Trust No One

Pss. 25:2 O my God, I trust in thee: let me not be ashamed, let not mine enemies triumph over me.

Yeah, this was said numerous times on X-Files, but this was my motto years before X-Files came along! I just don’t trust very easy because I have been fed lies all of my life, never allowing me to open up and place trust in anyone.

I couldn’t trust the Catholic Church, they denied me my confirmation; a confirmation that I was the first in my family ever to be denied. I couldn’t trust my brothers and sister; they were too busy feeding me cigarettes and pot to keep the baby blabber-mouth quiet. I couldn’t trust my mother and father; they were too busy dragging me, the baby of the family, from bar to bar while they filled their need. (Wonder where I picked up the habits?) I couldn’t trust the very few friends that I had because they were too busy stabbing me in the back.

So who did I have to trust as a child? I’ll tell you quite frankly, it was God! He was the only one that I could put my trust in and not once did He ever let me down. Not once! This is why my faith became solidified. I had found that I could trust no one but I could always trust Him.

Ruth 2:12 The LORD recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the LORD God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust.

Now if any of my family members were to read this blog, they’d sit in shame of all my tales but they know them to be true, but yes, they are ashamed. They are like the ostrich sticking their heads in the sand, struggling through life but never getting it off their chest harboring ill feelings to each and every family member left surviving.

I am the baby of six children. I have four brothers and a sister and only one of us made it out somewhat sane, but he too has his own issues, his own view of the truth. They all say I was spoiled and given everything. I was the baby, I was taken everywhere because I was too young to stay home alone and have parties.

By the time I was ten my oldest brother was turning 20, served in the marines, married and out and about in life. The next in line brother was 19 hanging out at the house smoking pot and greens that permeated the entire house drawing a blind eye from my drunken parents who were in bed. My next two brothers all suffered their own delusion and couldn’t wait to get out, but the youngest of the brothers wanted to molest his sisters first before becoming a sofa sleeping lazy bum. He went on to a better life with marriage an illegitimate daughter and a nice house, but all my family is about possessions.

Pss. 16: 1 Preserve me, O God: for in thee do I put my trust.

They let me down. Trust was broken and even in my twenty-year marriage, where I trusted my husband; he too let me down and still does to this day with the neglecting of his now almost 18 year-old son.

Gee, I can’t figure out why I trust no one, can you?

I looked out at the intimidating world wanting to be out there and that is what I did, left my hometown, my husband, and shacked up with a man living in Texas. Granted my parents have been married almost 60 sixty years, two of my brothers have long marriages, my two eldest brothers both have failed marriages and one is a squatter living home to home drug addict, while my eldest brother is in Tennessee somewhere trying to look normal.

And still, I go on after ten years with this man and still, trust no one but my Lord and Savior.

Pss.18: 2 The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.

Persecuted for Christ

 1 Pet. 4:16 Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf.

I don’t claim to be anything other than a Christian, and in my walk with the Lord I have been persecuted, shunned, blind sided, tormented and teased. Why would you be persecuted, some might ask? Well let me tell you.

Pss 119:161 Princes have persecuted me without a cause: but my heart standeth in awe of thy word.

When I was about fourteen years old, I claimed Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and all that that entailed. I had went to Catholic school eight years of my life, and it was the Catholic religion who introduced me to Christ, Mary, Abraham and the Laws, but also as a child I yearned for more. Since my own family was dysfunctionally wrapped in alcohol and drugs, I knew there had to be more out in this world, so I sought.

I entered a Christian school and that is when I became a ‘born again’ Christian. I came home so excited to share the news with my family, to share with them that I had found JESUS! And that He washed my soul and cleansed my spirit! Sadly, as my voice echoed through the house, the news fell on deaf ears. “What is that school doing to you, brainwashing you?” Taunted, teased.

John 3:3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

The Catholic church had earlier denied me the confirmation ‘rite’ because they said I didn’t grasp the Holy Spirit, so I was denied confirmation by the Catholic church, but not by God himself.  I had failed to tell a priest my sins, and I told Sr. Margaret Mary that no man had the power within him to forgive me of my sins. She smiled and said, I think you understand the Holy Spirit just fine. She allowed me to attend the confirmation of my classmates, but to sit on the balcony overlooking the service. Through the service and prayer, God Himself confirmed me, and as tears dripped from the balcony to Sr. Margaret Mary’s hand as they proceeded out of the church, I knew, I had been touched by God.

Pss. 143:3 For the enemy hath persecuted my soul; he hath smitten my life down to the ground; he hath made me to dwell in darkness, as those that have been long dead.

I didn’t hold anything against the Catholic church, and surely didn’t allow the situation to shape my walk with Christ. I wanted more of what I had been touched with, and that is when I converted to Christianity, at fourteen. My family didn’t accept my faith, they just shrugged it off as another one of Joni’s phases. It was a phase that to this day, I have not gotten over and never will, not even until the day I meet my maker in the glorious doorway that He has opened for me.  To this day I am still washed with His grace.

John 15: 20 Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.

No one understood, that when I became born again, my fleshly person died and I became an earthly creature of the spirit. I abhorred earthly things like materialism, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness and all those negative things that tried to control my life.

John 3:12 If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?

That is also when Satan decided to circle me and dangle temptations in my face like a pacifier to an infant, a young child who knew no better than what my family had shown me. I dove into drugs and alcohol, until one day, as I lay in my own vomit after dying and being breathed back into existence, by an ‘unknown-to-you-but-known-to-me’ FORCE, I charged ahead as a Christian soldier, spitting in Satan and all his minions faces!

Gal. 4: 29 But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now.

On the day I was saved it did not make me a non-sinner, it made me AWARE of my sins, when I sinned, I CHOSE to sin. But as a FOLLOWER of Christ, I CHOOSE not to walk in the way of sin also. Christ was showing me a better way of life; I absorbed His love like a plant clipping placed in water, I drank, quenched my thirst, and grew with Him. Satan was angered by my closeness to Christ!

Gal 2:17 But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid.

I have been sober for almost 25 years now. And CHOOSE not to be a follower of men and Satan and his temptations but a LEADER in the community for Christ!

I leave you with this:

Jas. 8:8 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.
 
1 The. 5:6 Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.
 
1 Pet. 5:8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: