Family Faith:

As a child, teenager and young woman, I recall gazing into the sky and feeling like something was missing from my life.

It literally felt as if there was a hole that needed to be filled.

As a young adult, before rededicating my life to Christ, I used to try to fill that void with relationships and even the party scene. That was before the Lord got a hold of my life at 20 and drastically changed the way I lived, felt and conducted my choices. That was a season when the emptiness I had was altered. I felt joyful and at peace. I am not inferring that everything went well from that point on, because it did not. But I did have a newfound peace that was present daily. I no longer had an empty space in my life. The void had been there awaiting my acceptance of Christ to fill it.

From that day on I have journeyed with my Lord through good and bad. I have witnessed answers to prayer in a positive light, and I have also experienced hardship. It is during the times of adversity that we can often be most challenged in our walk with Christ.

This is when the issue of refilling that hole comes in.

When we are in deep pain, or have not taken the time to deal with past hurts, it is very common for people to find themselves in depressive times. They may run straight to God for help, but often the pain causes us humans to look elsewhere for a “quick fix,” so to speak. Christians are not immune to the same distractions and self medicating that non-Christians are — relationships, drugs and alcohol, sexual addictions, spending and the like, which I have written on in previous columns.

Sometimes these distractions get us through for while. But more often than not, the void is still there and we have to really hit the bottom emotionally before God can get our full attention — and turn our gaze toward Him.

We have all heard about how God sometimes uses our most painful moments to turn our cheek toward the path He has ordained for our life. At times the lesson may be too painful to bear. Some people may get angry at God over a loss, or sink into a deep depression or anxiety. But God is aware of those outcomes to our pain. He sees the hurt and dry spells we go through when we are questioning what He is doing. And He is so creative, that He actually uses those times to knock us on our back, so our gaze is indeed heavenward.