Just going to try posting something in block quote to see how it looks...

jlfa;jgalg'jal;'jghal'jfla
jalkjgl'agja'lgjla'gjl'ajfal'gjla'g
jalgja;l'gj'algjlas'jhg'asjhg;a'jhg
ajglajgl'ajglajgl;ajgh'ajg'ajg'askjhg;'a
jalghjl'j'gjalhj'ajh'ajh;a'jkh;a
ajllgjagl'jgl'kajghlajhpodpoytjglk;jfpohj;lfhmjbpsorhjp;
ajgojudyphjpoejup;r,kejrph;lks;lfjp;lohjp;or

It never ceases to amaze me how God can use one thing to get at the root of another thing.
For instance, take my new eating program that I just started today. Upon completing the first lesson, there was a Bible verse at the end on which to meditate. It was Psalm 138:5-8, which says:

Yes, they shall sing of the ways of the Lord,
For great is the glory of the Lord,
Though the Lord is on high,
Yet He regards the lowly;
But the proud He knows from afar.

Though I walk in the midst of trouble,
You will receive me;
You will stretch out Your hand
Against the wrath of my enemies,
And Your right hand will save me.

The Lord will perfect that which concerns me;
Your mercy, O Lord, endures forever;
Do not forsake the works of Your hands.

I have made it a practice for some time to take the Word and apply it to me personally so that the meaning resonates. So when I came to the part that says, “Though the Lord is on high, yet He regards the lowly,” I said aloud, “Though the Lord is on high, yet he regards me, who is lowly…”

That sentence stuck with me as I continued to read the rest of the passage. For several minutes afterwards, I could not stop thinking about it. The phrase kept repeating over and over in my mind…

“Though the Lord is on high, yet he regards me, the lowly.”

Me…

He regards me.

The Lord, who is God of all and lives in heaven cares about me.

Suddenly, I began to cry. I wasn’t sure what had come over me but I was sitting there with my face in my hands as huge, gasping sobs racked my body. I trembled from the force, wondering in the front of my mind why that verse had affected me in such a way while in the back of my mind all I could think was, “where were you God, where were you God, where were you?”

Then the thought became more coherent through the tears: “If you cared about me, God, why did you leave me when I needed you?”

Flashback.

Sitting there on my bed, feverishly brushing away tears, I saw in my mind’s eye, a young girl of about 14 or 15 cleaning erasers in a classroom after school. Alone. The young girl was me. Then another scene of me lying down in a back room behind the principal’s office. I used to go there whenever I was having menstral cramps but many times, I’d fake being sick just so I could get out of class and get away from the merciless teasing, waiting for the 6th period bell to ring. Then another scene of me walking to my locker between classes and finding it riddled with graffiti…all kinds of nasty names written on it in black magic marker. Bad names. Names to this day I have never forgotten. The school janitors waited till the end of the day to wipe the locker clean and I had to look at that crap all day between classes, feigning a smile and trying to act as if it didn’t bother me because I didn’t want whoever’d done it to see that they’d gotten to me. But I cried when I got home. Oh, how I cried.

Then the flashback was over and it was just me, sitting on my bed weeping with my face in my hands. I heard a soft inner voice say, “I was there,” and I knew it was God. “Everything you went through, I saw it. I was there.”

I realized what I’d just seen was not from my perspective but from God’s perspective. He was showing me what He’d witnessed, which leads me to believe that what the Bible says is true. Everything we’ve ever done or experienced is on record in the spiritual heavenlies. God was letting me know He’d seen.

But God, I said to Him, you saw yet you did nothing. You abandoned me. Why did you abandon me? Why did you let those things happen to me? Why did you let people get away with things? Why did you leave me to go through everything I went through alone?

Then it became apparent that was part of the reason God was showing me scenes from my life. He was telling me that I wasn’t alone.

He was there.

Then God spoke to me very clearly. He explained to me in my spirit that a person doesn’t always have control over their circumstances. Things happen and bad times will come. But even though you cannot control the circumstance, you can control how you choose to respond to it and…it helps when you have someone who is walking with you through it.

I was walking with you, God said. You just didn’t know I was there.

You know, I love the Lord and I’m born again and I want to do His will. But God showed me today that I still have bitterness towards him about the past. And while I firmly believe that God is with me now, it’s very hard for me to believe that He was with me beyond six years ago. In my heart, I never truly believed he was with me prior to that time. How could he have been when I endured so much on my own? I had no one and if God was hearing my prayers He certainly wasn’t answering them. But God has always been adamant that He was there. Maybe He didn’t operate the way I’d wanted him to but he was there.

“Why do you think you’re still here, Lakendra?” he asked me. “How do you think you came out of all that? I was with you.”

Okay, God, you say you were there. And God keeps replying, “Yes, I was. I AM.”

So, here we are, Jesus and I. Looking down into the bottom of that smelly, putrid garbage bag. This bitterness, this doubt, is part of the trash.

God called my attention to a latter part of Psalm 138: “The Lord will perfect that which concerns me.” He gave me a prophecy, saying that he was going to perfect me by taking out that which is imperfect.

I guess we’re starting by putting a lie perpetuated by the enemy to bed for good. It looks as if the healing has begun in earnest.

And I thought all I was doing was trying to lose weight!

It’s funny how God can use one thing to get at the root of something else.