Hi, my name is Ginger. I am 70-years-old. I was married for 43 years. I have four children and I have 10 grandchildren. I was raised in central Florida in a very middle class home. I did not experience pain or tragedy, but neither did I experience a great joy or a sense of purpose. I was a very rebellious teenager. As I entered my 20s, I was lost. I was groping around in the dark. I thought I had to figure out everything for myself. I didn't know God. When I turned 24, I married the love of my life and we quickly had two children. This was God's Kairos moment.
I might need to say that a Kairos moment is the perfect time. God's time is always perfect, and this was the perfect time in my life. We decided that as good parents, that we needed to expose our children to God, like you might expose a child to measles. We needed to take our children to church. God took that very small opening. I like to say he put his foot in the door and he didn't take it out. That was 43 years ago in the spring of 1970. God wakened my spirit at that time, but it would take many years for him to soften and heal my stony heart.
The journey has been one day at a time. God called me to be his child and that call has been one of learning to be broken bread and poured out one. When I say he's called me to be broken bread, I think of a grain of wheat. A grain of wheat before it can become bread has to be ground up and put through the oven. And you can't drink grapes, they have to be crushed and made into wine. That's what my life has been. It's been he's making me into his image. His word promise is that when I stand in front of him, I'm going to be like him. I mean, how good is that? He was broken bread and poured out wine, and that's what he calls me to be. My most difficult trial came three years ago when the love of my life died. I like to think of it as him leaving the land of the dying and going to be with Jesus in the land of the living.
The Lord is truly near to those who are crushed in spirit and brokenhearted. He saves them. In the depths of my grief, he gave me a picture of that hope. It's Song of Songs, who is this coming up from the wilderness, leaning on her beloved? I knew that Jesus would bring me through even this. A year later, I was diagnosed with a very aggressive breast cancer.
I have walked through the valley of the shadow of death. He showed me that when you walk through the valley, when you walk in a shadow, that there was a great mountain between me and the light. That great mountain was death. He said, "Fear no evil, for I'm with you." And he is. I am his child. I am a delight to his heart. That might be hard for some people who know me to believe that, but I am on delight to his heart.
Mercy holds my left hand and grace holds my right hand, and he is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Amen.