God does the strangest things. He is outrageously strange in many ways.  Maybe that’s why the word states His ways are not our ways.  He uses the weirdest people in the wildest circumstances to get His point of love across.

All my life I’ve been asking how and why I got into this scary family of mine.   They say God chooses your parents.  He specifically looks into the earth and hand picks the people with whom you are going to spend at least the first 18 years of your life. Most people see that as a marvelous miracle, they were hand chosen to be with this mom and dad. The parents he chose for me didn’t even want me. The beginning of my life was a disaster.  My childhood wasn’t much different. Nor was my adulthood to a point.

I used to think, “God, do you know what you’re doing?  These people?  These awful, mean, scary, bizarre, abusive, sick people?  WHY would you ever send me to earth to be with them?  You knew me before the foundation of the earth.  I watched you form the cosmos.  I was there when you set each star in place. I oohed and awed and giggled as each star lit up.   I played with you!  I saw you create Adam and Eve, watch over Job, and smile down on Daniel as he walked into the lion’s den. You knew what would happen.  You set it all in motion. I was there!  I was with you.  You loved me, I was your great treasure and your poema, I was your beautiful, precious daughter. I loved being with you.  But you sent me to these two, whose hearts have been so damaged by the world that they may never recover? The only thing they know is how to cause me pain and fear, to mess with my sense of self and well-being, to make me feel worthless, useless, and a piece of trash to be used by the world in any way they want.”

What was he thinking when he gave me to these two people?  Did you really see them, God? Do you know how they treat me?  Did you hear them say when I was eighteen months of age they could no longer handle me?  Maybe it was you who had them send me to live with Aunt Flossie for a little while.  A brief respite from the living hell of that household.  I could have used many more.

Maybe sending me away during the summer to watch Jim’s kids was mom’s way of doing that?  That was more of a punishment than staying home with mom and dad, only dad wouldn’t be waiting for me in my room at Jim’s.

God, did you see how afraid I was of both mom and dad?  Did you see me try to avoid interaction with them at all costs? Did you hear my cries?  Did you hear my angry outbursts?  Did you hear me cry out “why”  a million times or so? Did you see my note hidden under my dresser scarf that was my only hope, the note that spoke of Jesus having a mansion for me in heaven?  Many days that note was the only way I made it through.

Run away?  I’m not sure I would be here to tell the tale if I ran and was found.

Did you watch when others hurt me, knowing I could never tell mom because she would turn it around to be my fault and punish me? Did you see the girls do mean things to me, the boys tease me mercilessly, the teacher who made fun of me in front of the class?  Did you see the girl make fun of me while I played  my guitar and how that affected me for many years? Did you see the neighbor girls pick on me, the children in the family next door start fights with me because we were trash? Did you see all those boys who tried to touch me in inappropriate ways? Did you see the priest sexually abuse me?  Did you see me get raped?

You saw it all.  You poured your grace over me through it all so that I could survive it. You saw the future of my reaching out to others, using everything that ever happened to me to help them with great love because I could understand their pain.  I could understand what they were going through.  You knew that, despite my plans of suicide, that I would never do that.  You had something very special that you needed me to give the world, your great love.

You knew I wouldn’t be bitter or spiteful. You knew I would forgive. You knew I would handle things with as much love as I could.  I didn’t know. I was weak, tired, and lost, and deserved it all, or so I thought. I loathed myself.                                     *************************************

Many years after all these thoughts ran through my head, while driving home from work and nearing the top of a mountain, you spoke life-changing words to me.  These words were the most powerful and beautiful words I could ever imagine.  I was in my fifties when you said, “Sugar, I love your heart.  You have my heart.”

 I joined a group of women on Zoom last night who wanted to learn more  about God’s love. Those words came back to me during that gathering. 

As the woman leading the group read Isaiah 49:1 aloud, she inserted my name in many places: God called Ann before Ann was born; from within the womb God called Ann by name.  She read to verse 4, inserting my name throughout it.  I had immediate revelation.  She asked us to meditate on that verse for 3 minutes. My revelation was one of those ‘but suddenlies,’ as only God could do.  I had my answer. 

There would be no more asking why, there will only be moments of gratitude for placing me in the midst of that turmoil.

While I was with him, God knew me as love.  He gave me to my parents as love.  I was to show them that there is love and that they are loved. He brought me to them to be love to them, to be that example of who he is, to draw them to his great heart of love.

There is no greater calling than that.  I don’t know if they ever got it or if I was ever able to show God’s love to my parents.  That’s another question for another time.