God's Plan At Work In My Life

God has a plan, and everything that God does has a purpose. Looking back on my life now, I can see His influence in it, even when my heart wasn't with Him and I was angry at Him and rebelling against Him.

There was my childhood, especially my earlier teenage years, when I was in full-blown depression. When I was crying myself to sleep at night thinking how I wanted to die and just end it all there was a voice that spoke to me and told me reasons why I shouldn't. Somehow, because of the things that were said to me by that voice, I found the strength to keep going.

There was the night at 2 am at about the age of 22, when I was driving recklessly, that I came around a bend in the road and there was a deer standing in the middle of that road. I lived in Maine then, and the deer there are very big; so big that there is a very real danger of being severely hurt or even killed if you hit one. I was driving about 60 mph in where the speed limit was 45 mph. I wasn't able to stop in time, so I hit the deer. It ran away, and I'm sure that it died, but miraculously I didn't receive any injuries, and I was only minimally sore the next morning. That was a wake-up call for me.

At the age of 25 I had Labyrinthitis - a infection that happens deep in your ear canal. And with this, I experienced extremely severe Vertigo. I was dizzy for three months, and I felt like I was drunk against my will. I couldn't think, I couldn't walk straight, I couldn't drive my car. It affected my ability to think of the right words in conversation. It made me so nauseous to do anything: watch tv, read a book, talk on the phone, use a computer, etc. I could barely even stand the nausea when I got up to go use the bathroom. I've suffered from dizziness periodically since. But do you know what this did? It completely destroyed the pleasure of drinking alcohol for me. I do drink occasionally, but it is exceptionally rare.

I have a few health conditions that have developed over the years. They are not life-threatening, but they are disabling, and they all compound on each other. But if it wasn't for these health conditions I wouldn't have been forced to slow down, and I wouldn't have had the time to start paying attention to what is going on in the world. God purposely used them in order to open my eyes so that I can see, and it is through the things that I learned that I was led to find Jesus in 2021.

We don't understand the ways in which God works because His ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. But I can tell you that the sheer precision in the way that He works is skillful and flawless and perfect. And His timing is always perfect. God has been so incredibly gracious and good to me, and I know that I am incredibly blessed.

To think the Creator of the heavens, the earth, and everything within would be so personally interested and involved in our lives is completely mind-blowing , but He really is.

Glory and honor be to our Heavenly Father, and His son, Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior forever. Amen.