A JOURNEY TOWARDS WHOLENESS: I SURRENDER ALL

By Gloria Blase Theodore

From the day of our birth to the day we leave this earth, we are all on a journey toward wholeness. My experiences with God began in my preteen and teen years of being abused. It was during that time that I met a very special man. His name is Jesus Christ, to whom I surrender all.

Read to discover the many ways God has proven His presence, His love, His protection, His provisions, His forgiveness, His mercy, and His constant unconditional love, which can happen to you too.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 19, 2022
• ISBN: 9781638143925

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Introduction

Chapter 1: Getting to Know Me: The List

Chapter 2: Getting to Know Me: The Experiences

Chapter 3: The Call to Answer the Call

Chapter 4: The Assignment

Chapter 5: The Choice

Chapter 6: Out of the Mouth of Babes

Chapter 7: Poetry in Motion

Chapter 8: Grandpa and the Voice of God

Chapter 9: The Baptism of Tears

Chapter 10: He Took My Hand and Set My Feet upon a Sure Solid Foundation

Chapter 11: A Tinkling Cymbal and the Invasion

Chapter 12: The Forgiving, Loving Nature of God

Chapter 13: Sin

Chapter 14: Pass the Salt, Please

Chapter 15: The Wedding Ring

Chapter 16: A Marriage Made in Heaven

Chapter 17: The Marriage

Chapter 18: The Wedding Planner

Chapter 19: Out of the Grave

Chapter 20: Michele

Chapter 21: Coming Home

Chapter 22: So Why Am I Catholic?

Chapter 23: Gloom and Doom

Chapter 24: God's Life-Changing Fire

Chapter 25: The Partnership

Chapter 26: Our Best Glory and Praise Evening

Chapter 27: Happy Days

Chapter 28: Interesting Facts

Chapter 29: The End, or Is It?

Chapter 30: Our Welcoming Home Lord and Savior

About the Author

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A JOURNEY TOWARD WHOLENESS

I SURRENDER ALL

Gloria Blase Theodore

ISBN 978-1-63814-388-8 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63814-389-5 (Hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-63814-392-5 (Digital)

Copyright © 2021 Gloria Blase Theodore

All rights reserved

First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Covenant Books, Inc.

11661 Hwy 707

Murrells Inlet, SC 29576

www.covenantbooks.com

FOR THE GLORY OF OUR TRIUNE GODHEAD, WHO PROMISED HE WOULD NEVER LEAVE OR FORSAKE US.

Introduction

God really does take care of and provides for his people. Getting to know Him on a personal level will be the greatest joy anyone could ever experience. It does, however, require a few things from us.

We must make the choice for life, not destruction, for unity, not division.

We must desire to do God's will, for whatever He wants to accomplish through us. We must make ourselves available for Him to use for His purposes.

We must put our constant trust in Him, never forgetting His unconditional mercy and love for us all.

We must stand in forgiveness before Him for all who have offended us and for all whom we have offended, including the forgiveness of ourselves.

We must turn our faith principles into action.

I have prayed for the Holy Spirit's help in writing about my life. All that you read on these pages are true, whether you find them believable or not.

Hopefully, on these pages, you will find words of faith, hope, love, charity, encouragement, forgiveness, God's faithfulness, repentance, perseverance, trust in God, and above all, what God would like you to read about Him.

If just one person is brought closer to the Lord because of what I share about my life, Oh, that would be so great!

I, too, believe that every person has a book inside of them. Here's mine, written as experienced. Thank you in advance for reading it.

Please note that these writings may not seem to flow chronologically; however, each chapter represents a segment in my life.

—Gloria

In the interest of saving space, listed on this page are words, phrases, abbreviations, and explanations that I will occasionally use as they apply, and what they mean.

Since I have no way of contacting many of the people I may make reference to for their permission, I will use initials only.

It has been said: when a reference or statement used did not originate from me.

Hear me out there: when I want to get a point across to others.

PE: a personal experience that happened.

Scenario: when I need to describe the scene of a PE.

Ouch: when I feel convicted of a wrongdoing.

Yuck: when I find something distasteful or disgusting.

Ahh, okay Lord, got it: when I am able to understand something the Lord is trying to teach me.

Just in case anyone reading this is unfamiliar with knowing how to find a scripture referred to, here is an example:

First will be the name of the book referred to in the Bible—example, Matthew.

