October 21st. . .

October twenty-first. It is approaching the twenty-first again and last year at this time I gave a testimony at Church about what this day means to me and how our gracious Savior redeemed that day for me. I decided this year to print that testimony for those that didn't get to hear it. This was my testimony in October of 2011. "This past year God has been doing many miracles in my life and I wanted to share one of those miracle stories with you today. I believe that we honor Jesus when we share how He has worked in our lives so that others can be encouraged as well. He wants us to share it with each other not only as a milestone to His goodness but also to encourage others and bring praise to his name so that’s why I want to share this with you today. This “miracle” story has two parts to it. One part is about how our Heavenly Father is so good and gracious to us, that when He brings healing to our lives He wants to bring healing to every part of our lives, the small things and the big things. He wants to redeem everything and because He knows us, He desires to heal those parts that even we think might be insignificant. The other part is about how God as our Father wants us to give our dreams to Him and when we do amazing things can happen. So for the first part I need to give you some history. There is a day, an anniversary in my life that every year as I face it causes me great emotional turmoil. This day is October 21st. You see 23 years ago on October 21st just after my 18th birthday I was walking home when I was viciously, physically and sexually assaulted by a group of boys from my school. The assault was a direct result of my faith. I had witnessed to a boy, taken him to youth group and he had become a Christian. His faith angered these boys who had been his friends and this began a year and a half of bullying directed towards me that culminated in this attack. I remember everything about that day, the sun, the beautiful crisp weather, and the brilliant colors of the fall leaves. The girl that left for school that day was not the girl who came home that night. My world was shattered. My family was torn apart. I was full of shame, grief, and despair and I even turned from my faith. I crumbled. I did physically survive but emotionally I was devastated and I thought beyond repair. God thought otherwise and he led me back to Him, but I was never the same. My family was never the same and Octobers were never the same. That day became etched in my brain and although I have tried many different ways to move past it, every year it creeps up on me, surprises me and the darkness and the evil of that day washes over me. I find myself year in and year out being filled with dread as October approaches, with fear, with shame and then with anger. I get mad at myself because after all it’s just a day and it shouldn’t hold so much power but it still does no matter how much I try to will it away. The first anniversary of October 21st I tried to kill myself. The second year I wrote a poem that I recently put on my facebook to try to say I would fight the war that that day created within me with Jesus by my side and every year I do try to fight. But the weather changes, the days turn crisp, and the leaves change color and I get anxious and depressed. Most of the past 23 years on this day I have not even gotten out of bed. But in the past 5 years as I have been trying to deal with the effects this horrendous day has had on me, I have begun to try different things to change the day but all without success. It still depresses me, it is still difficult to get out of bed, and it still brings up all the past pain. I have felt cheated and angry, cheated because my birthday is in October and I have felt that October has been stolen from me. My favorite season, is now a season that brings pain and I have wished I could blot October 21st out of the calendar. Now we will take a small detour to the other part of my story. This is a story of giving your dreams to Jesus and it started with my dream of one day going to Hawaii. In September of last year an opportunity presented itself and I wanted to take it but there were financial concerns and concerns for the kids since it was a couples retreat, but I surrendered this dream to God because I believed He was saying to me that as my Father he wanted me to trust him with my dreams, and then he worked miracles and to make a long story short, we got to Hawaii. So after that this summer I was relaxing on the dock of my parents cottage and thanking God for His grace, the way He took my dream and made it a reality and I felt He was asking me what my next dream was. The first thing that popped into my head was my desire to have a home of my own. Three and a half years ago as Glenn was just starting his business we went through a financial crisis and we lost our home. I was devastated by this and we have been renting ever since but I have found it hard to put anything into this house because it is a rental, and I have found it hard to feel grounded. I have always known it would mean another move at some point. I am a Missionary Kid and we were moving all the time and I never wanted to do that to my kids. I have never felt that I have had a home and I became afraid I would never know what a home felt like. So because of God’s prompting I decided to give this dream up to God on the dock that