"God, if you are there, I need you NOW!"  

As my eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room, what I remember most was feeling that horrible fear; fear so deep it grips you and holds every muscle captive keeping you breathing shallowly and ignoring the itch on your nose.  Straining to listen for minutes on end, I was captivated by the imaginings of an intruder moving through the house.  Then, I heard it again and the spell was broken – what I thought was an intruder turned out to just be my cats chasing each other around the house on the first floor.  That was when I lost it. 

My husband of over five years had left me.  He started a job in another state and decided not to come back.  It was a devastating blow and I had been worked up for months trying to figure it all out, asking endless questions – what happened?  What did I do wrong?  What didn’t I do?  How could he do this to me?  What about the dreams I had?  What about the house and the kids and the family we both wanted?  Why me? 

My dreams were shattered.  What was supposed to be a “happily ever after” story went terribly awry.  At the age of 33, this was not what I wanted.  Both our families were about 9 hours drive in either direction and I was all alone with only those two cats to keep me company. 

I stumbled out of bed and sat down at the top of the stairs – sobbing uncontrollably.  I was so very tired.  Tired of being alone.  Tired of asking questions.  Tired of putting up a good front.  Tired of burdening close friends with my verbal processing.  Tired of living in the past each day and in fear each night.  It seemed a never ending cycle of unanswered questions and wondering if it was ever going to get better.  I was desperate!  In the midst of it all, I finally cried out loud,  “God if you are there – I need you!”  Then it came cursing through my body from the top of my head to the tips of my toes:  peace.  True peace.  Wow!  Inside I was amazed. 

I stopped crying and realized that several things had just taken place. 

1. God was real. 
2. He knew who I was. 
3. He answered my heartfelt cry. 
4. I had real peace. 

A deep peace I had not had in ages – I also just knew that my financial worries would be taken care of.  I didn’t know how, but somehow I had a reassurance in my spirit that God would take care of them.  I don’t remember getting back in bed, but fell into a restful and dreamless sleep.

I wish I could say that the next day, I understood God and Jesus more.  Being brought up in the Catholic church and attending church and religion classes each week you might think I knew a lot about God and Jesus.  The truth is I didn’t know much about either one of them besides the basic – Jesus was God’s son and he died for my sins.  It wasn’t a subject that I was very interested in and I hadn’t exactly been a willing attendee.  Since I had been out of my parent’s house, I could probably count the number of times I had been back to church and none of it was with regularity except Christmas and Easter services. 

I had even eloped so in the eyes of the Catholic church, I could not take communion because of the poor choice of not being in right standing with their laws.

The bottom line was:  I didn’t really know who God was and I sure didn’t understand what having a personal relationship with Jesus meant.  BUT, here I was with peace in my heart and a desire to seek to know who this God was -- the One who rescued me from my desperation.