Relationship Not Religion:: Finding My Way Back to God

By Jenny Ducci

This book sheds light on Jenny’s personal life experiences, from growing up without her father’s love, finding herself in an abusive relationship to surviving in a man’s world as a single mom. Jenny takes you through her trials and tribulations and uses God’s word to support the reality that God is real and he will never leave us or forsake us. He is a God who loves. If we have faith in God, believe in His sovereign power, pray, and repent of our sins, we can and will overcome with His help, regardless of our situation. He loves us right where we are. We only need faith the size of a mustard seed.
With the state that our country is in, the division, the hatred, the crime, and the corruption, we now, more than ever need to go back to making God the center of our lives. Life with God in it is limitless.

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.Therefore, take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand, STAND! —Ephesians 6:12-13

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Dec 11, 2019
• ISBN: 9781532088148

Jenny Ducci

Jenny Ducci became a single parent at the age of 22. Over the years, her struggle to survive was difficult and her only focus was to provide for her son. Having stepped away from God, Jenny pushed through life in her own strength, believing God had abandoned her. Today Jenny holds a Master’s Degree in Project Management and is employed as a Senior Staff Project Engineer and Technical Expert. Jenny is a recently born again Christian, who desires to awaken hardened hearts to the spiritual relationship that God desires with us.

Book preview

RELATIONSHIP

NOT

RELIGION:

FINDING MY WAY

BACK TO GOD

JENNY DUCCI

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RELATIONSHIP NOT RELIGION:

FINDING MY WAY BACK TO GOD

Copyright © 2017 Jenny Ducci.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-5320-8813-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-8814-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019918167

iUniverse rev. date: 12/11/2019

CONTENTS

Prologue

Chapter 1 We Are as God Designed

Chapter 2 Tainting of Young Believers

Chapter 3 Me and Mom

Chapter 4 Unaccepted and Abandoned

Chapter 5 Enemy Knocking

Chapter 6 Religion

Chapter 7 Troubles

Chapter 8 Anger Develops Within

Chapter 9 Faith and Relationship Lead to God

Resources

Bibliography

Dedicated to my son:

I love you unconditionally!

To My Readers,

I believe in the soul, and I believe the soul has a spirit and that our bodies are merely a shell in which our soul and spirit reside in. I believe there is something beyond this earth, something more powerful than the air that we breathe, something supernatural. I believe in a higher power; a Creator of us all. I believe our Creator is God, and that His power is supernatural. I believe love is meant to be pure, and I believe all of us will leave this world having felt it. I believe that pure love is only obtained through relationship with God.

I wholeheartedly hope that my story will reach those that have lost or never had faith or belief in God. I hope that it inspires its readers and stirs a fire in their soul that leads them to seeking and finding God.

I pray my story touches a much younger audience then I am myself. I pray they trust in God early in life, walk in faith constantly, give their lives to Him, seek His face and love Him with their whole heart and soul.

I want to thank My Pastor, for the inspiration he brings to so many; myself included. Thank you for being such a wonderful Man of God and for wearing that mantle. Thank you for not watering down God’s Word and being an amazing teacher. Thank you for helping me come to realize that the one love I’ve been searching for my entire life has been with me all along.

PROLOGUE

I sat straight up. My t-shirt was drenched, and my sheets soaked. I turned and look at the clock, three in the morning again. Tears were running down my face. I was in a state of confusion, half-conscious half-asleep. Where am I, I wondered? As consciousness came into focus, I realized I was home in the comfort of my bed.

I had obviously been dreaming, but I wasn’t able to recall the details of the dream, only the emotions I had felt during the dream; it was pure joy. Nevertheless, the dream felt so real; I felt so whole, so complete, so loved, but why then did I wake up so alarmed, I wondered? Why did such comfort bring me such pain and confusion? Who was the person in my dream? Why did it feel like me?

As I laid in bed trying to get back to sleep, I wondered why I was having the same dream and kept waking up at roughly the same time, night after night. Remembering the joy and love I felt in the dream had me wondering what my purpose in life was at this point. I raised my son; he is now grown and has a family of his own. I often wondered, what’s left. Not wanting to think about where my life was going anymore, I got out of bed, changed my t-shirt, and yanked the soaked sheets off the bed. I threw them in the wash again and began to do some chores. The chores were intended for distraction, distraction of my mind, but the distraction didn’t stop me from thinking as I’d hoped it would; it was futile.

