Daybreak Testimony

This is a testimony that I gave to a group of single moms on April 10th. I wanted to share it on here.

Hello! My name is Jenny McKim. I am a 31 year old mom to a son who turned 10 yesterday. I also teach kindergarten so if you sneeze don’t take offense if I tell you to blow your nose and wash your hands. It is a habit that I have. I am also very nervous to be here in front of a group of women. I might have to pretend that you are all in kindergarten so if someone could pick their nose I would feel more at ease. J

All kidding aside I am here to talk with you about when I was a single mom. At the age of 16 I met my ex-husband, got pregnant and married at the age of 21, had Garrett, moved out when Garrett was 1 and ½, moved back in 6 months later, and finally left for good on my 26^th birthday when Garrett was 4 and ½. Happy birthday to me, right? I’m sure many of you are wondering why I chose to go back. Because I couldn’t live with myself not knowing whether or not we could have worked out our differences. A few months after I moved back in on my 24^th b-day I realized I had made a mistake when I was made aware that my ex had left my two year old at home by himself while he ran to the liquor store to get some beer. I was devastated, but others around me told me not to over react and leave again. So I stayed in hopes of trying to make my marriage work mainly for my son. I was going to school full-time, working full-time, and trying to be a mom and a wife full-time. I soon came to realize that even though we were still living in the same house that we were living two separate lives and I was essentially a single mom. On my 26^th birthday I showed up at the house to find ALL of my belongings packed up and moved into the drive way. Even though leaving was my choice I was still devastated. I cried the whole entire day, yes even while moving. I had tried to build a life with this person and now all of our hopes and dreams were shattered and gone. I felt like a failure for being divorced at the age of 26, I felt like I didn’t know where my life was supposed to go. I had to drop out of the education program because I couldn’t finish school and be a single parent. I felt like my life was in shambles.

I wish I could say that I was like Lisa who spoke last week. She prayed to God and stayed faithful, I didn’t. Did I know God? Yes. My parents were not church going people. Yes we went on the major holidays, but I came to know Christ through the Hargett family. Angie Hargett was my best friend from 2^nd grade on and her dad was a pastor. They were the ones who taught me about God. But Angie moved to a different school our freshman year of high school and I followed the other path because I no longer had her and her family to be an influence on me. So, when I left my ex I turned to a bottle instead of the bible. Thankfully God made me realize after about two weeks of that, that I was turning into the exact same thing I swore I would never become because my mom was an alcoholic who died when I was 6 and I DID NOT want that for Garrett.

From that point on I continued to feel like a failure and continued to feel sorry for myself. Even though I was far from God He was always with me in my journey. He was trying to guide me and nudge me in the right direction. One day I was sitting on my couch with Garrett when an overwhelming feeling came over me. I looked at Garrett and told him to get up because we were going to get up and do something. He turned and asked me why and I told him because I was going to stop feeling sorry for myself…it was getting me no where. That, my friends, was a God thing. If it weren’t for Him continuing to nudge I might still be sitting there on that couch right now. That is not a place I want to go back to. I mean, the pity parties were so extravagant that I should have busted out the balloons and streamers! Thank God for divine intervention.

Last week when I was driving home from our first Daybreak class I was wracking my brain trying to think of what I would say in my talk. I was reminded of a song by Joy Williams called God Only Knows. The chorus of the song says:

God only knows all your broken pieces

Only he knows what you’re going thru

God only knows what you hide inside

And he’s holding onto you

I felt like that this song was perfect for me. Looking back I can see how God was still holding onto me even after all of the things I had done in my life, after turning my back on Him, He knew all of my faults and yet He was still there…knowing all of these things and still loving and holding onto me. That is something that at times is still hard for me to completely understand.

One of my favorite scripture verses is

Psalm 50:15

Call on me when you are in trouble and I will rescue you and you will give me glory.

Oh, how I wish that I would have had that scripture when I was going through these trials. God will rescue us, it might not be the way we would like or want, it might not have been as quickly as we would like, but He will rescue us. It won’t always be easy.

I was sent a daily devotional that I know came from God. The scripture is:

Psalm 84:6

When they walk through the Valley of Weeping, it will become a place of refreshing springs, where pools of blessing collect after the rains!