Next will be the chapter used within that book—example, Matthew 12.

Next comes the verse or verses—example, Matthew 12:7(please read this on How to Please God).

If there is an ff after the verse (meaning the following} used, it just means to continue reading beyond the verse listed.

If there are three dots before or after the scripture quoted, it just means the words in the scripture quoted are more than what is needed to cover the point being made.

Chapter 1

Getting to Know Me: The List

I…

am no one any more special than anyone else.

grew up in a small town, and because there were two restaurants in the center of it, it was also called Hamburger Square. The joke was If you blink, you'll miss it!

am now at the age of eighty-two.

had two siblings, a two-year-older sister and a five-year-younger brother.

had a hostile, dish-throwing, knife-chasing, cursing mother for a few years, who, I am so very happy to say, had a repentant heart.

had a special maternal grandmother who, by example, led me to want to love God!

grew up in a sometimes functional, sometimes dysfunctional family.

married into a sometimes functional, sometimes dysfunctional family.

have been on fire without feeling any pain from the heat.

am a multicancer survivor.

learned to live vicariously to develop a coping mechanism in order to survive.

have seen gloom and doom (evil) face-to-face and their fiery darts—you'll read about that in chapters 10 and 23.

have seen God's life-changing fire and His glory, and through it all, I learned to trust in Jesus. I hope you all will too.

Chapter 2

Getting to Know Me: The Experiences

I, more or less, have a type of passive personality, wanting people to get along with one another, and did what I could to help make that happen. A peacemaker at heart, more so than not. That is, until I ever reached that Enough is Enough point. At that point, I could be immovable.

Such was the case when I was about eleven years old, and an older peddler, with his wheelbarrow full of his wares, started hanging around the corner of our property line. He was becoming a threat to me and my sister, so I began yelling at him to get off of our property. He said, I'm not on your property!

I just yelled back louder, Well you're too close to us.

He said, I'm not hurting anyone.

Again, I yelled back even louder, You'll never get a chance to either!

He said, You can't make me go!

I said, Oh yes, I can. You just watch me! There will come a time when you will want to go into that restaurant and get a cup of coffee, and when you come back out, you'll find all of your stuff on fire because I'll set a match to it. That was the only time I was glad Mother smoked—there was access to matches.

Mother overheard the commotion going on, came out, and asked, What's going on out here?

I told her, He needs to get away from us, and he won't go. I told her I was going to set his stuff on fire when he went into the restaurant, and then I added, You know what? I'm not going to wait until then. I'll do that right now! Mom, where are the matches? I'll find them!

Mother ended it all by telling him he should go, go somewhere else. The three of us stood our ground, watching him turn away, wheelbarrow in hands, move on, turn the street corner, and disappear. With the threat of him now gone, we could get on with the rest of our lives without fear of him.

One of my hurts during those pre- and early teen years was the loss of a lilac bush that we had at the corner of our front porch. It was a large bush, and it gave off the most beautiful lilac fragrance. There were very few places that I could go off to, to find peace and comfort, and that was one of them, sitting on the front porch glider, enjoying the fragrance while working on my homework. I was out there, a lot!

Mother came out one day and said that I was spending so much time out there. I told her how much I loved it out there, how much I enjoyed the breezy days and the lilac fragrance. She announced, Oh, I was just thinking of cutting it down. I'm tired of all the petals on the ground. I begged her not to, told her I would pick up all the petals, and I really would have. I told her how much I loved being out there. All to no avail. Within two days, I stepped outside and the bush was gone. No one else knew it, but I cried and cried over the loss of my comfort zone. I rarely sat out there after that. Whenever I did go out there, I felt the loss as if it had just happened.

Many years later, after they tore down my grandfather's place, Mom had planted a weeping willow tree that grew quite tall. She loved it so much and occasionally would sit at the kitchen table just admiring it. I said one day, Mom, you love that tree so much! Why don't you cut off the lower branches enough so that you could sit under it and enjoy all the cars going by? Mother liked to people-watch. I actually talked her into doing just that. She ended up saying she was sorry she ever did that. My reaction was not nice—I blasted away! Good! I said. I'm glad you are sorry! I'm glad you feel bad about it! Now you know how I felt when you cut down the lilac bush! I'm glad you're sorry! I was hoping she felt as bad as I had felt. I really didn't see what I got her to do with the willow tree as being revengeful, but, subconsciously, it could have been there. Revenge is not sweet! It is not healing! It divides! Unity cannot be possible if revenge is still in the picture. And that is what our Lord prayed for—unity. That we all be one in Him and He in us. May God help us all!

