Life Verse: Jeremiah 29:11

My life verse is Jeremiah 29:11: "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

That begs the question: How do you know / where do you get a life verse? Here's my story...

Years ago I got involved in a relationship with a man who worked on the road. After he finished the job he was working in the area I live in, he moved on, but we stayed involved. After a few months, he flew me down to visit him for a long weekend. Yeah, it was that kind of relationship.

The visit was not the romantic reunion I expected - it was horrible, it was frightening, and I left feeling worthless and stupid and used. On the plane trip home, I pulled out a Christian magazine a dear older friend at church had given me and the only words I remember reading are: "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." I was overwhelmed by the promise of that verse. Then, I looked out the plane window and saw a rainbow. I know, it reads like a cheesy scene from a made-for-TV movie, but it is truth.

And for the next four or five years, that was all I really had of God - that verse. I clung to it like the drowning woman I was, even though nothing else changed in my life. I kept following the same path, making the same mistakes, wallowing in the same sin, believing I could make my own way. Now, I understand that was God's wake-up call, His way of letting me know that I was His and someday I would know and accept and submit. But, that's another story...

I believe the friend who shared that magazine was praying for me then and never stopped praying for me until she knew I was fully surrendered to God. At the time she gave me the magazine, I was one of those Christians Brennan Manning talked about in this quote: "The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today are Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable." But she knew God had so much more for me, if I would just accept it.

Thanking God for His claim on me and how he worked through an older woman I loved and respected to reveal that.