I was raised in the Christian faith, but I never had a personal faith in Christ or fully grasped what His death or resurrection meant for me until adulthood.
I believed in God as a child, but by the age of nineteen, I was headed down a dark path, pursuing every possible practice of the occult. I delved into the practice of palm reading, card reading, astrology, and dabbled in witchcraft. As a result of my involvement with the occult, I had many nightmares. I didn’t know how to ever free myself, but I also didn’t know that the Holy Spirit was pursuing me.
Through my hunger for prophecy, I purchased a book that instead, led me to a life altering encounter with the Holy Spirit. I describe my faith turning point in more detail, through the meditations written in this book. The life changing power of God’s love, grace and mercy is for everyone. We then use the gifts and talents He gave us, to touch other people’s lives.
My inspiration to write began the year after one of the most difficult losses, when Stephen, my late husband, was diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease).
He suffered a rapid progression of the disease and it was 8 months from his diagnosis to his death in 2019.
As his primary caregiver, it was difficult to process all that happened in that one year period, when the next year was further impacted by the Covid pandemic. In looking back, I refer to that year as my wilderness. Being newly widowed, with family living out of state, and furloughed from my job, I was spiritually depleted, and disconnected from God, friends and family. Then I decided to invest more of my time in reading scripture.
It was then that I discovered the treasures of His truth, that were hidden in my wilderness. As I prayed and read scripture each day, I wrote down my thoughts in a journal, developing my intimacy with Jesus, as well as a fruitful new passion for writing.
Whether it is through a book that led me to Christ or writing a book of my own, I have no doubt that God’s grace can take one tiny seed of faith, and grow it into a huge fruitful tree. I pray this blessing for every reader as they begin the spiritual journey of this 50 day devotional.