Events That Changed my Life

I'm in a meditative mood this morning.

Not a buddhist/emerging/into the silence kind of meditation...just thinking.

Everyone has them;events that changed their world.Things ,stuff ,circumstances ,experiences that mean your world will never be the same .

When my Dad suicided that radically changed all that I had known for the previous 13 years.
He had been my hero and my mentor and just plain good fun.And when I found him with his life ebbing away from the gunshot wound everything changed .I didn't know God in any real way at the time but I prayed anyway."God ;give my Dad back" After lingering a couple hours in hospital he died.
I shook my fist at God and screamed at the heavens "I don't believe in You anymore"
How ironic; how can you yell at someone you don't believe in.(I wonder how many atheists have gone through something like this and declared to God," I WON'T believe")

A few years later my best friend died in a bike accident and then my only brother went the same way not long after.

Then there was my first firing from a church leadership role. On the losing side of a power struggle. Didn't really lose...just refused to fight.
The second firing came when the church authorites felt the best way to help my children and I through the grief of a deserting wife and mother was to "sack" me and cut us loose.That was an interesting time. A single Dad no income ,no vehicle(they took the church vehicle back) then we lost our accomadation...and what happened to all my Christian friends?

And then there's the 'interesting" experience of seeing your wife move her boyfriend into the family home (that you had built with your own hands)

Ah.. but God is the God of restoration. Remarried to a God-fearing beautiful and charming woman. A great home ,great Brady bunch family, business owner ,beautiful grand kids and eyes well and truly opened to the deceptions of churchianity(I'm not bitter ,I'm thankfull)

But the greatest the most amazing ,incredible event that has ever happened to me was 27 years ago when the God of Glory heard my cry in the bedroom at my home and bowed the heavens to reach down, forgive my wickedness and rebellion against Him and make me a new creature in Christ.He has proven to be a Father to the fatherless, a friend who sticks closer than a brother ,my shield ,my strong tower,my fortress ,a stronghold in the time of trouble,my God in whom I trust, the One who forgives all my transgressions and lifts me out of the miry clay.

Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift.