Our daughter brought us so much joy! The first moment I saw her, I saw my biological mother. She changed so quickly and in just a few days, she seemed to look more like her daddy. She was just beautiful and my heart melted!
However, I was scared out of my mind! I was such a tomboy, I wondered how in the world I was going to raise a little girl! I had never really been into dresses or make up and just lived plainly. I even wondered how my hubby ever found me attractive! But that little girl caused something more than my heart to stir!
Something deep within me set fire and I had to do something! I thought God was with me all these years but somehow He caused a bigger part of me to open up! I thought about all the things I did growing up and felt shame! I didn’t think I was that bad, but those moments I was, a feeling of having to call and apologize and make things right washed over me. A feeling of wanting to teach my children about God and the importance of everything was overwhelming!
I had a powerful voice within telling me I had to protect this baby in my arms at all costs! I thought of those individuals who apologized to me for being mean and bullying me and felt ashamed that I myself hadn’t recognized I needed to do the same! Unselfishness flooded out! Those people I knew that I hurt, I was making phone calls or talking to them. I did everything I could to make things right. They deserved that same feeling I received and I tried to make things up to some of them.
I set out on the next level God took me. I saw Him in a new light and had to find out more. There was a Christian family who worked on the farm before and after my husband and I were married and it happened to be the same family as the friend I went to King’s Island with. I started asking so many questions because I really didn’t understand the Bible and they did.
I started diving into the Bible more and more. The feeling of having to make things right washed over me just like that, but learning His Word was taking time. There was that nagging feeling within that needed to be settled and I just wasn’t sure how to handle it!
Someone introduced me to a Bible Concordance. A Concordance is a book with every word in the Bible listed in alphabetical order. When you look a certain word up, it will show you the verse or verses in the Bible where you can find each word spoken of. I asked a church friend who read and studied her Bible faithfully what Bible she used and she told me to start with a Life Application Bible.
If I was going to be responsible for raising our daughter God’s way, I knew I had to know for myself exactly what He wanted of me. I bought a Life Application Bible and a Concordance and set out using the Concordance as a guide to my everyday wonders when things came up. I would read the verses and the explanations beneath the verses on the bottom of each page to help me understand better what each verse meant.
