How many of you have made the statement” when I grow up, I’m not going to be like my parents?” They appear to you to be to controlling or restrictive.  How many of you have heard in conversation your name affiliated with being  the wayward child? I was that child, out of 8 children I was most likely to do anything against the norm.

I considered it an adventurous nature, I seem to always do what was not expected from a young girl. While my piers were listening to rock and roll; I preferred jazz, easy listening music and classical’s.  While other girls were still playing with dolls and jumping rope, I was playing basketball and baseball.

It seems I have been a forward thinker for some time, my dream was to be a Ballet dancer, great musician or a poet; however, I was moving through my life to fast.  I kept my mother on her knees in prayer. The simple carefree life of a young adult had lost it’s charm.

Much to soon I found myself caught up in a world I wasn’t prepared for even though I thought I was ready. I was just having fun; the bright lights, music, dancing, drugs, and let’s not forget alcohol were just ways to entertain myself.  When I look back I can admit I was a very wayward child.

Drowning in a cesspool of sin, not realizing how lost I had become; darkness was consuming my life. My joy was artificial, my smile false, and my hope fleeting.  On the surface life was good, it was the quiet times alone with myself that reality stared me in the face; not allowing me to hide from the hopelessness growing inside me.

Has anyone ever felt this way? can you identify with this? I would hate to think I was the only one. However, I found a glimmer of light in a children’s song; “Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so.” I started a journey to find him, to seek his face; I needed to know who Jesus was and how he could help me.

I called on his name, asked for his help and presence in my life; then I surrendered to his will.  All the results of prayer on my behalf by a praying mother.  He enclosed me in his love; the darkness fled, My was joy restored,  and my life renewed. Hope is not lost, we do not have to remain wayward children.

Jesus can help us move from the stagnation of our past into the bright light of his renewing love. In him we can find new life, only his light of love can dispel the darkness of this world and break the hold of sin on our lives. He came , died, and rose again that we might have life and that more abundantly.

My revelation as I sit by the pool of grace.