Today’s Saturday Spotlight is
Destiny Del Frate
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What is going on in this season of life? Currently, as I write this, I am looking at the ever waiting pile of boxes that beckons my attention as we near our next move. To reflect that we had just moved this time last year and the stress that moving brings only to pursue it once again. We knew that when we moved into this rental, that it was always temporary. This was the hope that it would help prompt us to finally purchase our first home. By God’s grace we were able to do just that. In His perfect timing.
I often find that my attention will short circuit to the overriding divide of my presence, opinion, action or any other duties my person can perform. Maybe that’s the ADHD in me or maybe that is just life? Some might even say that’s just being a teacher and a mother, lol. I quickly find that I, alone, can not meet these unwavering demands and have to surrender to the One who has been waiting, oh so patiently, for me to bring these events to Him. God is so gracious and so merciful. We know these words. We read them in scriptures, we pray them, we sing them. We know it. But how often do we find that no matter how much we “know” something, specifically with God’s truth, we still hold it to ourselves and resist the surrenderance? Maybe it’s a control thing. Maybe it’s a fear of shame? I recently have noticed a pattern within myself, that I will hold back from giving specific worries to The Lord. Not because I don’t think He can free me of them, merely because it is raw. To fully surrender things to the Lord, it requires the genuine, whole hearted, tear induced cry that I need God.
Now I know this is not everyone, and I applaud those that can easily give their trials to HIm. I have just found that is not my strength as I wrestle with life’s trials.
Growing up, I was not raised in a God fearing home. I was born in the foster system to which I was under legal guardianship for 17 years with the foster family I was placed with. Now the “stability” created this facade that the home was actually good. However, the demise of abuse reared its ugly head in every facet it could. I struggled with self worth, isolation, insecurities and eventually self harm that would lead to suicidal tendencies. I wanted an escape from the horrors of this world, and that was the only way I thought would be it. At the ripe age of 14 I enacted my first attempt. It was a desperate cry for help, love and acceptance. Instead I was met with ridicule and patronizing words of “Our lives would have been so much better without you.” But God was with me. God heard my cry.
Shortly after, I was invited to youth group by my believing cousins. They saw it as a ministry to me, I saw it as an escape from my parents. I remember hearing the Gospel for the first time and yearning for the peace that was promised. That also meant that I needed to have a renewed heart with desired obedience to God, in which my trauma induced flesh did not want any form of submission, not even to God. Reflecting now, I know I was very immature in my time, I see elements where I had to survive that season of my life and get through it. God saw me through it and pulled me from it at the age of 17. I moved in with those very believing cousins my senior year of high school. Unfortunately, I was very much in my rebellious stage and fully renounced God entirely. After all, “why would a good God let me go through such horrible things?”
Why does God let horrible (and I mean atrociously horrible) things happen? I often wrestled with that idea of God and His divine power. The idea that, if He truly loved me, He wouldn’t have let me go through all those things. Right? Wrong. God is perfect in nature. God weeped with me, every night I cried myself to sleep. Every time I attempted to take my life. Every time my innocence was taken by the very adults set to “protect me.” God was there and He mourned it all. See, I had this thought that God’s love was conditional. After all those around me showed that’s what love was, conditional. Yet that is the very opposite of God’s character. His love is not only unconditional, but perfect, peaceful and righteous. I am not the judge, He is. I find rest and healing today knowing that is not a burden I was meant to carry, nor would God want me to carry. God patiently waits for me in my darkest moments. When He waits, I am not met with judgement, or condemnation, but in full acceptance and love.
I often romanticized the idea of a savior husband rescuing me from my darkest of days. When I was 18, I genuinely thought I was the ruler of my life, and in some regard I was. But God sat back, patiently waiting. It wasn’t until I found myself pregnant at 20, that I really had reflected on what I was even doing with my life? Immediate single mother with barely a penny to my name. I can’t do this! Yet, I was curious about God.There was this pull to want to go to church fully pregnant and unashamed. There were His people, warm with His reflection of love. Genuine love. This idea that I can truly be a parent for a little life that requires my undivided attention and sacrifice, evoked the reality I could very much do that with God. In fact, He was perfect. Why would I not want Him in control?
Today, we navigate moving to a new home, I reflect on the mercies God has bestowed just in this process alone. I had this peace that the right home will pop up at the right time with exactly what we need. Low and behold God provided. Not saying that God bent to my will but quite the opposite. God was faithful in His provisions to show me that I needed not to worry. He was in control. Time after time, He is there. In the waiting, in the crying, in the hoping. In moments I felt like there was no way possible, God made a way. Matthew 6:26: “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”
-Destiny
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