Sexually Abused Christian Testimony

This is my testimony of how God has worked in my life to bring about a greater love to Him by allowing bad things to happen to me.  How God helped me overcome is towards the bottom of this page but here is my testimony.

I grew up going to church but was a hypocrite.  I lived my life how I wanted to Monday through Saturday, but went to church on Sunday only because my family went.

Mom and Dad divorced when I was about 5.

About this time I was sexually abused by Paul.  This incident changed my life for the worst as I saw it.  I had no clue how to deal with it until 22 years later when Jesus saved me and gave me “a new heart” Ez. 36:26

As I got older my hatred for Paul and God grew.  I knew God was Sovereign and I blamed Him, so I grew in my hatred for God.  Yes, Paul had free will and chose to do a moral evil to me but I knew God was Sovereign and could have stopped it but knew not why He didn’t. Toward the bottom of the page I explain this further.

I didn’t blame anyone of my family.  

Some of what happened during the abuse was in a bathroom.  So over time as I used the bathroom memories would come back about the abuse because that night would replay in my mind over and over again ( I say this with tears rolling down my eyes).  It was like reliving it all over again every day.  My hatred for Paul would continue to grow each time.  I tried to make sense of it all and it seemed nothing worked but to believe that he would suffer and suffer forever, and that would bring me some sense of justice.

Paul told me not to tell anyone and that it was our secret and that I would be in trouble with him if I told anyone.  I was very young and scared e so I didn’t say anything.  Every parent needs to tell their children that they have nothing to fear and to tell them everything right away and that they would be pleased to know and that the child has nothing to fear by telling their parent.  Actually, I believe the parent should say that they would be really happy to know if or when the child tells them but very sad and sorry that something like that did happen.  Even though the information is a nightmare for the parent, at least the parent will know and stop contact with the abuser.  It is the person doing the abuse that is to fear, not the child!  Had I not been afraid, many other children may not have been abused.

Still 40 years later, I remember details that I am okay to remember now, because God works even the bad, in and of themselves memories, for my spiritual good and His glory.  I can’t image the pain other’s go through who have had this happen to them over and over again.  Even as I write this now, I cry with many tears for those hurting.  God loves us even though you may not know it or feel it.  Go to Him in your time of need and read and obey the Bible.

I was a really sinful teenager.  I only cared about myself and not even my family.  I hurt them in many ways.  I always came first in my mind and was self righteous believing I deserved better.  Even at the expense of hurting others.  I was growing in my hatred for God by now and was totally rebelling.  I even knew I was rebelling against God by living very sinful.  Part of me was even happy for doing it, because I thought somehow this was my way of getting even.  These thoughts and feelings made my heart very hard against God and as I grew older the hardness only grew.  My hatred for Paul only grew as well.  The only way I felt better in my hatred towards him was to think that his suffering that I believed He would get would be worse than the last time I wanted revenge.

I was still using the bathroom and memories kept coming back.  My heart grew even harder for Paul and God.  As far as I was concerned God would have nothing to do with my life so I lived even more sinful.  I thought I would be in jail or dead and I really didn’t care, I thought dying couldn’t be much worse than reliving your painful past over and over again.  At the age of 18 I was caught steeling, and did restitution.  By 20 I was in jail for selling marianna. Little did I know that God’s plan later would be to use these events to give me a burning passion for the closest most intimate love relationship with Himself through Christ.  I now would not change anything!  Once I was saved, I learned how to Love God mainly through understanding what love is in the Bible!

Each year I seemed to grow in my burning hatred and had no love or desire to see any good happen to Paul.  I remember hating Paul so much that the only thing that would relieve my pain was actually thinking he would suffer forever for what he did.  I grew so much in my hatred for him that I had to continue to think that he would get an even worse than what I imaged before.  After some time I would only be relieved of my hatred for him unless I thought he would burn in a hotter and hotter hell for all the suffering he put me through.

( I now walk in a daily growing Love for God and Paul). I love Paul and pray for him, and when I use the bathroom and am reminded of all that happened, I thank God for using it all for growing love for Him and my growth in Christ likeness Rom. 8:28-29.  I also know that I am a sinner and deserve hell myself.  Though I thought my life was a living hell it was much less than what I deserved.  The Bible says “How can any living man complain”  in view of what his sins deserve Lam. 3:39.  God uses all things for me to be more like Christ, even my memories.  The hard heart that I had is now soft for even my enemies in this sinful world.

