Unbelievable! Intelligent, handsome and God-loving!!! I thought that such men did not exist! Nobody knew life better than me. I was convinced that sooner or later each person will betray, cheat, abandon... just give him or her a chance and wait ...

As far as I can remember...

As far as I can remember I've always had this hunger for something more. I longed for something that would satisfy me and that would give a deeper meaning to my life. Maybe that is why I kept looking for God in churches - both full and empty. I knew there has to be something more to God than what I had experienced in religious rituals. 

I am an intense person and that is what I looked for; first in friendships, then in relationships. I compensated for all the wounds and hurts I suffered with an overload of studies, work and addictions 

I longed for love and I wanted to mean the world to someone. I longed for somebody who would love me no matter who I was and what I did. I wanted someone who would give up his life for me. I dreaded every moment of silence or solitude. I hated it and I was unable to stay on my own even for a few minutes. 

That made me jump from one relationship to another sinking myself deeper into the hopelessness. In the end I lost my inborn joy of life. The greatest blow came when I disappointed even myself and started doing things I had never imagined I would or even could do. 

Death then seemed to be the resolution for all my problems.  

Spring 2004 ...

I was planning to move to New Zealand, I kind of knew I sign myself up for a marriage to a man who, I hoped, loved me. However, his proposal was rather peculiar and shocking. It was to be a two-year marriage, with a possibility of an extension if mutually desired. And although I thought I loved somebody else at that time, it really did not matter, as I had already discovered that the true love I always craved for, did not exist. 

Any attempt to analyse my situation made me sick and disgusted. I stuck to my empty religious rituals but my heart was becoming ever more embittered and hard.

But...

But those guys were real! At a conference I showed up at as a translator, I saw handsome young, God-loving men and I thought that surely one day they will have their wives and that it surely won't be me! I felt as if somebody lied to me! All of the sudden, it occurred that a reality I always longed for, really exists but I... I was stuck fast in the mud and I knew that I wouldn’t get out of there on my own. A sudden despair flooded into my heart. 

Whenever I closed my eyes, I felt as if I was falling into a great chasm and I saw a big bright hand reaching out to me. I knew that if I don't get hold of it I would die forever. 

For the next few weeks, faces of people I hurt were flying through my mind. I wanted to pay for all the evil I had done. I wanted to get punished, flog myself. But instead I saw the beaten body of a man who loved me so much that he decided to take this punishment in my place. Oh, how I wanted to hang on the cross instead of him! In the end, I didn't deserve anything less than that. 

Instead...

Instead of punishment I experienced God's grace. Instead of death I experienced a new life. Love that I received from the man that had died for me, has been transforming my life ever since. This man and God in one, Jesus, drew me out of the mud of hopelessness. He separated me from the people who had been destroying me and whom I had destroyed. Slowly and patiently, He taught me new ways of relating to people. He taught me not to fear solitude or silence. He brought purpose and joy into my life. 

In the course of this, almost 10-year long adventurous journey with God I have experienced many difficult things such as depression and a nervous breakdown. What kept me alive when I thought my life was gone, was the thought that He knows why I am still alive – and he is the one for whom I live. Each time I had to decide to trust Him more than myself.

I knew He is good and He will never leave me. He never did. He walked with me, hand in hand, through the darkest valley, lifting me up, healing and binding my broken heart. He took away the bitterness and filled me with thankfulness, peace and a great joy, a joy which is not dependent on circumstances. 

Life is not easy, but without God it is unbearable at times. 

And if...

If you read it and something is piercing your heart or you have some questions, then contact me.

There is no greater joy for me than to share this Saviour, which saved my life and restored my hope and purpose in life. As there is a purpose to life. And God exists. God is good. Don't let anyone deceive you about that.