Maddie: During my 8th grade year, my parents got divorced. I blamed my mom for all of it. I blamed her even more when my parents would sit in church with my brother and I, and not even blink an eye when the sermon would be about turning to God instead of divorce. It confused me so much. I became so angry at God for allowing this divorce to happen and couldn’t believe my mom would not change her mind about divorcing my dad after listening to sermon after sermon. I blamed God for not changing her mind.
I stopped going to church and stopped caring about God. During the ages of 14-16, I became mean, sarcastic, bitter, and unforgiving. I bottled up my anger and tucked my emotions deep down to keep them from bubbling over for 3 years. One day, during my 10th grade year, I couldn’t hold my emotions down any longer and unleashed it all on my mother. I hadn’t felt emotions in so long that I started having actual panic attacks from the rush of all different types of emotions. For some reason, I decided to go to church the Sunday after that happened. I didn’t like the person I had become. Our Pastor preached on Ezekiel 36:26-27 which reads, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.” God knew that passage was exactly what I needed to hear that week. God completely healed my heart of stone.
Today, my life is a living version of that passage. I can barely even remember those bitter and unforgiving years because I was so unlike myself. God changed my heart. I forgave my mom for divorcing my dad and repaired friendships I had broken along the way. And even though I forgave my mom, I still prayed to God that he would work a miracle and bring my family back together. And guess what – God did work that miracle and my parents are back together now! God is so amazing and loving. He can change anyone. He changed my heart, and He can change yours.
