THE TRUTH OF ALISSA LYNNE

Chapter 12 - The Ending and a New Beginning

At this point, you have read most of my life and some of my thoughts on Jesus. I am praying that you have truly been encouraged thus far. I am blessed to be a child of the Most High God and to know that we are MORE THAN conquers. At this time, I would like to bring you from the beginning of 2006 until the completion of this book.

As you read, I spend the New Year with my sister and her friends; I did not spend it in church. I was still feeling the effects that my husband did not want me; no matter what I said or did, he did not want me. I was starting to allow the anger to fade and feeling the depression set in yet again. I knew that I did not do that, instead of running to Jesus, I ran back to the world. My birthday is Feb 17, and I wanted to do something special for my birthday, well I did not want to be here in Pittsburgh. My sister and I went to Cleveland to hang out with her friends. I was intent on doing things that I knew was wrong. My mission was to find me a man and get me some attention. I was headed back to my old familiar ways, the ways that I knew as safe. I no longer wanted to give my heart to another single person in this world; all I wanted to do was get lost in a sea of nothingness relationships. It was a world that I was comfortable with and a world that meant more to me than anything in this world at that time because it was a place I could be someone that I was not and no one had to know the real me. Well God had other plans for me. I was never more uncomfortable in my life. We went to the bars and out to eat and I felt out of place so much. We finally get to a bar the last night there. At least it played my kind of music. I had been out of that scene for over 8 years so I had no idea what the “in” thing was, but this last bar had my kind of music playing. I was happy! I saw the doorman when we got there, he was checking me out and I was checking him out. After some conversation, I gave him my room information. I knew what I was doing and just wanted to “get it over” with, as I wanted to break into the swing of things again. Well, the guy was to come to the hotel room after the bar closed, and he never showed up. At first, I was thinking I must be too fat for him, or I must not be good enough yet again. I had a thousand things going on in my mind. Well as I was lying there, it was Sunday, February 19 at 4:50 AM, God reminded me of my commitment to Him and how I have done everything but try Him and His ways for my life.

Well that was it, I stopped the madness and said forget it. The next day, I was rid of all my secular music and listened only to gospel music, started attending church even more often than before. I was so tired of hurting and knew that the only way to get through this was to go to church. I concentrated on the Lord and nothing else. I did not want a relationship just some friends to talk to about the Lord.

All of that changed on April 29 – I had just woke up and reading my email, as I had many friends via email that I had met. I was always talking to guys on line still having shades of my past haunting me. I was reading my email and there was a message from a guy from a posting I did. I was reading the email, and he wanted to chat, so I sent him my yahoo id. We started talking via instant messaging, I was trying to make a point about something, and he was not getting the point. He suggested that we talk on the phone, I told him he was nuts – NO WAY! I was just so not into that right away. However, I had a point to make and he was not getting it, so I gave in. He called me and we talked the entire night away. It was real conversation, not trying to get in my pants. We were talking about life but mostly about the Lord. We just talked and talked and talked.

Well, the next morning, he called me to say hello and to tell me to have a lovely day in the Lord, and as we were talking, I asked him if he was a minister, he said yes. Oh, I was too done with that. It was about three weeks prior to talking to him that I dreamt that I was married to a minister, a pastor of a church. I thought there is no way I am going to be a minister’s wife. I decided to make sure I kept it at friends’ level. Well, that was not easy, the more we talked the more I liked his conversation. I had not yet seen a picture of him even though he knew what I looked like. I did not want to ruin the development of the relationship by seeing what he looked like. I knew that if I did, I was most likely going to base everything I thought of him by his picture. I was not a shallow person, but I am a realistic person. We were having a great time getting to know each other and talking about the Lord. I did not want to ruin that with the fact that if he was cute, I would consume myself with trying to “conquer” him and if he were ugly, I would consume myself with wanting to get rid of him. I just did not want to know. Well we talked on the phone, via text message, and snail mail from April until end of June. In June, the old Alissa started creeping in. He was kind, sweet and nice, all those qualities that I did not think I deserved, so what do I do. I dumped him, cold and without an explanation at all. When he insisted on one, I told him I needed to work on my marriage with Jonathan’s dad. It was so far from the truth but he did not know that.

