Before I Ever Knew Him

Before I ever knew Him, He had me in His hand.
Before I knew the sound of His voice, He would speak to me.
Before I ever knew how much I needed Him, He knew how much I would need Him.

I believe we all have had a that moment in our lives before we knew Christ where He moved in our lives but we didn’t know Him to give Him the credit. Yet later in life He reminds us of that moment just when we need it most. I have a moment before I knew Him, knew His voice or even believed in Him, that He showed me He had me, I was His and no matter the storm rolling in He was with me. I didn’t go to church growing up and didn’t start even “attending” until well into my twenties. I remember having knick-knacks through out our home. Every table had something sitting on it for decoration. I never thought much of it most of my life, but we had crucifixes, praying hands ( the brass ones), buddhas of every size and color, pictures of the last supper and other things. There is one thing I remember most the big white Bible with gold trim, right next to it was a marble Buddha and some kind of brass thing. These were decorations in my home, I never saw that Bible opened or touched other to dust it or the table. Everywhere we ever lived that Bible was there on a table somewhere in the living room. We also never missed the movie that came on every Easter about Moses, if you don’t know the one I’m talking about your to young to know what a pay phone is or how to use it!! My parental unit grew up going to church and I took it from how church was talked about they weren’t very fond of going their entire childhood, but I remember them quoting Psalms 23 frequently throughout my childhood. They knew others and would recite them from time to time just for show. The 23 Psalms always was beautiful to me, maybe it was the vision of green pastures or the sparkle of still waters, I always loved to hear them recite it, although I didn’t understand the meaning of a single word of it.

At 9 years old I was taken by my other bio parent that I had never known nor met. I had only known my step parent for as early as I could remember and was never told they were not my biological parent. My home (full of religious relics) was turned upside down after it was known my other parent was searching for me, and wanted a relationship with me. My little life was forever changed when I was told the only person I’d known wasn’t really my parent. Let the trust issues begin…right!! Within the week we had packed up and moved several hundred miles, from one side of Texas to the other it seemed to stay with some friends till everything died down and we found our own place. I was put in a new school but luckily these friends we were staying with were my best friends parents, the only friend I remember from that time of my life. I remember how sad I was when they moved so far away because our parents and the two of us had been close for quite some time. It was from this new school the parent that was searching for me would take me and I’d ever see Texas or my best friend again; it would also be months before I would see the mom and dad that had raised me and even longer before the multiple court dates and ordered counseling visits were over and I’d be sent back to live with the ones who had raised me for 9 years. I know taking me was the only option they saw they had, see the reasoning behind it and have no hard feeling towards them but the scars it left on me are still real and life in my home once I was given back to my original parents was never the same, horrific from that point on to be exact but that’s another chapter to the story. Today I want to tell you about a little girl who didn’t know God. All I had seen was the movie at Easter and heard some scripture recited. The Bible that would change my life was a knick-knack.

In one of my most darkest, devistating trails and my most recent one since I have come to know Christ, I had a break down. I was on my back porch were I was verbally asking ( loudly) God why…why had He left me here, where was He at, why He would allow this to happen to my family. I’d already been through so much, why this, why do you keep leaving me, in tears of course. I remember sobbing, my face in my hands leaning against the banister. I felt the wind blow, gently at first then stronger. There was a storm coming in. The smell of the air was familiar and here in middle Alabama I shouldn’t smell air like that, maybe in South Alabama but not here. In that moment I was taken back to our living room, as my nine year old self, everything exactly like it was, a memory of a time I had blocked out as a child to cope with the pain. We lived in a fancy apartment building in a place called Bay City. We had sliding glass doors off our living room that went out to a balcony where I spent many days watching sail boats come in and out of the Gulf or watching storms roll in. This day I was alone in the apartment, my parent was next door or down doing something to the race car, I don’t know. I remember going to the sliding glass doors and looking out, as I started to go out I turned and looked at the table adjacent to the door and for the first time I was drawn to the Bible that had aways been there. Why, I know now because God had something to tell me that day, I wouldn’t remember, or know it was His voice or what He was telling me until I was 34.I walked over to the table, I picked that big, white gold trimmed Bible up with Jesus face on it and took it out on the balcony with me. I climbed up in a wicker chair and just held it in my lap for a moment, as I looked up at the bay that day there was a storm rolling in all the boats were tucked tightly in their docks. The wind would blow gently then stronger, the smell of the air, that salty air coming off the Gulf was my favorite smell and I remember it well. Once I took all that in for a moment I looked down at the Bible in my lap and opened it to the only place I knew, the 23 Psalms, and for the first time in my 9 years I read God’s Word. Sitting on a balcony with a storm rolling in, God lead a little girl to the words that would one day answer all the questions she was throwing at Him and I would finally see He had me the whole time, even before I ever knew Him.

This moment on the balcony happened only days before my searching parent came to my school, causing the biggest fight I’d ever seen between my known parents. A 9 year secret revealed in a very unnurturing way to little girl. The 72 hour total move to my best friends house miles and miles away, to the school I was kidnapped from, the months of being with strangers, to the broken addiction ridden, abusive home I would learn to survive in for many years to come and so on.

God knew what was about to go down.

God knew the storm that was rolling in.

God knew it would be many many years before I would come to know Him and hear His voice but that didn’t stop God from moving then so to calm His child twenty five years later; So that in my weakest, most vulnerable time I could see He had been there from the beginning.

What He said that day through the 23 Psalms, through that moment as the storm that would forever change my life rolled in..

I’m right here my child and I’ll never leave you. You don’t know me yet, but there is a storm rolling in. You never have to worry I’ve got you always, you are mine and I will make good of all that’s about to happen to you. Hold on my daughter one day you will understand My Words, know My Voice and I will show you why. I love you!!