Pain consumed me but I quickly learned where to run to for safety. No longer did I find myself sitting on the bathroom floor with a razor blade. Times of getting totally drunk were over. I had a new strategy – to run! Not to run away but to run to! When I started to feel a wave of remorse, regret or guilt I would run to my strong tower.
Proverbs 18:10
The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe.
Imagine a little girl falling over and bruising her knee. She slowly gets up and starts to run. Where does she run to? Does she run away from or does she run to her mommy or daddy? Of course she doesn’t run away, that would be strange. She longs for comfort and something that will take the pain away. She runs to the one who will do just that for her. It is instinctive, she doesn’t have to weigh up the pros and cons and make a wise informed decision. No of course not. She falls, she gets hurt, and she gets up and runs to her daddy.
As soon as her daddy becomes aware of the situation he puts his arms out to her and lifts her up. He is concerned and asks where it hurts. His first reaction is concern not judgement. The father doesn’t say to the little girl, “What were you doing wrong to have fallen!” He is not concerned in the slightest at this point about what caused the pain he simply wants to soothe the pain for his little girl. Perhaps later on or another day he might have a chat with the little girl about what she did wrong to cause the pain. His only motivation of course would be so that she didn’t hurt herself again, so that she could avoid danger.
God is no different from any loving parent! He is a daddy. When we run to Him He will pick us up. When we are hurting He will be concerned about the hurt first, not the thing that we perhaps did wrong to get hurt. If He does tell us off for doing something silly it is only because He doesn’t want us to get hurt again. He is a loving Father, the perfect Father, our dream Father. Best of all He loves us, totally, utterly and completely. I quickly learned how to run to Him when my heart was aching. Every time I felt hurt I would call out to Him. I would sometimes just say,
“Father God I am hurting so badly right now.”
I would sit in His presence and allow the warmth of His embrace to hold me. Unless you have ever needed God like I did, you may not know what I am talking about. Try it. Go and sit down somewhere private and ask God to be with you. It is so precious; you will see what I mean. It’s like a hug from heaven!
Jesus made this possible. Jesus is my prince. Jesus made a way for me to have access to God whenever I want. My sin separated me from God because God is perfect and can have nothing to do with the filth of my sin. Jesus came to earth as a human, fulfilled the law that was required by God, took the punishment that I should have had thereby paying the full price for my sin. The wages of sin is death. The price I was supposed to pay for my sin was death. I deserved to be stoned and beaten to death. That was what the law required. Jesus rescued me; He took my place and paid the wages of sin. He died so that I could live. He did it knowing that I would take Him for granted. He did it knowing that I would turn my back on Him several times in my life. Knowing everything about me, He still died a horrible death, so that when I needed a hug from God I could freely go to Him. I am so humbled by His grace. I didn’t deserve what He did for me and there is no way I can ever repay Jesus for what He did for me. My aim is to love Him as much as I can and lead the best possible life that I can from now on. Not because it will make Him love me anymore – He already loves me to the maximum that it is possible for Him to love me. Not because I think it will get me points to get into heaven. Oh no, I am sure of my place in heaven even on my worse days. My aim to live a great life is purely to bring Him pleasure. I want to make God happy. I want to put a smile on His face. I want Him to know how grateful I am for everything that He has done for me.
I am rescued by my Prince and I am eternally grateful. So on the days when I was suffering with the consequences of my poor choices, I ran to God. Not because I deserved the attention He would give me, but because I needed a daddy to run to that would pick me up and love me and tell me that everything was going to be OK.
The Hebrew word for tower from Proverbs 18:10 is ‘migdal, migdalah’ and comes from the root word ‘gadal’ which means; a tower (from its size or height); by analogy a rostrum; figuratively a (pyramidal) bed of flowers: - castle, flower, pulpit, tower.
I don’t have to wish life was a fairy tale – it is! My prince isn’t imaginary - He is real and He has rescued me! And to think that I wasted most of my life searching for love in all the wrong places, while Jesus patiently stood by waiting for me to come to Him!
After running to Jesus I few times I started writing things down. I loved writing and thought it would be a great way to monitor my progress. Most of all I expressed myself best when I wrote so I kept a diary that was specifically for me and Jesus. Instead of writing ‘Dear Diary’ I wrote ‘Dear Jesus’. Here is a letter that I wrote to Jesus and His reply... yes He replies to my letters too.
You will have to read the book to find out what I wrote to Jesus and what He wrote back, find out more here or purchase it on Amazon.com or pre-order for a 1st June release from Amazon.co.uk.
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