I've had many people ask me what my speech was about that I gave this last Tuesday evening at a Christian Ladies Auxiliary Meeting. Needless to say, I ended up just speaking from my heart and didn't follow what I had written out. Just before I began to speak, I had the song, "Whatever It Takes," by Phillips, Craig & Dean played. This set the mood for what I wanted to speak about. Please enjoy what was meant to be said, but what wasn't. *chuckle* -AbbyI have been blessed with the gift of loving to write. For awhile, I was a journalist for the local newspaper in a community we had lived in down in Florida. During the time of my articles getting published each week, I began to witness miracles from what I had written about.
Trust me, I was in total awe of this! After sometime of witnessing these miracles, I began to realize this was the intended path God wanted me to take. My next step was to write books and become Abigail Lurae. That’s the nice thing about being an author, you can go by another name if you don’t like your own name.
My first book came out onto the market in 2008, entitled Graceful Reflections. It’s a book about how one lady endured domestic violence during the years there weren’t any laws on the books to protect her from spousal abuse. During the course of living through this, she lost what mattered to her most, her children… The names have been changed in this book, but the story is mirrored after my life.
I think, in God’s great scheme of things for my life, I was set from the very beginning to experience the path of being broken of heart and eventually spirit. Now, I’m not saying that is a bad thing because it’s not. I do believe God has a special purpose for me and I needed to learn what it was that He wanted to teach me in order to be where I am and where He’s led me to be today.
Since I’ve started doing the talk radio shows on the internet as a guest on various programs, I’ve spoken with others whom have recognized what God’s calling is for me before I’ve even recognized it myself. All I knew was, I wanted to help others. Anyway, These few selected people I know, have grinned from ear to ear as they have said to me, “Oh, the Lord has prepared you well! Your calling is to help others by inspiring them and helping them pull themselves up out of the dungeons of their mental vises and making them aware of His greatest lesson they must learn, which becomes their greatest gift from Him.”
Now, I know I have inspired others through my testimony of what I’ve been through, (without trial, there is no testimony,) ‘Let go, let God,’ like the saying goes. I just pray, with inspiring others, it is my hope I’m helping the down trodden whom are weak in spirit and helping the others to regain their strength.
When I wrote my first book, Graceful Reflections, it was done as a venting and cleansing process for me. All of my life, I have been abused, but the worst abuse came after marrying my ex-husband and being married for numerous years to him. That period of time had completely demolished any self-worth and self esteem that I had as all through my years here on this earth, I was losing any sense of myself, piece by piece- year by year- and in the end, I lost everything that ever mattered to me. I had many emotions to work through as I wrote. If you were to read my first book, it will certainly appear that the pain was great, almost unbearable to rehash and relive. The chapters are short and my thought processes only skim the surface of what had happened and what had occurred.
From birth, God has instilled a heart within me that is filled with love, not only for myself, (which is an aspect I had lost for a long time, or in all actuality, I never really had grasped it to begin with,) but, my love is for all of mankind. I’ve always said, “I have a heart that just won’t quit.” The mental and emotional pain I have gone through, I attribute a lot of it to my heart and have carried many souls within it’s depths by never giving up on them.
I’ve got to give God the glory though, not only for the heart He blessed me with, but for the gift of writing as He stood by me while I was penning out my tormented pain and my shattered love. During the course of letting every single emotion known to mankind flood out of me, He was there, picking up the pieces and teaching me as I continued to write. It is now my mission, (I think,) to speak for Him as I truly believe, He is using me as His vessel to try to reach out to those whom have suffered and to those whom are suffering in silence; possibly make others aware of this malignant evilness that is spreading all around the world too.
The best way I could do this was to write the testimony of my life, which is now currently my third book in the makings and have the intertwining of the Graceful Reflections characters within the pages. It’s a true story, one that has been lived through, suffered through, and one where, when God was finally allowed to take over, while realization and peace of mind has become the predominate factor. I am His humble servant…
There are a couple of other things I want to add. I have one rule that I try to live by and this one rule was also instilled in me by my grandmother… “Do unto others as you would want others to do unto you.”
With me personally trying to live by this, I never could understand why others felt it necessary to do to me, what they did. Even to this day, I still don’t understand other than the possible fact, they might have felt intimidated by me, or the devil had a firm grip on them.
The other thing I wanted to mention, there is a section in the Bible I dearly love. It is in Matthew, Chapter 5, verses 3-11, (the Beatitudes.)
3. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
5. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
6. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.
7. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
8. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
9. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God.
10. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11. Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake.
Such powerful verses! When I read them, it’s almost like I can hear Jesus speaking His words and nourishing them all over again within my heart to continue to grow. The Beatitudes are rooted there and have been ever since I was a child. I remember falling in love with these verses way back then. They are my food for thought, my inspiration and my guidance.
The person I am today, is someone who has been saved by the grace and love, one, I never realized that it existed - I was broken and have been through hell- been there and back again. I hate everything that I have had to endure, but God gave me the strength to go on- to continue on when I thought there was no need for me even to be here. You have no idea of how much I wanted to end it all. Even in death, (within my own mind,) I wanted out- I wanted peace.
The thought of death became my comfort as it would end everything in this world for me. Unfortunately, or fortunately. I was afraid to end it all- I didn’t have the courage to end it on my own. I had been brought up to believe, if you killed yourself, it was an unforgivable sin to do so.
Even as a child, I learned about God… I had respect as it was drilled into me.
Truthfully, I never understood what my purpose was in life until a few years ago. After I learned how to forgive, it was then I understood.
God is so awesome! His tender love and grace, is so very awesome! Life is short- why contemplate on all that holds us prisoner here? Anger, hate- why must we be victims to such? I was a victim of domestic violence- but, I am no longer a victim!!!
How do you learn to free yourself of this? It’s an individual process, one that you must be willing to take.
When you have reached rock bottom- there is no where else to go except up. I reached that- I cried, I screamed- my heart felt as if it were torn and shredded into pieces. I felt as if I had reached my end- Then this gentle, quiet, voice said, “no!” It was a voice within me- one that spoke with clarity. I could feel this voice come from the depths of my heart and the depths of my soul.
I was confused. People accept this voice as, the sub-consicious, as the good or the bad. The good or the evil.
I had so much to work out within myself. God kept on telling me to write Graceful Reflections, (He was an agonizing pain about this too,) but while I was writing it and penning out every emotion known to mankind, He patiently taught me the art of learning how to forgive in the process.
Now, I will admit, it was easier to forgive those who had hurt me, than it was learning how to forgive myself, that was a battle and half! But I had to do this in order to continue on and become an advocate, not only for Domestic Violence victims, but for God as well…
Forgiving is a long hard process. It is something you learn within yourself and within the circumference of yourself, it‘s not an over night thing either. It is something you have to do on your own. Remember the saying, “In order to forget, you must forgive?” I have forgotten most of the transgressions made against me, and others are there in my memory for educational purposes, lessons to be passed on- God has cleared my mind and my heart of everything ugly from what I call, my dark days. I don’t ever want to relive them as God has granted me the strength to forgive, and such a relief it is.
Since allowing our Heavenly Father to guide my days, and me giving Him my heart and soul in return, my eyes have been opened up to each and every blessing, no matter how small, how trying or how incredibly awesome it is. God has blessed me abundantly with love, and being able to come full circle with what needed a healing hand.
God has done whatever it has taken to bring me back to where I belong… and that is home.
