The Love and Mercy of God

The Love and Mercy of God

Gail Mainor

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© 2013 . All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 2/13/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4817-0667-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4817-0668-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013900545

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Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

The contents that is in this book is to allow those that read it to really search their lives and realize that they need the savior to come in their hearts and save them from themselves. Find unconditional love that will not stop reaching out for them no matter where they are in life.

I dedicate this book to my sister Roselie, who has gone home to be with the Lord Jesus Christ.

She played a big part in my life before and after we were saved.

She suffered for many so that they could get to know Jesus. She showed my children and me lots of love, and she sacrificed herself and her time on many occasions for us.

So I say thank you, sister, and we will see you when we get to heaven. You said you were going to see Jesus before me, and you did.

I first want to begin by saying

I once was lost, but now I’m found.

I was blind, but now I can see.

Chapter 1

I ONCE DID NOT know why I was here on earth, what my purpose in life was. Then the Lord God Almighty introduced me to his love through his son, Christ Jesus. For the first time in my life, I experienced real love undefiled, pure, and holy—the love of God that passes all knowledge and all understanding.

Many people look for love all of their lives. They look for it in their parents. They look for it in their sisters or brothers (biological and spiritual). They look for it in friends. Do not misunderstand what I am saying. Yes, they love you, but human love is limited. Some of us fall in love, get married, and have children, yet we still feel empty inside, knowing something is missing. That emptiness is unexplainable. Some people have a good life—they grew up in a good and loving family environment—and have everything they need and want. Still, they feel a kind of emptiness inside that they cannot explain.

You see, love is like a medicine: it can nurture anyone into good health mentally, physically, and spiritually. We need love to survive like we need food to survive. Some of us, like myself, did not have a good, loving, comfortable, and safe childhood. I never experienced a hug or a kiss; I never heard my parents say, I love you. I have nine sisters and two brothers. My dad was born with a heart disease, so he could not work and provide for his family as he wanted. I guess that made him frustrated and angry all the time. Both my parents got drunk. My dad became very violent when he drank, and we were very fearful of him. We would run and hide when my parents came home drunk. He was very quiet when he didn’t drink; he would sit in a chair quietly, not saying anything. I guess he was worried and was trying to figure how to take care of all his children.

He also observed us, and we paid for the least thing we did or said that he didn’t like whenever he got drunk. We would have to stand in a line, side by side, and were not allowed to lean on anything or anybody for hours. If we did, we would get a beating. One of my sisters was so afraid of him that whenever she would hear my parents come in the house drunk, she would run and hide in a closet. We knew where she was because she would urinate on herself. That’s how fearful we were of our dad. One time my dad had us all lined up, and my brother got so angry and tired of it that he jumped out of a window and ran away after they went to bed. I did not see him for years, but I never asked where my brother was.

In those days, children didn’t ask too many questions. We were told to speak only when we were spoken to. You see, some parents didn’t understand that children had something to say and had opinions. Back then, it felt like children were not humans, or like they didn’t have feelings like adults did.

As I think about my childhood, I realize now that it was child abuse. Child abuse was discipline to my dad. My father didn’t realize that himself, but in those times, if someone would have reported it, they would have been investigated and maybe would have been taken away from their parents. I thank God for protecting us from that. You might be thinking that’s a crazy way to think, if we were being abused. It’s an experience that you would have to understand. We lived in fear, but we somehow knew that our dad loved us.

As I sit here and think about how the children are being treated in some foster homes, it’s much worse than what we went through. Some of them don’t survive to tell the story. Some children are raped, and some die before they can grow up and take care of themselves. I thank God for keeping us, even when we didn’t know we were being kept.

The fear that I experienced caused me to become an introvert; I was very quiet. I did not talk to anyone and did a lot of thinking. All my thoughts stayed in my head. I would think so much that I did not hear when people were speaking to me. My mom would always scream at me and say I was ignoring her. Little did she know that I could