Bittersweet

I answered my calling the same year that I got divorced.  What a year!  On Memorial Day weekend my daughter and I traveled to DC to visit friends.  My girlfriend Penny is a praying sister so I had to pray with her before I left to return to CT.  She was moving at the time and I kept insisting that I come over her house.  She said what do you want because my house is full of boxes and I don't have anywhere for you to sit.  I told her that I was not coming to see boxes that I was coming to get prayer so she allowed me to come after all.  When Perri and I arrived Penny asked me what I wanted and all I could say was "Peace".  So we sat in a small room and we prayed for peace.  On my drive home that day I cried all the way.  The Lord spoke to me loud and clear.  He said if you want peace in your life then do what I told you to do....answer the call to preach.  "What!  Not me!  Why are you calling me Lord!  I don't want to be called!" I acted like I had heard this for the first time but I knew because my dreams had given me warning signs over and over and over again.  But I knew that this was the final straw.  God was speaking to me like a "do this or else" statement.  I continued to cry until I arrived in Hartford.  I drove to my mother's house first.  When I arrived I told my mother that I was answering the call to preach.   She smiled and hugged me and the first words out of her mouth were "I'm not surprised".  Well why not?  I was.  A couple of days later I met with my pastor to inform him that I was answering the call to preach.  He wasn't surprised either!  Anyway, for the next couple of months my world was upside down.   Then I knew from there that the man I was married to did not fit in the new life that I was stepping into so I had to do something about it.  I filed for divorce.   Two weeks later this young lady rang my doorbell the same day I was going to get my first license to preach I knew that I had made the right decision.  My divorce was final that November and I have never looked back since then.  Bittersweet but Thank you Jesus!