After the surrender, I knew that things would change. When I finally decided to give God a chance at directing my life, and overwhelming sense of peace and relief came over me.  It was exciting to know that God would be at work in my life and begin blessing me with things that at the time, I had only dreamed of.  My new excitement for this new life turned into many efforts to plug in to God. I began going to church regularly, volunteering, and changing my focus from things of the world to things that I hoped God would give me. I wanted love and stability eventually with a husband and family of my own. As a broken person without God, those things seemed so far away.  Sometimes they seemed truly impossible. As I began sorting through my feelings I had to make the transition from all these negative feelings that I had to beginning to realize that I too was worthy of a great life.

This was not easy.  I began to put all my hope and trust in him. I will admit that I was scared wondering if God would really remember me and begin to give me the blessings and life that I really wanted.  Slowly as I continued to grow deeper in my faith, small blessings and answered prayers began to come. I began to make new friends that would be life long and have success with work and financial stability.  Most importantly living life with God meant tremendous growth in my prayer life.  As I began to pray and read the bible I began to find answers to many of the questions that I had about life.  It was comforting; and the deeper I grew in my commitment the more that God continued to show up in my life.

I often remember encountering people that would express how nice it was the I had found God since they had never had success finding him for themselves.  It helped me to understand that life in the commitment meant that I had to stay faithful. As I began to love God and reflect on the past, there were moments when I realized that He was always there for me. I remember feeling his presence as a little girl just not knowing what it was at the time. In the commitment there are  little moments in time when He confirms that he is there and listening.  Blessings came and challenges were easier since I knew what direction I needed to channel those challenges in. I needed to stop looking to cure my pain with the things of the world, and start letting God work on my heart. Months and years went by in the commitment where there were big changes, and then there were things that seemed to remain unchanged. As I experienced both short changes and prayers still needing to be answered, I began to understand God’s timing in the commitment.  I never knew when the right time would be for answered prayers, but I sure began to understand that God had a specific plan with the perfect orchestration of events that would be available when He was ready.  It wasn’t always easy. The distractions and the false impressions that others were giving about how great their life was sometimes got in the way of my waiting. But one thing remained permanent. The voice of the Holy Spirit continued to confirm to me that as long as I stayed in the commitment, God’s promises would come to pass in my life.

For six years I prayed for a person to spend my life with.  It seemed like an eternity. Everyday I would lift up that desire to God and pray that when the time was right, the perfect soul mate would show up in my life.  I waited and prayed, and waited and prayed. The commitment taught me to be patient no matter what the cost. If I was connected to God and had a real intention to seek him daily, then he would keep his promises to me.  Then one day, it happened.  God’s promise came to pass and finally a prayer had been answered. Confirmation that the commitment was real and always in the works was an overwhelming sense of gratitude that I will never be able to put into words.  During life in the commitment one of my favorite verses comes to mind:

Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her. Luke 1:45

To find out more listen to the radio interview about the commitment; follow the link below.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/oddomi9keizbt5p/AuthorTalk-341543_1.mp3?dl=0