The Sovereignty of God
“Don’t call me, I’ll call you!” I said to my fiancée, Ray, with no intention of calling him ever again. “I do not want to hear your voice or see your face! I need space, and I don’t think it’s going to end well.”
To say I was extremely annoyed was the understatement of the year. After 13 years of being single, it was just two weeks out from our wedding and I’d just hit a major red flag. The trip back to Ruawai from Auckland was black. I felt absolutely wretched and was wracked with doubts so strong they felt stained with psychosis. Having gone to such mental depths in the past as a meth-addict, sometimes I felt things getting a little unhinged in extreme circumstances. I internalised my torment and lost about a kilogram of weight with each day that passed. I spoke to no one. Only God knew what I was going through. It was my own, private hell.
Ray threw himself on the Lord, as was his habit, and waited until he heard the Lord speak. And hear, he did. “Leave her to Me.”
I’d met Ray at a book trade conference about a month earlier after publishing my memoir from meth-addiction to redemption, The Wild Side. Ray had picked up my book and devoured it overnight, totally rapt with the story. We kept in touch and fell in love over the keyboard in the following weeks. It was like a chick flick. I hate chick flicks. I prefer war movies. My doubts weren’t that unreasonable as I hardly knew the guy. For all I knew, he could have been a total fraud, like one of those freaks you hear about on Tinder. I had the speed wobbles. I was literally taking his word that he was who he said he was. The flames of doubt licking at my mind were being doused in gasoline with a high-pressure hose by agents of Satan. The destiny thieves.
The phone rang. It was Mary, my beautiful friend who prayed my mother and me into the kingdom of God. The Mary who God used to put angels in between me and the evil spirit that was seeking my demise in Chapter 4 of The Wild Side. She was my real-life guardian angel and faithful friend for a lifetime.
“Are you going to see Pastor Abraham Charles tonight?” she asked.
“I don’t know...”
“Are you OK? Is something wrong?”
“I’m just working through something, I’ll be OK, thanks Mary.”
I didn’t want to get into it with her. I was feeling much too bad to go anywhere, but somehow, I knew I had to drag my bones there. Pastor Abraham Charles is an anointed man of God from the UK who held meetings with 30,000 people in attendance. People often waited 8 hours in line just for him to pray for them. And he came to little old Ruawai every year. The place was packed with people who didn’t even usually go to church. The lost, the sick and the desperate. I marched in, blind to everyone, sat straight down and put both my arms straight up in the air with my eyes tightly shut. I was desperate to connect with the living God, and I meant business. People were still finding their seats; the service hadn’t even started. My wretched heart screamed out to God for relief, to help make sense of the doubts in my head, and pain in my heart.
Pastor Abraham’s voice brought me back to earth.
“You there. With your arms in the air.” I opened my eyes to see him pointing at me. “There’s glory all over you. Come up here.”
I made my way to the front, but I was confused. I would have thought glory felt good. I couldn’t feel any glory. I stopped in front of him. The eyes of the town were fixed upon me.
“I can see doubts all over you,” he said, moving his finger in a circular motion in front of me as he spoke.
“Well, yea!” I said, rather too loudly.
“God wants to blow them all away, right now,” and he did the strangest thing. He blew, and as he blew at me, a large force pushed me backwards before I could even comprehend what was happening. My feet were trying to keep up, so I didn’t fall over backwards, and people were popping out of the rows to catch me.
“DON’T TOUCH HER! IT’S THE LORD!”
By the time my mind caught up, I’d come to a halt just in front of the sound desk. ‘Wow,’ I thought, ‘that was freaky…’
“Come back here!” he said impatiently. I went back and stood in front of Pastor Abraham once again. “There’s a new anointing here for you. Do you want it?”
“Yes!”
“Well, hold your arms up and receive it,” he said, and prayed it down for me. My heart was positioned to receive a new anointing to empower me through the next chapter of my story… married bliss.
I coasted home feeling like I was on angels’ wings, marveling at the sovereignty of God and the sometimes miraculous and always wonderous ways He brings about His purposes in our lives. No matter what it looks like. He is sovereign. There was going to be a wedding after all.
Six years’ later, it hasn’t always been easy, but it is definitely a match made in Heaven. Our marriage was never really about us, it was always about so much more. The Lord has built an indie publishing company which helps Christian authors bless the world with their books. Now we stand on the verge of another new adventure - a unique, new rural respite centre to love and care for the broken and needy among us based in Northland. If He can do this with two everyday people like Ray and I, imagine what He will do with you! Let go and let God…
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts,” (Isaiah 55:8-9).
But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. (Hebrews 11:6)
Janet xox
If you don’t know Jesus as your Lord and Saviour, and want to, pray:
“Lord, I surrender my life to You. I ask forgiveness for my sins. By faith I receive the gift of eternal life. I ask that You baptise me with your Holy Spirit. Thank you for setting everything right between You and me. Show me the way forward with You, in Jesus’ name, Amen.”
Congratulations, you’ve just made the most important decision of your life. Now ask God to show you a good church to be a part of, and bring the right people around you, and He will.
If you’re not sure, and want to know if God is real, pray this (even quietly in your heart):
“God, if you’re real, show Yourself to me.”
Hear my story in podcast with Megan McChesney, Back from the Abyss
Visit janetbalcombe.com to learn more about my books, other blogs, or to connect with me. To see what else I’m up to, visit: wildsidetrust.org, wildsideministries.com and wildsidedesign.net
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! -2 Corinthians 5:17
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. -Romans 12:2
Put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. -Ephesians 4:22-24