When I was saved I hated my old hard heart so bad that I did everything I could to purify it.  I memorized so much Scripture and most delightfully meditated on it day and night.  Quite often confessing my sin and looking to the Love of Christ in forgiving me of all that hatred I had for God and Paul.

I was living the fast and sinful life pursuing all my selfish desires and wanting more.  It never seemed to be enough.  Multiple women and money seemed to be my main goal.  Mom had remarried and my new father told me that the best pleasures in life were women and money, so I put all my effort into that pursuit.  I made so many women mad at me.  Next to offending God, I extremely regret everything I did.  I hurt so many of them and it was so shameful that I am in tears again as I write.  Thank you Jesus for forgiving me!!  Until Jesus opened my eyes, I was quite happy in my sin but I just wanted more of it.

I lived life thinking I would die at a young age, riding motorcycles and living on the edge put me in the hospital many times and I should have been dead.  This caused my mom much grief but still I only cared about myself.

California at age 27.  Christ found me and brought me back to Him by His Great Love!!

I moved to California for a job opportunity at the age of 27.   While trying to figure out what radio stations to program in my car, I ran across a RC Sproul talking about “people who have the faith that saves and people who only say that they have faith”.  People who profess to have faith and people who process the faith that saves and  only the people who have the faith that saves will go to heaven.   I thought “I don’t think I have the faith that saves because my life was so sinful.”   I learned that if Jesus is your Savior that He saves you from living a life of sin.  Surely He was not my Savior because I continued to sin and wanted more of it.  

I searched the scriptures to see how I could get this faith.  I found a church and thought people there could help me get this faith that saves.  All along, reading the Bible and going to church God kept showing me how sinful I was and that I deserved punishment from Him for living my life hating Him.  People at church kept telling me what to do, but my life and sinful thoughts weren’t changing.  I was desperate and read and listened to everything I could get my hands on and only the conviction of sin would get worse.

One weekend I read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John desperately trying to find out how to get this faith that saves.  By now I knew that if you had the faith that saves that Jesus would be saving you from a life of sin.  I still liked my sin and Jesus sure wasn’t saving me from a life of sin, so I rightly concluded that I didn’t have the faith that saves.

By the time I got to John, I saw “believe” everywhere.  John 3:16 and other verses and wow the whole book was written so that you may believe.  John 20:31 “these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”  So at night I would pray “I believe Jesus died for me, I believe, I believe.   This was just an intellectual belief that Jesus died but had no love to Him in that belief.  I knew that in history and the Bible that Jesus died for everyone, so I believed it.  But this belief did not change my life.

I would go on night after night saying the same prayer only to wake up the next day wanting to fulfill my sinful desires.  I thought I could just muster up faith.  I learned later that “Faith is a gift from God”  Ephesians 2:8-9.  The prayer wasn’t working so I started to word it different each time hoping some prayer would work.  After about 2 weeks of this I was fed up with it all, nothing was happening.  I still was living in my sin and wanted more of it.  A Christian hates their sin and does something about it, and certainly they don’t continue to make plans on how to sin more like I had been doing.  The prayers weren’t working so I gave up.  I got mad at God again because I was reading His Word and doing my best and nothing was happening.   I said to God, “God, I tried with all my might, I searched the Scriptures, went to church, read the Bible and prayed all to no avail.  If Im going to be saved your going to have to do it because I tried.”

So I quit praying but still the Bible kept calling me so I read more.  3 Days later I was laying in a tanning bed and God convicted me for real the first time in my life that I had offended Him by the life I was living.  I was so scared of God, where could I run.  I was in complete terror.  My life was really sinful and evil and God was ready to pour out His righteous anger on me at any moment.  All I saw was my whole life of sin and no way to hide from God who was angry with me.  You can’t hide from God.  It seemed like forever that I was under these terrors of being under the Wrath of God.

