. I was in poverty and I was ashamed.
In 2010, I went to a secular rehab where I received common sense instruction such as to change my playmates and playgrounds; be accountable to myself and others. However, when it came to their instruction and guidance on a “Higher Power” the light bulb that they encourage me to look to left me feeling just as useless as the lightbulb itself apart from electricity.
Never the less, I gave it the good old college try and for six years, I lived “clean” from chemicals, but addicted to men, chaos, and adrenaline. The combination of me and chaos got me into adrenaline pumping situations that were dangerous and several times they should have been deadly.
But God!
When the last relationship left me emotionally bankrupt and devastated, I found myself trying to put the pieces back together or in other words trying to find the electrical current to plug my light bulb into. I knew deep down what I really needed but the condemnation was so heavy. After one last major surgery and receiving news from my surgeons that I would be forced into total disability and never work again, the depression kicked into over drive.
I gave up hope. Sought comfort in my pain pills and then my light bulb shattered. I had used myself up, my family, friends and earthly resources. I had no feeling of hope and definitely no dreams of a future.
So, on Sunday July 3rd, I lay across my bed and I cried out to God reminding him of His words in Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” I told God that if He still wanted me for His will and purpose, I was His. No strings attached.
Thus began my ascension into all things new and into a peaceful, purposeful, and hopeful life. I now know peace. I look forward to each morning. I don’t dread nightfall because I can sleep. God in me has given me courage and direction, purpose and HOPE! I’m not naïve—life will continue to happen. The difference between This good girl now and the previous good girl I was, is that I have a real and personal relationship with the sinless One that bore my sins so that I might be free.
I am free! And daily I die to me so that Christ may live through me. I have the guarantee that His grace and mercy is renewed daily for me because of His unmerited favor. All of this Jesus did so that this fallible human can stand forgiven and blameless before God in eternity.
If you ever wonder if miracles really happened—you are reading the written words of a miracle—There’s a miracle in me! As I close, I want to leave you with these words of praise.
Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. ~ Romans 4:7 KJV
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