I am clean

Have you ever searched and searched in the darkest and dirtiest places to try and figure out who you were? Only to find out that those places aren't the places that will allow you to know and determine who God truly created you to be? Let's go on a small journey of just a couple years of my life and just keep in mind where I was is NOT where I am now! All glory to God.

I grew up attending church as a young girl with my family. But just like many others, I heard the word and recited scriptures and worship songs, but really didn't know what they meant to me personally. At about the age of twenty four... I decided to leave a serious relationship that I was committed to for about seven years in which I had two children and I was engaged. Along with many other reasons, what made me walk away this time was the fact that he began to belittle me in talking about how overweight I was (after having two children and miscarrying one in between the two). To top it off he began checking other females out. One in particular I remember clearly he tried to get her phone number and spoke about how beautiful one of her body parts were. Now you can only imagine as a woman how that made me feel. We ended up going our separate ways because I felt it was best. I was this single mother of two who was now insecure and unhappy with what my body looked like after my children (especially after my daughter).

I began to get involved with this man that I met at my job as a server. He was eleven years older than me, drove a fancy car and owned his own business. I thought he had it all and that allowed me to feel butterflies inside. A feeling that I had not felt in a very long time. Only problem is... he was married and not a believer. I have always thought highly of marriage, but this time it was different. All my beliefs and morals as a woman, a mother, a future wife and a child of the King went out the window. I was seeking and desperate to feel loved and wanted. But in all the wrong places. That relationship allowed me to be this person in church and another behind closed doors. Living two-faced. I hated it, because I knew deep inside I was wrong and I no longer wanted to live this way, but it felt so good to my fleshly needs and desires. A grown man who has his own, says he loves me, wants me and doesn't have to be committed to me because he was already committed seemed so right, so fun and wild. Eventually, it got tiring after a while to hear, "I can't leave my wife (as he promised he would) because of my kids". About two and a half years went by and after many times we broke things off and tried to leave one another alone, but we just couldn't because it was years of this illusion that me being his mistress seemed perfect to us and it just worked for us. I was tired mentally and emotionally. I wanted to be a wife and raise my kids with someone and I couldn't have that with him. During this time I was still attending church as if I was this good church girl. I prayed over and over and asked God to do something drastic so that I could have to separate myself from him and never feel the pull to go back. My prayers were answered. During the three years of our relationship I lent this man over $3,000.00and he didn't want to pay it back in full. His wife already knew about us and threatened to take the kids if he kept on dealing with me, but he still did. The more he ignored my calls about the money the angrier I got. So, I went to his house and honked the horn over and over causing a scene. He became furious as his son stood at the glass door and my kids in the back seat. He reached over as I called his wife, ripped the phone out my hand and bashed my head into the glass window. Mind you his wife heard everything because it was on her voicemail. We yelled and screamed and he headbutt me in the eye causing a huge black and blue mark. I screamed that all I wanted was my money. But after he bruised my eye and I saw my children frantic in the backseat the best thing to do was just leave in a hurry before I was taken out in a body bag. It was a long journey of court hearings involving this situation but that was my answered prayer to, "Lord do something drastic so that I don't have to deal with him anymore", and God heard me. Sad that it took that to happen but I was glad because I needed to be done. After that I still continued to do things that was unpleasing unto the Lord. I continued to look for love and an example of a man and husband in the wrong people. I began going out and having "fun" thinking that I would find a good man in a bad place. Not saying that hasn't happened before but as for my story that wasn't it. I began being intimate with different guys who I knew and were friends with. No they weren't strangers, they were people who I had known for some time and I thought that maybe one of them would love me and want to be with me since they already knew me. But they took what they wanted and left. It wasn't just one time either. When things didn't work out with one I would move on to the next in search of my forever person. The longer this occurred the more I felt unworthy and not good enough for anyone. Yes, I still attended church during all this too but I knew there had to be more than just these guys using me, feeling pleasure but for a moment and then feeling the void and loneliness every night as I slept by myself day after day for months that turned into years.

I began getting emotionally drained, tired and fed up with the lies and games. God wanted to be my everything. He wanted me to know that all that I had been through and all I had been with could not fill that emptiness and thirst that I had longed for. In Psalm 107:9 it says, God will satisfy the longing of our souls. Until I took a grasp of that to know that He is and already was my everything it was hard for me to stop doing the things I was doing. I knew I deserved more. I knew that just wasn't it to what God intended for love and relationships to be. I knew it was unpleasing to God and that He was not happy with those decisions I made as a woman who was brought up in church and with respect. I was on a search for what God wanted for me and what God had for me. I searched in the wrong places rather looking into His word for it. I took a detour and I learned a lot and seen a lot and felt many things I would never want anyone to feel. I know my story is my story for a reason. God never left me. I left Him and I'm so glad that He never gave up on me even in my dirtiest moments in my life.

Psalm 145:18-19 The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. He fulfills the desires of those who fear him; he hears their cry and saves them.

I gave my heart back to Christ and was baptized in 2013 and I was washed clean. As an adult woman I am still learning who I am in Christ and who He has created me to be. I have built my relationship with God. One that I have never had before. Had I known back then who I was in Christ, I would have never settled for anything less, than God's best for my life.

I currently have four beautiful children and am happily married to the greatest man that God created for me, who loves me for me. Never judging any of my past mistakes or viewing me any differently. Instead he embraced me and loves me even more. He was destined for my life. God knows who you need and when you need them. Had he brought Kenny into my life any sooner than His timing I probably would have messed that up. I encourage you all to wait for God's timing as it is THE perfect timing.

The song "Clean" by Natalie Grant is what I cling to in relation to my story because He has washed me clean.

I am not who I was, I am not my past, and I am not what I did!

"There's nothing too dirty, that you can't make worthy, you washed me in mercy... I am clean" ~ Natalie Grant

Josilyne Thomas