| My Story |
I’m not sure when I first realized that I wanted to be a writer. From as long as I could remember, I just always knew that writing was “my thing”.
Yet, even though I found writing as a way to express myself, I struggled to allow myself to enjoy it. For some reason, I felt I didn’t deserve to experience joy through writing, but I couldn’t pinpoint why I felt this way.
At the age of 11 or so, I had reserved myself to the fact that there was nothing all that special about me. I was an overweight pre-teen who didn’t seem to fit my parents’ image of the daughter that they had imagined, with my tendency to hide my insecurities with food and over-sized sweatshirts. While girls my age were dreaming about the boys they would meet on the weekend, I found solace in delving into the adventures I sought in my books, almost consuming them in the same way I did food. Like the authors I admired, I loved to write poetry and short stories and found it came easy to me to shut out the world and let the words flow.
Somehow the words I shared made me feel different about myself. I thought to myself…maybe there is something special about me after all. To see someone react in a positive way after reading something I had written gave me that feeling of purpose that I was always seeking.
Could this be the reason for why I was here and what I was supposed to do with my life?
Even at that young age, I knew that I was seeking something on a higher level. I didn’t understand what that was, but I knew that it was bigger than me. I thought I could find it in the pages of the books I read voraciously or the food I gorged on, but that wasn’t it.
I thought I had found it when I accepted Christ as my Savior at the age of 12, as I was led down the aisle by my mother to the church pastor waiting at the altar. It seemed like the right thing to do and I followed through on my promise to be a good Christian girl in the years since, but even so, I still felt that something was missing.
I just knew that there was something really important that I didn’t fully comprehend when I made that profession of faith and obediently walked that aisle all those years ago.
| My time came in 2002 |
For a year or so before, my mother had been suffering with end stage renal failure that deteriorated to the point that she needed a kidney transplant. I was elated when I was deemed a match, and despite several obstacles that delayed our surgery, I was finally able to give her my kidney. Unfortunately, my hopes for a long and healthy life for her were dashed, when just five short months later, she suffered a stroke. I was heartbroken when she never recovered and passed away a few days later.
The pain of the loss of my Mother was excruciating. There were just no words to describe the depth of grief that I felt and thought that I would never recover from. With her death, I somehow felt that I had failed her once again and indescribable sadness and despair overwhelmed me.
I suffered with this pain and grief for several months, until one evening when I found myself on my knees, crying out in pain and screaming at God, who I thought was the source of my pain. I screamed at Him that I had given this kidney to my mother so that she could live – she wasn’t supposed to die. The fact that she had died despite all that we had been through was just too much for me to accept. It was unfair and I was angry at God for taking my mother from me, and He was going to hear about it.
When the screaming was done and utter exhaustion took over, I finally gave over to the pull on my heart that I felt was God wrapping His arms around me and holding me tenderly.
As I gave up the pain, I was rewarded with the greatest gift of peace that I never could have imagined existed, as the amazing love of Jesus Christ entered my heart and filled every crevice of my soul with indescribable peace and comfort.
At this moment, I realized exactly what had been missing from my first feeble attempt at accepting Jesus into my heart all those years ago.
I felt His enduring love permeate and fill my soul with peace and light and hope. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt at that moment that I was loved. I was loved as a child of the King and I belonged to Him fully and completely.
The feelings of darkness and despair…gone.
The feelings of failure and never measuring up…gone.
The feelings of inadequacy and insecurity…gone and gone.
When I got up off my knees, I discovered that I had been given a new vision of life that I did not have before. I realized at that moment that God could have easily taken my mother at any time during her illness, but he allowed her to live five more months that were not promised to us. I had not realized this before and this realization of God’s enduring love and faithfulness changed my life forever.
My life changed dramatically from that moment on, as I found myself overwhelmed with blessings again and again.
My greatest blessing came in the form of meeting the man who would become my husband. As I held this man’s hand, I felt God speak these words to my heart clearly and lovingly, “Jill, this is the man that I have chosen for you.”
With the love of God firmly guiding me and the love of my wonderful husband supporting me, I found my voice in the written word again by sharing my personal story of Jesus’ love and faithfulness in my book Hide and Watch. The title gives loving homage to my mother’s Southern upbringing and unfailing spirit and belief that, if you don’t believe what God can do in your life, you just need to “hide and watch”, for it is a guaranteed certainty.
With this book, my purpose is now set – I will share the words that God gives me to inspire and encourage others of His faithful and enduring love. It is my hope that you will join me on this journey.
Oh, how He loves you…Oh, how He loves me…Oh, how He loves you and me.
Jill Hicks Lawson