One of my Enough is Enough moments came one day while I was ironing a pair of my sister's shorts. Mother thought that because my sister was the older one, I should be ironing her clothes. Why exactly it should be that way, I have no idea, but that's the way it was for a while, until Enough is Enough showed up. While I was ironing the shorts, Mother stood over me watching every move I made. Don't do it that way! Put them this way! Watch what you're doing! You're going to get a crease in them! You know, once you iron a crease in them, it's too hard to get it back out! It won't come out! What's wrong with you? Why don't you pay attention to what you are doing? Do this, do that, don't do this, don't do that! Each remark came with increasing loudness.

That's it! Enough is Enough! This will be no more! I took the iron, practically slammed it down on the iron plate used to set it on, and fired back! That's it, I'm done! I'm not ironing any of her clothes anymore! You don't like the way I'm doing it. Can't satisfy you. You iron them! Better yet, why can't she do her own? She's the older one. She should be ironing my clothes. I'm the younger one. She should be taking care of me! Needless to say, I never ironed for her again! Of course, she never had to iron my clothes either.

Mother had been in the tactless, cursing yuck habit of taking God's name in vain. G'damn you! and Go to hell! were frequently heard.

Enough is Enough! This will be no more! Looking eyeball to eyeball, I blurted out, Do you really know what you are saying when you say that? You are asking God to send me to hell! You are telling Him that you want me in Hell, because that is exactly what you are asking Him to do… You are asking Him to damn me and send me to hell! Is that what you want for me? Is that where you want me to be?

She began to say it less after that, and each time it started to come out, I would just glare at her and she would stop midsentence. It only took a few times until she dropped the expressions from her vocabulary. There's a whole lot to be said for a repentant heart. Kudos sums it up pretty well.

There was one incident that broke me down spiritually. It concerned two boys about our age (around thirteen) who moved into the neighborhood. We included them in our neighborhood gatherings of playing games. Anyone out there remember playing kick the can or hide-and-go-seek? The one it covered their eyes, counted to one hundred, and then went to look for the other ones who were hiding. Once found, the finder and the found raced back to a can placed on the ground, each hoping to get there first. The found tried to get there first so they could kick the can away and get to run off and hide again. If the finder got there first and put their foot on top of the can, the found was out of the game. The finder then went off to look for the others. If the one found got to kick the can, then all of the caught ones could run off again. If we needed to do something (such as go to the bathroom), we would call out, Ollie, ollie, in free, which let everyone come in without being caught. We also played jacks, where we threw a little ball up into the air, and after only one bounce coming back down, we had to grab one jack without touching any others and catch the ball, then two jacks, then three jacks at once, and so on. If we touched another jack, or missed the ball, it would be the next person's turn. We also played dodgeball (sometimes we called it monkey in the middle). Others would form a circle. The one it stood in the middle of the circle, while whoever had the ball tried to hit them with it. The one in the middle tried to dodge the ball. We also played red rover, red rover, send—right over, naming a person's name; and they would come running across the lawn and try to break through our team's line while we held on to each other's wrists to stop them from breaking through. Sometimes we played the games of monopoly, cards (crazy eights and old maid), marbles, and hopscotch—that's where we drew squares on the sidewalk in a pattern, numbered each square from one to ten, tossed a rock on the square, hopped on one foot, then both feet, then back to one foot without touching any line on each square, get to the rock, pick it up, and hop back to the number 1 square, again, without touching any line. I wonder if any children ever play any of those games today—too busy texting probably.

They were fun days, outdoor days, fresh-air days. They were good days until that fateful day concerning those two boys. My sister came to me one day and said she was bored. I suggested we go over to the boys' house and play monopoly. We asked for permission. Mother really didn't want us to go over there; she didn't think those boys were very nice boys. We kept up asking, and she gave in and let us go. We started the game, and about an hour or so later, I had to use the restroom. I asked them if I could use theirs. Sure, came the answer. I felt strange and a little uncomfortable using their bathroom, so I asked my sister to come in with me, which she did. While I was sitting there, the boys said, Gloria, you show us yours and we'll show you ours.

I looked at my sister and asked her, What are they talking about?

She shrugged her shoulders, saying, I don't know.

Neither one of us