Chasing the Light: …A Journey Through the Healing

By Lori Graves

Lori is a fifteen year old runaway. This story tells of her early experiences which led to increasing victimization where she suffered physical and mental abuses, leaving her in a precarious emotional state. Through her experiences she shares how her Faith in God and His promises carried her through difficult times, clinging to God for strength and endurance.
This is not her story but of how Gods Love and purpose for her and her life supplied her with Grace in times when she would not have survived, otherwise. It tells how Jesus met her where she was and how He never left her side. Chasing the Light is a testimony of Gods unfailing Love and Grace that, no matter how badly you have been hurt or how much you have suffered, if you ask Him, Jesus will heal.
This is a tale of how Jesus met me where I was, sustained me, gave me the strength to forgive that I did not have, how He went on to heal me and show me how to live with His peace, His joy, and most importantly His Love in my everyday life. God taught me not to survive but to thrive

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Sep 21, 2010
• ISBN: 9781426938740

Lori Graves

Lori Graves is a woman seeking to share the Faith that has brought her from life on the streets as a teenage runaway, to the life she lives today with a joy and zest that can only be found through the Grace of God; free to forgive the past.

Book preview

Chasing

the

Light

…a journey through the healing

Written and edited by

Lori Graves

All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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© Copyright 2010 Lori Graves.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

Printed in the United States of America.

ISBN: 978-1-4269-3872-6 (soft)

ISBN: 978-1-4269-3873-3 (hard)

ISBN: 978-1-4269-3874-0 (ebook)

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Contents

Forward

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Epilogue

Endnotes

Forward

Approach this story like it is being told you by your very own sister or someone as important to you as you are able to imagine, and then get a box of tissue and grip the side of your chair. This is not my first preview of certain details that have left a lasting imprint on my own person, but the story is no less compelling in its second telling!

Although the cold dark facts haven't changed that left the author, my dear friend, a young widow, and single mother of three, the person telling the story certainly has, and she is as much amazing as any of our Lord's fine creations.

It has been a privilege to witness as the Lord has taken these horrible events, and through them produced His servant.

Most recently, I was witness to the Lord dispatching his troops, and among those dispatched were the fine author, armed with, I've been there, and the Good Gospel. Although the circumstances were as bleak as they could be, I watched the strength of experience rescue from the pit of despair.

We never know what our darkest moment may have prepared us for, but God knows your resume!

Tracy Gallant, dear friend and sister in Christ

For my children, who taught me far more than I did them about love and life; Dennis, DeAna and Duglas.

You are the reasons that I continue on this path. When I get weary or cowardly, or just plain lazy, you all are why I push onward.

For all the times you needed more than I had to give… or I needed more than you had to give, for dragging you down the footpaths of my consequences. I had no right to expect you to endure with me but I did... and you did.

If it were in my power, I would give each of you every hug that should have been, every reassuring word I should have said and meet every need that went un-met.

The best I can do is to allow God to teach me and change me into the woman and mother He intended me to be, a witness to what Jesus can do with sorrow and brokenness. How The Father can take a lifetime of bad choices and work it into a thing of beauty to glorify His name and His perfect plan in His perfect timing. To show you that, no matter what you do or how horrible you think the situation is, you can always count on your Heavenly Father for what you need not to just live, but to live abundantly!

I thank each of you for inspiring me to seek a better path, you make me want to be a better person because you deserve the best I can be.

A special thanks to my parents; the parents you wanted to be showed through in the end, the best that is in me came from the best that is in you

Thank you, I love you.

"Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy:

When I fall, I shall arise;

When I sit in darkness, the

Lord shall be a light unto me."

Micah 7:8, (NKJV™)

Preface

As I look back over the past, the emotional storm that once threatened to engulf me every time I dared to visit, is now replaced by a quiet, peaceful awe. An awe one can only experience after having been to the very bottom, beneath the depths of misery and despair. Having had every self-serving ideal and trust ripped from your heart by one abuse after another until reduced to nothing more than a wounded, bleeding mass of raw emotional confusion, ruled by shame, guilt, and fear. Only then was I able to see God’s hand reaching for me, waiting patiently, counting every tear, weeping with and for me.

When I finally understood what it meant to give it to God, I did. True to His promise, my Heavenly Father then started my feet on a journey of healing. This would take me through His word, for without which, there can be no foundation; it would also take me through a series of new choices and situations that would change my life in ways that I could not have imagined.

