“What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.” –Matthew 18:12-14 (NIV)

Twice in my life God has demonstrated this kind of love for me. The first time was nearly 20 years ago.  The second in December.  Today, I want to focus in on what the Lord did in my life 2 decades ago. His love changed the direction of my life.

As a young married couple, my husband and I were in full-time ministry. I had heard the call to ministry the summer I turned 16. When I met TJ, I quickly recognized his heart for the Lord and his desire for ministry. His love for Jesus was a big part of why I fell in love with him. Together, we pursued ministry. I loved it! But, I struggled to balance ministry and family. Every day was so rewarding! And those same days were also long and hard. After just a few short years, we decided to resign.

Our main excuse being our concern for our children. Looking back I stand by our decision as it relates to the kids. Despite our haphazard walk after we left the ministry, they grew up to love the Lord. They both married Christians and are raising our grandchildren in the faith. I am so thankful for This!  Sadly, we know other ministers who have not been so blessed. Ministry can become a 24/7 affair and our children don’t always understand why everything and everyone becomes more important than spending time with them. At least that’s how they see it sometimes…they can feel like last place. Unimportant. We didn’t want that to happen to our children. So we left the ministry.

After we quit, we were sure we’d find great jobs out in the world. We had so much to offer! The world didn’t care. In fact, the year after we left the ministry was perhaps the worst year of our marriage. The only job I could find was Assistant Front Desk Manager at a hotel…earning minimum wage. I went from helping people to checking them in.  TJ found nothing, so he sold cars.

That year became all about survival. Ministry was nonexistent.

After a year of this, we decided to move closer to family. We barely had enough money to pull it off, but somehow we did it. I found a receptionist job and started earning a couple dollars over minimum wage. Again, my husband couldn’t find anything substantial…he was either over or under qualified everywhere he applied. So, he drove taxi at night and worked at a convenience store in the day.

That year life became too chaotic to think about ministry. We didn’t have the energy. So we started going to a mega church and proceeded to get lost in it.

It didn’t take too many weeks for us to realize we couldn’t keep going on like this. We decided that TJ would join the Army National Guard. He tested out with an aptitude for the medical field, so for the next 13 months he went through boot camp, medical training and internship. The kids and I stayed home. It would have meant moving 4 times in just over a year. I am practical enough to accept that we couldn’t afford to do that, so I became a working single mom for a season.

I continued attending the fun mega church and became invisible.

It was a hard year, but it was worth the heartache. When he was done with training, TJ passed the federal exam and was able to work in the civilian world. He secured a great job in the Seattle area so we all moved and became a family again. We were starting over, but this time we were both gainfully employed. We found a good church and got minimally involved. Life was good and we could see ourselves settling there. That is until the Army tempted us with an offer we couldn’t resist…a tour in Europe. The deal was he would have to transfer out of the National Guard and join the U.S. Army, full time…sign the dotted line! We decided to do it and before we knew it we were living in Germany and loving it!

We went with thoughts of the mission field swimming through our minds. In reality we continued doing virtually nothing for the Lord. We worked. We traveled. We played. Living in Europe is a blast!

After about a year and one-half in Germany, TJ sustained a head injury that would change our lives. They called it a Closed Head Injury or Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). Basically, the impact irreparably damaged the right, frontal lobe of his brain. Physically, he dealt with short and long term memory deficits (he no longer recognized all the faces in our family photo albums), daily sleep episodes (lasting up to 2 hours…nothing external could wake him), periodic loss of speech (after waking from a sleep episode), lost time, confusion (sometimes he had no idea of where he was and how to get home), inability to prioritize sounds (all sounds have equal value to his brain, so processing what’s important to listen to can be difficult for him), and a constant headache that to this day has never stopped (but will periodically intensify into a full blown migraine). He could no longer do his job, so the army put him on shifts with little patient interaction and they found other stuff for him to do.

This was all so intense in the beginning. I spent a significant amount of time worrying. I remember the doctor assuring me that within 2-6 weeks, he should be back to normal. At 2 months, he told me that patients often see marked improvement between 3-6 months. At 6 months, he said that if there wasn’t improvement by the 9th month, he would never get better. In the meantime, the Army had started the retirement process and would send him to Walter Reed Medical Center, in Washington DC, for further medical and psychological testing to confirm diagnosis.

I prayed a lot during that time. I cried. I worried. I prayed. But I rarely picked up my Bible. Instead, I started standing up on my own two feet as I began to realize and trust my inner strength…that same strength I mentioned in my first blog (My Journey to Joy) which has nothing to do with the Holy Spirit in me.  Strong Alice never asks for help. I’ve always been responsible and this was no different. I took control of everything, the kids, the house, the bills, TJ…I handled it all while working full time. I hadn’t yet learned that control is just an illusion.

We went to church, but I had little time for obedience since I was so busy controlling everything around me.

