Encouragement for the Ages-Part Six

Have you really screwed up your life? Do you think that you are an utter failure?

I have written five articles to encourage readers to live life to the end always expecting a good outcome and to never give up. Today, I have a few words for those who may be at the front end of life and you already feel defeated.

I am going to share a true story about the wisest and most loving person I know.

To this day she questions the wisdom of her parents, who when she was barely fifteen years old, sanctioned her marriage to a boy who was nearly twenty.

Her first child was born as she reached the ripe old age of seventeen and a half, her second child only fourteen months later. Within a year, not quite twenty years old, two children under three, a cruel and loveless husband, and her marriage of almost five years is falling apart. What does she do?

With mostly heartache and the realization it was only going to get worse, she decided It was time to end it. Being a dedicated Christian, she knew that this was not the life God intended for any of us. She knew divorce was not God’s ideal but because her spouse chose to harden his heart toward her and the children instead of asking God for the kind of Love that they deserved, divorce became her answer.

Consider an inept local attorney who took care of the legal paperwork and convinced the judge to reward her exit from the marriage with the Kenmore washing machine and eighty dollars a month to care for her two children. Then her ex-husband chose to leave the state to avoid paying that paltry sum because he didn’t want his ex living a lavish life off any of his money.

Five years gone, she is back with her parents in a worse state than when she left. Less than a high school education, two kids who depend on her for everything, and she doesn’t even have a car to drive her to a job. Maybe it is time to give up.

Not her. God put His faith in her “As a grain of mustard seed” and instilled in her a strong desire to succeed. She didn’t know how God would do it but better days were coming.

Fast forward forty-five years, a loving husband, a third child, five grandchildren and a lifetime of wisdom to share.

I don’t know how much more about her I will share but please understand that there are relatively few things that you can’t recover from. Trust in God and don’t give up. God will make a way where there is no way.

Wayne Brady 5/18/2013