This lasted about 10 minutes, then this is how I understood it.  God let me understand that all that anger that He had for me should rightly come my way.  I agreed I deserved it.  Then I understood that He had poured that anger out on Jesus 2,000 years ago when He bore my sin and the punishment for it when He was on the cross.  I immediately started weeping and couldn’t stop for about 20 minutes.  All the sins that I could think of I confessed.  One after another after another, I was so sorrowful and grieved it physically hurt inside the whole time.

After I stopped crying I thought that was one of the strangest things that ever happened.  I don’t cry.  Im was never sorry for my sin.  This was new to me. I walked out of the tanning salon and stood outside and everything seemed so beautiful, the tree’s, the birds, even the air seemed pleasant.  Now I was really wondering what was going on.  I was no longer grieved but felt good inside.  I stood there boggled.  Is this real?  I felt a peace that passed my understanding.  God wasn’t angry with me but I new I was at peace with God because of what Jesus did.  I had to look back in the tanning salon to see if I was really in a real place.  I was so happy, the only thing I could think of was Jesus being punished for my sin.  That thought dominated my thinking all day, and it only made me more sorrowful for my sin that He took upon Himself and also more joyful.  This was so weird for me to have so many intense mixed emotions.

I pondered all of this as I drove to work that day.  I brought my Bible to work and was thinking, “what am I doing, I want to take my Bible to work so I can read it?”  As soon as I got to work I started reading my Bible in every spare moment I had.  I couldn’t believe what I was reading!!  It was all so wonderful!  It felt so good to just read my Bible.  My client showed up and as I was training them the only thing I could think about was getting back to my Bible.  The first few weeks after being saved, I read all night and slept about 2 hours and was reading again.

I had sinful things in my apartment and I rounded everything evil up and threw it in the garbage.  It was weird I was thinking but it felt good so I left it all in the garbage.  I called my girlfriend to break it up and she thought I had another girlfriend, I said no, I just think this is wrong we shouldn’t be sleeping together.  She didn’t understand so I told her I was a Christian now and she still thought I had another girlfriend.  She said “Im glad your a Christian, so am I”  I thought to myself,  “I have a strong conviction that sleeping together is wrong and she thought it was okay”  I wondered how she could think that.  Anyway we broke up.

I kept reading my Bible, confessing my sin and repenting, there was so much to repent of and I had lived a very sinful life.  I was a thief for some part of my life and all the people I stole from kept coming to mind.  I  owed so much money.  I was instantly in debt about $80,000.  As I could, I paid them back slowly.  As of 2016 I still owe about $25,000 but it sure is a joy to be paying them back.

The first week of being saved a car just about ran me over, they hit me but I wasn’t hurt at all.  The guy in the car felt so bad.  I just looked at him and said “God bless you and have a great day, I am okay”  and smiled at him and moved on.  Now I was really wondering what was going on because I normally would have cussed him out left and right and instead of cussing him I blessed him.  That was so weird.  But again it felt good.  I learned to do good by what my conscience told me was good and that it felt good and sin made me feel guilty,  I got hooked on this feeling good by doing good and did it more often.

About two weeks after being saved I thought of Paul.  I immediately prayed for him, something like “Lord help him..”  then I stopped praying and said out loud “What am I doing?”  I’m praying for a man that I hated my whole life, but it feels good and right, so I did it again.  I stopped again midway in the prayer and started pacing around.  I was trying to make sense of what was going on and couldn’t figure it out.  But again it made me happy to pray for him so I did.  Paul would often come to mind when I went to the bathroom and each time I would pray for Him.  Little did I know Jesus was saving from hating Paul.  The more I did this the less weird it got and the more right it seemed.  And the greater my love grew for him.  This is how God cleansed me of my hatred for Paul.

Anyone who has been abused knows that the memories don’t leave you.  But each time a memory comes back is a test.  God is testing us to see if there is love in our heart or hatred.  If we find hatred and anger then we must confess it as sin, see that we deserve hell and the lake of fire for that sin but then look to Jesus Christ who paid the penalty for that sin.  Right here is the power to forgive.  In the Gospel or Good News about Jesus there is power to forgive and not have anger or hatred toward your worst enemies.  At this point if you have true conviction of your sin that you have angered a Great and Holy God, you will then see how evil, wretched, undone and sinful you really are and then you see how loving, gracious, merciful and forgiving Jesus Christ is to save such a sinful person as yourself.