While I was transforming into an island (a lonely rock in the ocean of humanity) the Army doctors were preparing TJ for the inevitable worst case scenario. They told him that he would lose his family. They said I would probably leave and take the kids with me, so he needed to figure out how to live on his own. I guess the percentages are pretty high for that particular outcome. I am personally appalled by that! Life changed. It changed a lot. But, I made a commitment on my wedding day and just because things changed that wasn’t cause for me to bail out on the man I love.  And I certainly wasn’t going to teach my children to quit when things get hard.  No way!

Those of you who know my husband will likely not recognize the man I described above. I am very thankful for that! At about the one year mark, months after I was supposed to have left him and beyond the theoretical line in the sands of time that told me there was no longer any hope, God answered my prayer. TJ regained clarity of mind. He became able to think and reason again, without necessarily triggering a sleep episode. He could read and comprehend, without certain confusion. My husband is a very intelligent man and God graciously restored his mind. When I looked into his eyes I could see the man I married. I was so very thankful for that! He still deals with all of the above when he overdoes it. But he has learned to pace himself to minimize the adverse symptoms of his TBI.  The healing I witnessed was deeper than the symptoms he deals with. God restored the man. He gave me back my husband, a little broken, but he was once again the man I had married. It was a miracle and I knew it.

Fast forward about three years. TJ is medically retired from the Army. We’re back in the States, living nearby TJ’s family again. We’re going to a good church. I’m working a full-time job.  TJ is on disability. I am upstairs. My family is downstairs…I can hear them. Suddenly, I am alone. I feel like I might be the only person for a thousand miles. I am still an island. I never let anyone in…not even God. I still have to be strong to get everything done! I don’t have time to get tangled up with people. I am alone and God allows me to feel it. Deep loneliness. I am completely isolated on the island I’ve become.

“The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.” –John 10:3-4 (NIV)

It occurred to me that I couldn’t remember the last time I had heard the voice of God. I thought about it. When did I last hear His still small voice? When I was 16 I knew the voice of God. When I was in ministry I recognized His voice. Had I heard His voice since we left the ministry? I remember praying and feeling like my prayers were just bouncing off the ceiling and falling down at my feet. I could practically see my words piling up on the floor around me. I couldn’t reach God. He was gone. Far away. I cried. How long had I been like this? I knew better. I knew God could hear me, but It felt like He had left me. I fell to my knees and cried out to God. Nothing. I am utterly alone on the island of my own creation.

God didn’t meet me there that day. He allowed me to feel my loneliness. He let me wander in the wilderness for months, unable to hear and follow His direction. I feared I had walked too far away and there was no redemption left for me. Day after day God was silent as I prayed.  Days turned into weeks…weeks into months.  I didn’t understand why I couldn’t break through. I tried a few times to search scripture for answers…but I couldn’t find any. I felt dull.

That fall I decided to go to a women’s retreat. It sounded like the break I needed. I was confused by His silence. I still feared for my soul. I missed my relationship with Him and I wanted restoration. So I went to retreat and God met me there. I couldn’t tell you who the speaker was or what she said. I just remember that the silence ended when God spoke, personally, to me. His words were like a revelation to my soul. He said what I should have already known. He reminded me that I had promised to serve Him all the days of my life. He asked me to stop running and serve Him again. I was thrilled!  It was so simple.  How could I have not seen it before that day?  I said “Yes!” for the second time. Suddenly I was no longer alone. I was forgiven. I was restored. I was joyful. And the next day I was tested.

Like the first time I said yes to God’s call to ministry, I had no idea what He wanted me to do.  But the details didn’t matter, I had promised God that I would never say no to Him again. The next day a friend of mine asked me a question. She had been talking with some of the ladies from our church and they wanted to start a weekly Bible study. “Would you be willing to co-lead with me?” I heard the answer in my head and it was an emphatic “No!” But, when I opened my mouth and spoke, I heard my voice say, “Yes!”  My lips faithfully answered from my heart and chose to disregard that selfish old thought in my head!  That was a joyful moment!

And so it began. Over the years that followed, God healed my heart and taught me so many lessons about living, serving and trusting Him.  As I walked in obedience, He softened my hard heart.  It became an inexpressible joy to serve my Lord and Savior. I came to understand that if God had comforted me on the day my prayers were bouncing off the ceiling, if He would have broken the silence that day, I would never have changed.  I would have been happy for a day and would have continued walking away from Him…my heart growing colder with every step.  I would have still been an island.  I am a strong-willed woman. Stubborn. I needed to wander through the unknown wilderness before I would be willing to give up my control to Him.  My island may have been a lonely place, but it was all mine.

God knew me better than I knew myself.  He knew exactly where I had wandered off to and He knew what it would take to bring me back to the fold.  He didn’t spare my feelings, for months He let me feel the consequences of my sin, until I was finally ready to listen and obey.  Then He spoke those life-changing words to my soul.

I have so much more to share, but I have already broken the cardinal rule of blogging…this one is officially too long!  I will continue next week.  But before I go, if you realize today that you are an island, please seek Jesus. He loves you and wants to restore you and give you peace.  You are not beyond redemption.  Trust Him.

“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”  –Jeremiah 29:13 (NIV)