As I continued, in my humanness and imperfection, to struggle with right and wrong, my desire to serve God and have His will in my life began to seriously conflict with what I knew SHOULD be His will for my life. I smile as I admit this but I find myself repeatedly caught up in serving me instead of Him.

Join me, dear reader, and you will see how God was able to take even someone as stubborn and strong-willed as I and use my own often self-inflicted pain and brokenness to create in me a picture of something beautiful. A picture of the beauty He intended me to be. A picture He saw as He sat in the garden praying to the Father to let this cup pass from Me. Mt. 26:39. As Jesus laid down His life on the cross, He kept that picture of me in His mind and for all the suffering He knew I would go through, He suffered first and died so when the time came that I would turn and cry out to Him, He would be there to save me.

I have the promise of a new life, one in which I don’t have to rely on my own understanding but, instead, on God’s infinite wisdom to work things out for my benefit and to His glory, where I can be free from the ghosts of the past. Yes, I said ghosts! For that is exactly what they are. Not spirits of people who once were alive, but when we allow ourselves to be bogged down under the darkness of past hurts, real though they may be, we open a door for the enemy to come waltzing into our lives. Here he can use our own guilt, shame and fear to keep us from venturing into the joy that God wants us to have. The enemy knows all that has been done to us just as God does. Think about it, how could he not? After all, his influence caused those hurts in the first place! It was the enemy who enticed those around us with his lies and illusions, always ready to take advantage of an opportunity to confuse us by perverting the Truth of God’ s Love. The devil doesn’t have to get us to believe IN him, he just has to get us NOT to believe in God and/or the promises He gives us in His Word as Truth. One of the most successful campaigns the devil has ever run was to get the public to believe he was a myth. Evil does not always appear with horns, cloven hooves and a tail. Evil knows what it will take different people to believe, some do need to see the horns but many only need not believe in God or be distracted from God. As with Peter when he stepped out of the boat in Mt 14:28-29, as he walked to Jesus but as soon as he took his eyes off The Master, he allowed himself to be distracted and he began to sink. Such is the case today with many people. The devil merely has to distract our attention from God and that can take the form of anything from television, sports, substance abuse, or even our work in ministry. Anything that takes our attention off Jesus allows the devil to succeed…at least for the moment because the scripture also goes on to say that Jesus didn’t just stand there and allow Peter to drown, He reached out His hand and Peter accepted it…a seemingly simple example, a powerful message on so many levels.

So come, dear reader, and observe, as I continue on my journey through the healing, with Jesus at the helm, allowing God to teach me, as I go, to grow me in and for His Glory with every step I take. I can’t change any of the events that have led me to this place in my life, and that’s okay. There are still many questions I do not have the answers to, may never understand, and that’s okay. What I can do is allow God to work it to serve His purpose now to create, as only the Master’s hand can; turning each moment of pain and every teardrop into a tapestry depicting my passing through one season of my life into His season of my life, as He planned it. A picture with such glorious color and so rich in texture it’s sure to take your breath away by the sheer magnificence of His Glory and of what can become of a wasted life spent in pain and emptiness. A lifetime of chasing the Light, with my eyes on everything but the Master, while He waited, patiently, for me to realize Jesus had already done all the work for me, all I needed to do was stand still and RECEIVE it.

One of my favorite songs asks Why Me, Lord?1 It is a question I have asked God countless times over the years, why me? Why did it have to be me to endure the things I have had to endure? Then I think of what Jesus went through for me, the answer to the question of what did I do to deserve what He has done for me is… Nothing! That is the whole point. I don’t deserve anything He has done for me and couldn’t possibly repay Him in any way, nor does He expect me to, all God asks is that I love Him with all my heart, all my soul and all of my might paraphrased from LK 10:27 maybe that’s why I’ve always found this song so haunting, some of the lyrics are;

Why me Lord? What have I ever done, to deserve even one of the pleasures I’ve known? Tell me Lord, What did I ever do, that was worth loving you or the kindness You’ve shown? Lord help me, Jesus, I’ve wasted it so help me, Jesus. Now that I know that I’ve needed You, so help me, Jesus my soul’s in Your Hands. Try me, Lord, If You think there’s a way, I can try to repay, all the kindness You’ve shown. Maybe, Lord, I can show someone else, what I’ve been through myself on my way back to you

That’s why I commit this to paper. This is my story. May God be in every word and on every page, and may you, dear reader, hear whatever it is He may be speaking to you as you read it. May He somehow use it to bless you. It was not easy to live