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Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: GENEROUS (10/31/19)
What did it mean, these words from a song that we sang at church? Why did Jesus want my favorite teddy bear or my canopy bed? Truly “all” meant “all”: everything I had. Why did He want my things? I did not understand. A tear rolled down my cheek when I looked down at my pink patent leather shoes that my mom had let me pick out to go with my new pink Easter dress. I wasn’t sure I could let Him have them. Couldn’t I just give Him the ugly black shoes that I hated instead? My child-heart knew something about making a choice to follow Jesus. Adolescence taught me that Jesus would give me all that my heart desired. Wow! Now that was more like it. I wanted Him to make me a star and I gave my life in pursuit of that goal.

My adolescent heart proved that it had no depth when I fell in love with a man who had no need for Jesus, and I did not give Him another thought. I anticipated that life with my prince charming husband was going to be perfect: I would have 2.5 kids and live in a lovely house surrounded by a white picket fence, and we would live happily ever after. Instead, four years later I found myself divorced with two small children and a hard way to go. Disillusioned and confused, I entered the most sinful phase of my life and continued therein until I had used up all of my options. Then I remembered those words from childhood, “all to Him I freely give”.

Certainly, I had not given all to Him. I always said that I believed in God, but I had kept some things back for myself starting with the pink patent leather shoes. In my teens I wanted Him to help me with my plans. I was angry when He did not. My life was upside down and backwards, headed for destruction. But those words, “all to Him I freely give” were planted into my DNA and would not leave me alone. After trying everything else first, I told Jesus that He could have me, if He still wanted me.

Take me, He did, and He flooded my life with extravagant, unselfish and magnanimous love that could not be found anywhere else but in Him. His generous, unconditional love gave me life. He forgave all my sin and healed all my diseases. He is all that I will ever need or want: “all to Him I freely give”!
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This article has been read 633 times
Member Comments
Member
Date
Marlene Custer 
11/07/19
Thanks for sharing your heart.
Barbara Culler 
11/08/19
Oftentimes, we must hit bottom before we are ready to reach up to Jesus!
Laurie Staples
11/09/19
Thanks for sharing the joy of a brand new beginning--there really is nothing like it. I liked how you shared he childhood memory that never left you. One small suggestion, punctuation marks go inside quotation marks. Good job!
LaVonne Wood
11/10/19
Thanks for sharing from your heart. We all make some wrong choices but God forgives and shows us the way. Blessings!

Allison Egley 
11/11/19
This is good.

I feel like you could have expanded on this a bit more, perhaps.

Also, just a general word of advice... Any time you use song lyrics, check to make sure the song is in public domain, and I'd also give credit to the song in an author's note, with the song name, song writer/composer's name, and also the note that it's in the public domain.

I like how you showed the progression of your thinking.