God doesn’t promise us a trouble-free life, but He does say that Valleys of Weeping will eventually become pools of blessing. We can decide to trust Him during the difficult seasons or we can bury ourselves in self-pity. I am thankful that he nudged me to trust Him.

Prayer is amazing

Hello Friends!
I know that the power of prayer is amazing and I am here asking for some prayer for my family and me. My husband is a wonderful father to two children that are not his. He is an amazing example to my son and I am in awe of my husband for still being a dad to his step-daughter from his previous marriage. I am praying that I will be able to give my husband a child of his own flesh and blood.
I am asking for your prayers this week. I am ovulating this week and am praying that God will allow us to conceive a miracle of our own. I have conceived three other times in July (one resulting in my son and two resulting in miscarriages) so I am thinking that this is my most fertile time of the year. I am praying that God will allow us to conceive and to carry this baby to term. If we lose this baby then God had bigger and better plans for it with Him and we will not be trying again. Please pray that God's plans are the same as ours, but if they aren't pray that we will gain peace knowing that our creator has our best interest at heart all the time.
Thank you so much!
God is so good, ALL the time!

4th of July Fun

Have a little faith

Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”

Matthew 14:31 (NIV)

Have you ever felt like you were in a big storm in life? Life was going along just fine… then one phone call, one bad decision, one major storm in your life … and you get tossed into a situation where you struggle to keep yourself together. At times, storms rage into our lives without warning, and we can find ourselves sinking into despair. Yet we have hope for survival. We have a Savior who promises to be our life raft in even the worst of storms, but we have to choose to grab onto that raft and look straight into the eyes of Jesus.

When we take our eyes off Jesus during our storms, and doubt His power in our life, we begin to sink as well. We can feel as if we are drowning in our problems, unable to get back onto safe ground. However when we cry out to Jesus will catch us by the hand and raise us back up.

Maybe you feel as if you have been tossed about by a storm today, and if you do, cry out to Jesus. He will hear you. He will calm your fears. He will raise you up. He wants you to be aware of His presence, even if you do not recognize Him at first.

Although the storms of our life may not cease immediately when we cry out to Jesus, we can have faith knowing He is there to rescue us. And that gives us the strength and courage to survive the toss.

Dear Lord, thank You for always being there for me. Help me to be aware of Your presence during my storms. Forgive me for my doubts and lack of faith and help me to learn to trust in You fully. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Great Devotional!

“Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.”

Jeremiah 33:3 (NIV)

Over the years I have discovered that the cure for answer envy is not always easy because I must play an active role in my own healing. What I need is a shift in perspective. When I “call to God” as encouraged in today’s verse, I must trust that He will keep His word. He will tell me “great and unsearchable things” that I do not know. Sometimes those things are the answers to my request. However, do you know what those great and unsearchable things more often are? They are the reasons He seems not to be answering my original request!

So, instead of only begging God to “sell my house” or “take away my pain” or “fix my kid,” I need also to ask myself some questions. Questions like, “What is my Creator trying to teach me that I might never learn if He were to suddenly pluck me out of this situation?” Or, “What character qualities is He trying to grow in me? Patience, trust, compassion, contentment?”

Not available in quick microwave form, the cure for answer envy must be cultivated moment by moment. We must believe that God will answer. He will clearly say “yes”, “no”, or “not right now.” He is able, ready and willing to answer our prayers—here is the catch—as He sees fit and to grow us to be more like His Son in the process.

So, our “for sale” sign has remained and I continue my stay in God’s waiting room. However, I now know this to be true: I must not merely seek the answer to my prayer. Instead, I must seek a deeper relationship with the answer Giver.

Dear Lord, as I bring my requests before You, please help me be mindful of what You are doing in my heart while I walk through life and its storms. As I wait for Your answers, make me more like your Son. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Show your support!

Some friends of ours are doing a 3-Day 60 Mile breast cancer walk in Chicago in August. Here is a link if you would like to make a donation so that they can attend this walk. They have been training so hard! If you can't support them with donations then please support them with your prayers.

http://www.endure2cure.com/index.html

Be blessed and be a blessing!

AU @ Ichthus June 2008