I thought, I am a lover of music, but not talented enough to sing or play an instrument. I love to read and write, but while the words I typically put to paper are powerful, they are also heart wrenching, dark, and unpublished. I love nature, yet I live in the city where being surrounded by nature is difficult to find. I am a simple person that enjoys the simple things in life the most, yet I work in a complex, technical environment where nothing is simple. I am outwardly strong, confident, and intelligent yet inside, I feel empty and afraid. Afraid of what though? This was a question I was unable to answer. In the back of my mind, while I was putting fresh sheets on the bed, I realized that my life is a complete contradiction to what it should be; I am a complete contradiction to who I should be.

Throughout my lifetime I had never known such love as the love I felt in my dream. There was such a feeling of peace, joy, safety, and security. The feeling I had was not that of a mother’s love. It was so different. It was an overwhelming love, and as an adult, I had yet to experience it. There was no expectation, no weight, and no burden associated with it. It was pure. Pure love.

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CHAPTER 1

WE ARE AS GOD DESIGNED

I am a loner and have been alone most of my adult life. Don’t get me wrong, this fact doesn’t bother me; I’m not lonely. I have always preferred living alone. What does bother me however, was the lack of love in my life. Yes, I just changed the tense from present to past that was no accident. This story is about my dance with God.

In Matthew 5:3, the Bible says, Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. God has always been with me. I’ve always known that, but I didn’t always recognize Him for all He has given me, and I didn’t recognize Him for the strength He has given me. I didn’t honor Him and glorify Him, as I should have when I was a young adult. And I would be amiss if I didn’t mention that I pray this reaches the younger generation and the message within these pages is received so that they don’t have the same regret themselves later in life. God created us for His glory, just as He created us to be hopeful and to prosper in life. This is evident based on what Jeremiah 29:11 says, "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.

When I settled down from my chores, I could not stop wondering who I was, why I am here, and what my purpose in life is. The persistent dream, night after night, was forcing me to evaluate my circumstances in life.

An outlet for me is writing. It usually helps get things off my heart when I’m upset or angry, but on this particular day, I sat down confused and frustrated with my life and where it was going. I began to write feverishly, and after pouring my heart out, this is what I saw:

Who Am I

I am the scent you smell,

The sound of your voice.

I am the taste on your tongue,

The touch keeping you from numb.

I am the light you see in the night,

The sparkle in your child’s eye.

I am the head you hold high.

I am the roar of the Lion within,

The breeze that chases the wind,

The air you breathe in.

I am the voice you hear whisper that’s right!

The sword with which you fight.

The instincts for flight.

I am the God-given soul,

That gives your body life; that makes you whole.

Seek me and I shall set you free.

When I was done, I stared at the words I had typed. The Holy Ghost was talking to me and it came out in the words I saw on my laptop display. While I was questioning who I was, Jesus was telling me who He was, and what I needed to do. Prior to this moment, it had been years since I felt the presence of His Holy Spirit, so many that I cannot count them. I stared at the words on the display for quite some time, realizing what just happened.

I wrote those words and was having those dreams in 2013 during a time I was under heavy enemy attack. In order for you to better understand, allow me to paint a picture for you. I felt like everything was falling apart, everything.

I had an entire organization trying to take my livelihood away. My son and I were very close until one tragic day that changed everything, and we had now become distant. We were either constantly arguing, or going for months without speaking. My best friend, actually, one of my only friends, had moved away. He was a friend who had my back no matter what; no matter how upset I made him, and no matter how often I challenged him. This man accepted me for who I was, and supported me to the point of losing his job defending me during some of those enemy attacks. I remember him saying to me Better me than you. I will be fine. I can afford this, but don’t you let them win. Don’t you leave. You stay and fight! If all you can do because your heart isn’t in it, is salute the mailbox as you receive your paycheck, then you do that. But don’t you quit! Lastly, I was becoming physically ill when I stepped foot into the building I worked in. So yes, for me, that was everything; my son, my only true friend, and my job-my livelihood.

As a Christian, when I speak of an enemy attack, I’m speaking of Satan, the devil, the enemy of our hearts and our minds; the ruler of the air. The enemy is the one who roams the earth seeking whom it can destroy. Ephesians 6:12 states, For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Spiritual hosts can be a multitude of things; people themselves can be those spiritual hosts of wickedness, depression, anxiety, fear, etc. These are all weaponry of the enemy. From my perspective, anything that steals our joy is of the enemy. 1 Peter 5:8 warns us, Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

How many of us really listen close enough to hear God speaking to us? He does. All we have to do is listen, really listen, remove distractions, get out of the hustle and bustle this world has driven us to live in, and clear our minds. You may not hear a voice, He may speak to you through nature, or through a movement, or through a song; don’t believe it has to be conventional. He is God after all.

John 14:20-21 says, "20 ‘At that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 ‘He who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves me.