day. I didn’t talk to anyone about it because I thought maybe He’ll make that a reality as well in a few years or so. Two weeks later our land-lady gave us notice that she was selling our house and we would have to look for a new residence. Glenn was actually afraid to tell me, knowing how hard the last move had been on me so he was surprised when I didn’t crumble to the floor in panic. I knew I had just given that dream up to God, so when she gave us notice just two weeks after I had surrendered it to Him, I knew God must be in this somehow. This was His plan and so I needed to trust Him. Glenn and I then began to look at our options. Because this was unexpected we did not have the down payment for a mortgage so at first it seemed like we would be renting again and so I was confused. That wasn’t a home of my own which is my dream so I became frustrated with God. Then as I was looking up rentals on Kijiji an ad came up for a rent to own. Glenn and I got excited and went to see the house and decided this was a good option. I didn’t love the house, but it worked. I shared at cell about it because I wanted prayer and that night as I shared, Mike Coles told me about someone he had done work with that does rent to own as part of their business. If this property fell through that was another option. The property did fall through and so we contacted this couple and began the process with them. As we did that we began to look at properties, hoping that something would come up. I saw a cute house in Mount Albert that I liked from the outside but Glenn was concerned about the distance. The price seemed reasonable, and it had the things we needed, like a fourth bedroom which means Jessica could have her own room and so could Christopher. It also has character. It’s a really tall skinny house and in my opinion it looks like an Anne of Green Gables house. For those of you who know me well, I love Anne, my parents even jokingly call me Anne, and my blog is called life at green gables. So this house to seemed to fit me perfectly, it has personality. As Anne would say it has lots of scope for the imagination. Glenn and I made an appointment to go and see it and as we walked through it, I fell in love with it even more. Glenn too fell in love with it, it has the backyard of his dreams and when we drove it, we realized it’s not as far away as it first seems. In fact it takes the same amount of time to get to Church from there as it does from Aurora. Then we had to wait on pins and needles with the rent to own company, to see if everything would line up and we could get the house. The real estate agent had talked to us and made it seem like the closing date he would be looking for was October 1st and time was running out. I was so scared we would lose the house and there were many nights it caused me to doubt, to get angry again and to lose faith. Honestly it caused quite a bit of panic inside. I kept hearing Jesus telling me to trust Him, that He was in this, but I was having such a hard time truly giving it to Him. I kept trying though, and laying it at His feet and in the end, it came through. We have a rent to own agreement and this is our new house. However we were mistaken on the closing date. It was not October 1st as we first thought, it is actually October 21st. I could not believe that. I kept looking at Glenn dumbfounded trying to make sure I was seeing this right. October 21st this year is on a Friday---who closes on a Friday? I had heard of the 1st, the 15th, even the 31st as closing dates but never the 21st. It was again confirmation that this was God. This was bigger than Glenn and I, this was completely God at work, giving me a gift beyond anything I could ever have hoped for, not only giving me my dream house but giving me back a day that had been stolen away so long ago. I began to cry. In one swoop God had not only fulfilled one of my biggest dreams, He also redeemed and restored a day that I did not think could be restored. And He didn’t just give me any house, He gave me the house of my dreams and this house, this home becomes ours on the very day that 23 years ago, it seemed I lost everything. When God seeks us out to bring healing and restoration, he wants to bring healing to every little thing that enemy has tried to steal away. He leaves no stone unturned, no wound still bleeding. Everything is redeemed. He knew how important Octobers are to me, and even though I have wrestled with how it shouldn’t matter, He has understood that despite the shoulds, it does matter. So in His grace He has given me back my Octobers. He has given me back the fall, the crisp weather, the glorious leaves, my birthday. He defeated the evil of that day, banished the darkness and returned the vibrancy to the fall season. I can look towards all Octobers with anticipation instead of dread and October 21st can now be a day of celebration. I no longer want to blot October 21st out of the calendar, but circle it in anticipation and then sit back and marvel at how great and how good God is." This past year I have lived this declaration and even though there have been hard times, I love my home. I have flourished and I will keep flourishing. This year October was a wash of beauty and color and there was no trace of that old despair that used to wait in the corners. I celebrate God's goodness this year and look forward to what this next year has in store.