Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us. Selah. ~ Psalm 62:8

While going through one of my reading plans on youversion.com, an online bible, I read the above verse and knew that at some point, God wanted me to post about this.  I had plans to write about this on Leap Day, but God wrote a different post instead.  However, on Feb 25th I wrote about how we make choices in response to the events in our lives and one of those choices is trust and on Feb 27th I poured my heart out. I had not read the above verse until after I wrote those posts. I read Psalms 62:8 and knew God would call me to finish up with this thought- through it all, God has been my refuge.

In 2007-2009, I was at a church in which the pastor and his wife were against our family.  It was to the point that saints that ended up leaving that church called my parents up to apologize for the role they played- some were asked to join in secret prayer meetings against our family, some were asked to report on us as “spies”, and others revealed part of why they left was because they refused to do those things.  I spent MONTHS questioning God, fearing really joining another church, and just plain scared of allowing church people to ever again have the power to hurt me as much as that church did. It took SO LONG for me to finally thank God that He saw me through that time and taught me many lessons through it.

2009 also was the year my cousin committed suicide.  We had never been close but I SO DEEPLY felt as if I had somehow failed him. I knew God- I knew the hope of this world and yet my own cousin decided that this world was so dark and bleak that he ended his own life by jumping off a building.  It took almost two years for me to realize that there was nothing I could have done because when he was visiting us, we brought him to church, we tried to witness and yet he rejected God. He outright rejected God (based upon things he said).

In 2010 a person at my school tried to get me kicked out. I tried to comfort a fellow student on an exam exercise that they clearly had already completed via responding to a facebook post about it. For my efforts I was called into the office and accused of helping students cheat who were supposed to go the next day. Please note: I was in the class above, I did not know their class was split over two days (ours had all been in one day), and I was responding to a reference to MY year’s (the previous year’s) exercise and not specifically theirs. Little did I know the course director didn’t change the exams from year to year and in trying to comfort that friend, the course director tried to get me kicked out.  I went to the bathroom sobbing to the point I almost passed out. This was my lifelong dream and this person was trying to kill it because I was trying to assure someone that we all feel badly about how we did but the vast majority pass. A few hours later I looked at my roommate at the time and told her “I trust God. Remind me, when I start doubting, ‘[Rebekah M.] you said you were going to trust God!’ ”  Within 2 hrs I received news that I would not be kicked out of the school.

The end of 2011 brought about the end of a relationship where the guy had been talking to me about how he had already picked the ring out, where I should look for jobs, and even the fact that we would have twin boys (since twins ran in his family and we realized that both of us had separately dreamed of having twins) and a little princess. He did it by calling for a break, we then had two subsequent conversations, a two week span of silence, then (without ANY communication from him) changing his status on facebook to single. As things fell apart I chose to worship Him, I turned to Him in prayer and fasting, and I believed that He had all things in His hands.  In the end, I emerged closer to Him than I had ever been and stronger than before.

In ALL of those times and others not mentioned, God showed Himself to be a refuge.  He was my strong tower when things tried to come against me. He was the strength of my life and my hope.

Jesus, 

Let this post encourage these readers to just trust You with their lives and find in You the refuge they are seeking when they pour it all out to You.  Let them find that when they are emptied of themselves, You step in and fortify them.  Lord, You have been so true and real to me in my times of trouble.  You have shown me that when I dance before You in my prayer closet even in my time of pain, You come. You come as surely as the sun will rise You’ll come. We are safe in You.  I love You Jesus with all my heart. 

Rebekah M.