What started to happen was I was missing him and our conversations. We were talking every day up to that point and I was used to him being a part of my life. It scared me to pieces to allow someone to get that close to me, as he was closer to me than any man had been in my life and I had yet to see him face to face. Mind you, I did not even yet know what he looked like. The first three weeks, I would call him to say hello. Well, he was so distant in the conversations, after three phone calls; I waited two weeks and called him. He was a little nicer but the conversation did not last long, it was about 10 minutes, which was unlike all our other conversations. I waited a week next time before calling him. I was used to talking to him every night for hours. I occupied my time with Jesus and not worrying about the relationship, saying in my mind that it is over and that is fine I ended up calling him as I had missed talking to him so much, and feeling somewhat guilty about being so mean to him. I was not happy with the way things ended, as I did not want to lose my friend. I was calling him to at least gain my friend back. What he said to me rocked me to the very core, he was dating again! I faked it as if I was happy for him, but inside my heart was falling apart, I did not want him to have someone else, and I did not want someone else to be a part of his life. I thought to myself this was not fair. We talked for a little bit and then ended the conversation. The next day I called him and just started telling him the truth and how he was and how could he find someone else so fast and that was not fair and all kinds of stuff. I went off on him. Well, we ended up talking and working things out. I was fine for a while, but then old Alissa will creep up. He is wonderful in that aspect and though there are still issues that come up that stem from both of us, God is always the center of the relationship and we allow Him to direct our paths. I praise God for him and pray that we continue to grow together as a couple and in the Lord.

My relationship with the Lord since the beginning of my life has changed to the best! I love Jesus and know that I am precious to Him. I have all that I have because He is directing my life and I will continue to allow His will to be done in my life. I was blessed with being filled with the Holy Spirit on March 2, 2007 in the privacy of my own home. I am thankful to the Lord for being filled and knowing that He will never leave nor forsake me for all eternity. I am looking forward to hearing, “Well done my good and faithful servant”

In closing, I would like to say that God is able. I have been through so much in my life and I trust that God is with me always. I know that I still have a long way to go with my trust issues with all those in my life. I have to continue on a daily basis to let go and let God take control of my life. It is a daily struggle to beat the enemy down, I look at the woman I see in the mirror and some days good thoughts come to mind and some days bad thoughts come to mind. When I have the bad thoughts, I start praising God and saying how good God is and remind myself to see myself as He sees me. I am precious to the Lord and I am worthy of His blessings. I still suffer from low self-esteem, but each day I get more and more from the Lord and stand taller and taller. Those of us that suffer from low self-esteem have to remember that others do not make us; God is who makes us. God wonderfully made us and as my mom used to say – God does not make junk.

I am not proud of the fact that my son suffered because of my actions, because of not controlling my emotions when things got bad. I am not a perfect person and far from being a perfect mother. I am thankful that God has changed my heart and I handle things differently for my son’s sake…but when you are reading how I was please be mindful that I was not in my right mind and I did do some things that I urge others to never do in front of your child!!!! My mother did it to me and I did it to my son, we need to stop the cycle with us and not pass this kind of behavior on to our children. We are our children’s biggest influence, we are the one who determine if it will be a positive or negative influence.

As I was writing this story, it was hard at some points to relive my life. I have grown strong and I am thankful to God for that. In relaying my life story to my sweetie, I was able to release some of the pain and allow myself to trust him more. It is still not easy to do but my God is bigger than that! I wanted to encourage all those that are reading this and find that they are in similar situations know that God is able to bring you through – one day at a time. You will have good and bad days, but count it all joy for you are still growing in the Lord. God is with us and He will never leave nor forsake us. We are worth a lot to Jesus and we are somebody.

We are to remember to make God the number one priority of our lives and to seek His will only in our lives. There is so much that He can accomplish in our lives if we would just turn ourselves over to Him. All that pain that we have inside, if we let it go, God replaces it with nothing but Love for us. In having the love of Jesus in us, we will become stronger in the Lord and be able to withstand the world as it comes at us. I want to encourage you to continue to stand for Jesus. Make God the center of your life and His will to be your own will for your life. You will see that God will move you to levels in Him that you never thought imaginable. Let Go and Let God do His work in your life.

I praise God for each of you who have taken the time to read this from the beginning to the end; I pray that it has blessed you in some manner. If you ever need someone to talk to, please come visit my web page and drop me a line.

I love you all.

Your sister in Christ,

Alissa Lynne – Purple Butterfly of Christ