Where Was God?

As I lay bruised and bleeding on the side of Interstate Highway 10, watching the taillights of the semi fading into the distance, I thought, so this is how God answers prayer.

Less than forty hours earlier, huddled under an overpass of I-95, shivering in the cold spring rain, I’d prayed these words, “God, I don’t know where I’m going but I trust You’re going to take care of me.”

It was the first time I’d prayed in over five years but I was feeling desperate, a minor illegally in the USA, hitchhiking my way to a town that I’d only ever heard mentioned on a TV soap opera. The name appealed to me—Bay City, Texas. A place for new beginnings away from the abusive foster homes and detentions centers, and away from the vile streets of Toronto.

I don’t know what I expected from God when I prayed that prayer but it sure wasn’t that I would get raped by the first man who stopped to give me a ride!

For many years in my life, I wondered why God hated me so much. My mother, a member of the Curve Lake First Nation, had given me up for adoption, likely trusting that I would have a better life, not knowing that my adoptive parents would be physically and verbally abusive. I ran away from them when I was eleven years old and so began my life of running away from one relationship after another.

I was thirty-four years old when I began my faith journey. My adoptive mother had recently died and I wanted to go to her funeral but I didn’t have the money to travel the 2,000 miles there and back. I decided to call the local church and ask for help. The pastor responded right away, saying that he would come over to my house to talk with me.

My thoughts about God at that time were still confused. I didn’t understand why He hadn’t been there for me all my life—why He had allowed all those terrible things to happen to me.

I tested that pastor that day but I think really, I was testing God. When the pastor showed up at my door, I was in my nightgown and housecoat, my hair uncombed and no makeup on. And every second word out of my mouth was a curse word.

That pastor showed up the very next day with a plane ticket for me!

My common-law husband, Mitch, took the day off work to drive me to the airport but I never did get on the airplane.

A few days later, the pastor, Jim, came back for a visit and again, I made an effort to look sloppy and using a lot of curse words, lied to him about my trip, telling him that I had gone to the funeral.

The pastor’s wife, Pauline, invited me to come for tea and I said I would then when she showed up at my door, I pretended I wasn’t home.

This happened several times; those people sure were persistent!

I finally went with her to church but felt extremely out of place and ended by leaving the service in tears. So many happy families. Why hadn’t I been able to have that? What was wrong with me? Why didn’t God love me? Why hadn’t someone been in my corner protecting that little child from being so badly damaged? Where was God?

Pauline just kept inviting me back. She said, “Maybe it will be better this time.”

Meanwhile, she was telling the people at church to give me a chance.

Pauline and Jim didn’t just invite me to church. They loved me. And through their actions, I caught a little glimpse of God’s love and I thought maybe I would give Jesus another chance to prove Himself to me.

My life didn’t change overnight because I became a Christian. There was a lot of damage that had been done through the years. Some of that damage was my fault and some wasn’t, but it had taken over thirty years for me to get where I was and it wouldn’t all be fixed in thirty days or even in thirty weeks.

I had put a tattoo of a cross on my hand when I was younger. People always said, “You’ve been in prison” because that was a usual mark of an ex-con. After I became a Christian, I decided that I wanted to incorporate the cross into a larger tattoo, one that would also cover some of the scars on my arms (I was going to do a tattoo on both of my arms). It was supposed to look delicate and beautiful, a vine with butterflies that would wrap around my arm and end in a rose on my hand. The tattoo turned out differently than I expected. The vine was covered with thorns and had many branches that ended nowhere. I was disappointed and made the decision then to not do the other arm. But after I started to think about it, I realized that my life had indeed been filled with thorns and it did still end in a rose—the Rose was my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

The branches that went out from the main vine I began to understand were like the many branches of my life that could have ended much worse than they had. There were so many times when I could have died: at the hands of a rapist and murderer, while on my three-week binge with cocaine, or at the hands of Barry’s friend, Bill, who was so obsessed with me that he killed my best friend to try to get to me. As I looked back on my life, there were so many times when the Lord did indeed answer my prayers and protected me from more serious damage.

It was around this same time that music began to be an important part of my healing journey. It became a way for my Father to speak to me through His Holy Spirit. In the words of songs by Michael W. Smith like “Above All” I came to understand what it was that Jesus had done for us on the cross and how blessed we are because of His shed blood for us. I was beginning to understand the power of that blood to cleanse us from all sin. I was beginning to understand that Satan had no power over me.

But when my fortieth birthday was approaching, all of my old fears came flooding back. I had made a pact with the devil when I was eleven years old. I had told him that he could have my soul when I was forty years old. It had been my choice—my decision—and even all the Christians said that it was ultimately our choice if we wanted to follow God or not.

At that time I believed that yes, God could give me a better life in the here and now if I asked Him to forgive me for all the things that I had done but in the end I would still go to hell. It was what I deserved and I was willing to accept the consequences of my choices.

My life here on earth would be dedicated to helping others find salvation but I didn’t in my heart of hearts believe that salvation was for me. I had done too many bad things in my life. Jesus didn’t love me. It was not possible for God to love me enough to accept me as His adopted daughter. Yet all the while, my heart was crying out towards my father as a little girl crying out for her daddy.

The night before my fortieth birthday was the worst moment of my entire life. I was so terrified. I believed this was “pay up, buddy” time.

As the minutes ticked by, my terror grew. I finally ran to the church and hid under the pulpit. I kept my eyes fixed on the cross on the wall and cried and prayed and cried some more. I was so exhausted, I finally fell asleep. I woke up and decided that I would go home and go to bed.

I was so exhausted that I fell asleep again even though my heart was filled with fear. I had no expectation of waking up the next day. I had made my choice and I was going to finally get what I deserved.

When I woke up the next morning, I realized that I was forty! And I wasn’t dead!

From that moment on, everything changed for me. I no longer doubted that God loved me. It didn’t matter what anyone else thought about me and my faith. I KNEW that God loved me.

It is God who sustains me and gets me through. My life didn’t become instantly “all better” when I turned to Jesus, but in the midst of all the turmoil in my life, I now have a place of peace where I can go. I can tell my Father about everything and know that He cares about me and He will be with me all the way.

For many years, I carried around the thought that I’d done something that had made God not love me. Now, God has shown me that it is exactly the opposite—He has always loved me and He has been with me through it all.

There is so much that I want to share with so many people. One day, God gave me a vision of being in front of a group of people, sitting on a stool, wearing my loungers with a cup of coffee in my hand, just sharing my story with people, like two friends talking at the kitchen table.

I want to share with people the answer to the question: “Where was God?” And I want to challenge them to think about: “Where was the church?”

I want to tell people that ANYONE can have this experience. I want to tell them that this is what the Lord can do. Embrace it! Enjoy it!

And I want to tell them that I now do have someone in my corner; someone in my life who will stick up for me. It is Jesus.

Where Was God? The Story of Sherry Lynn will be released in June 2013, published by Goldrock Press. You can get more info about the book at http://www.goldrockpress.com

Dorene Meyer is the author of numerous articles and several award-winning books. She is the owner of Goldrock Press which specializes in publishing the work of northern writers. She teaches part-time at University College of the North and mentors authors.