In the Beginning...Where Life is Created

Monday, January 1st, 2018.

It's like the perfect start over day, isn't it? First day of the year on the mental first day of the week. It is the perfect "1st of the new stuff" day.

Genesis 1:1 says, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." Verse 2 tells us it was empty and dark, and God was hovering in the dark.

Some of you don’t know our story, so let me summarize. In 2010-2011, our lives were carpet bombed. Here is what I mean:
June 29, 2010—My husband of 19 years moved out
July 21, 2010—My mom went into the hospital presenting stroke symptoms, but it wasn’t a stroke. She had three large masses and 40+ lesions in her brain plus a huge mass on her lungs
August 2, 2010—I told Mom she was terminal and had two months to live
August 18, 2010—Mom threatened my stepdad with a gun and came to live with us
August 28, 2010—I moved Mom back home because she was moving into a horrible depression and just wanted to be in her house
September 27, 2010—Mom went into the hospital the last time
September 29, 2010—I took Mom home and put her in hospice
October 2, 2010—Mom died
November 1, 2010—My uncle who had been my 2^nd dad was found dead
Thanksgiving 2010—My husband said he wanted a divorce
December 2010—the goal was to get the kids through Christmas
January 11, 2011—I filed for divorce
February 4, 2011—My husband finally told the kids he had no intention of coming home
February 14, 2011—The kids were with my husband all day because I had a leak under my slab and had no water. He dropped them off that night and walked out the door at 9:30.
February 15, 2011, 12:30 am—3 hours after my husband left, the officer was at our door. my husband had been found unresponsive on the side of the road in his car. He was dead.

Those are the “big” things. Along with those were the friends we lost, the families that quit speaking to us, being investigated for murder, the anger and accusations thrown at me, so much more than we are going to rehash here, but you get the point.

By the time the last bomb dropped, our lives looked like dust and mayhem. The only two things that looked familiar to me were my kids and my house. I could relate to Genesis 1:2. My whole life looked formless and dark, and that was a stunning place to be. In fact, I felt like I was in my own personal Genesis 1.

There was nothing to lean on. I found out my husband had a whole other life, and I wondered how much of our marriage had even be true. It was like waking up and wondering if anything I remembered was real or just a mirage. Friendships were gone. My close family was non-existent. Relationships were gone. There was so much that happened that my kids didn’t need to know about, which meant I carried a huge amount of this-can’t-be-real without telling anyone.

It was dark. Horribly dark.

 
And it is easy to get lost in that dark. It is easy to feel like you are utterly alone and you have to figure all this out, and who can figure out how to fix a catastrophe like a personal world ending anyway? And lands! Add trying to find something in the dark chaos for kids to hold onto, and you’ll find yourself in the worst freefall you could ever imagine.

And what do you stand on when everything you used to know is gone and your life has changed so radically that it doesn’t look like anything you recognize anymore?

You stand on the One that never changes.

People have asked me untold times how I got through that period, how I got the kids through that period. I stood on the one thing I knew hadn’t changed.

God.

He had not changed.

He was in the dark with me.

His presence was in the chaos.
He could create anything out of nothing.

Those were the Truths I stood on when I had nowhere else to stand.

In the beginning, God created…

When all the stuff you’ve known is gone, you can see two things: the end of what was or the beginning of what can be.

I chose to see the beginning of what can be in the presence of a God who knows no limits.

In the beginning God created…untold worlds.

He hasn't changed.

He is still creating new worlds and new lives.

 

That is where I stood.

 

I stood on the Truth that God could create a whole new life for me and for my kids. One that wasn't shattered or broken or unrecognizable, but one that was lush and beautiful and full and amazing. One that I could never even imagine because, really, no one imagine the universe before it was created. How could they? It was something totally unknown before God brought it to pass, and that is what I believed God would do with us--bring something we had never known to pass, something amazing, something full of life.

 

And He has.

 

And He can do it for you, too.

 

Praying 2018 is an amazing year of God creating wondrous things in you and your life.

 

Blessings,

Jerri