Once you see this great Love Jesus has to save such a sinful person as yourself then it becomes quite easy, yes easy and natural to forgive someone who has abused you because you have a new heart, the old is gone and the new has come.  I was a new creation, born of God and had His Holy Spirit in me enabling me to love and not hate.

As I realized that God was not angry with me but had forgiven me, it was quite easy to forgive and not hate Paul.  So much of my life was a living hatred for someone and now I wanted good to happen to him and not bad for the first time.  As my love for God grew so did my love to someone who once was my enemy, Paul.  It hurt and grieved the Spirit in me to have hatred for Paul, it felt good to love him so I prayed for even more love Paul more and more.  God granted my prayers.

Then when the memory comes back you can pass the test and have love to God and your enemy and not hatred.  Even after being saved, I did not pass the test every time.  I had to learn this daily, hourly and sometime minute by minute because the memories would not stop when I went to the bathroom.   Romans 1:16 that the gospel “is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes” not only salvation but growing love for God and others as well.   The gospel will save the sinner and wake up the saint to loving God and others.  Here I found power to forgive as Christ forgave me, but I had to do this everyday all day 10, 20, 30 sometimes all day I would have to think of my sin and see the Love of Christ greater than my sin in order for me to forgive and not be angry with Paul each time a memory came.  Now it is natural for me because I have done it so many times, you have to remind yourself over and over again.  Jesus does this good work in His children Hebrews 12. and Phil. 2:13 if you are continuing in a habitual unbroken pattern of hatred then Jesus is not saving you from your sin.  Jesus came to save sinners from the punishment of their sins and from living a life of sin.  

We can’t save ourselves that why God sent Jesus, our faith is in Him to save us from bad memories and living a life of sin.  This is why I wanted to share the Gospel with Paul, so that he could be saved like Jesus was saving me.  Yes, Paul did not deserve to hear the gospel that has power to save, but I loved him and wanted the best for him, God had changed my heart through believing the truth of the good news that,

21 “God made Jesus who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” through Jesus bearing our sin and shame upon himself on the cross and crediting us sinners with His righteousness so that God could treat us as if we had lived the perfect life of Jesus.  We get His righteousness! 2 Corinthians 5:21

I started memorizing large portions of scripture.  I thought I really needed to understand what Jesus felt on the cross for me and if I knew more about His love for me then I would love Him more.  Someone recommended memorizing Isaiah 53, so I did.   I found so much love in there that it kept changing me more like Him.  I memorized even more Scripture about Love, and this was wonderful because it felt like the words were cleaning my mind and as Proverbs 2:10  “For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.”  I wanted more and more of this pleasantness.  So I memorized even more and the joy got more and more.

Then the best life changing advice came:

A friend from church told me to find a book of the Bible and really understand it.  Read through the Bible and pick one and read it over and over and study it and really get it.  Every verse!  So I started in Genesis and read through.  When I got to Proverbs I really liked it so I thought that would be the book.  I started by memorizing all of Proverbs chapter 3.  After that I thought maybe there is a better book than Proverbs.  So I read on.  Then I came to Song of Solomon.  I read it with quite a lot of confusion.   What is this talk about breasts and stuff in the Bible.  It wasn’t as good as the other books, I didn’t know why.  So I bought a commentary on it.  George Burrowes commentary on the Song of Solomon.

In the commentary I found that George and others saw the book as illustrating God’s love to the Church, me His bride.  And not only illustrating it but displaying the Love of Christ better than any other book!  This caught my attention big time, because I was having a burning desire for a closer relationship with God and desperately learning about His Love so that I could Love Him more.

You see I had hated Him for so long that God used that old hard heart to spur me on in loving Him with a burning passion.  I so much did not want to hate God anymore that I was on fire to learn to Love Him as much and as fast as possible.  So here was a book that would help me do that.  So I landed on the Song of Solomon.  I committed to learning as much of this book as possible.  Hence my blog Solomonssongofsongs.com 

I memorized the first chapter and would repeat it often throughout the day.  I didn’t know much of what I was repeating but it sure made me happier and on fire for God.  I grew in my love to God and other’s repeating, memorizing and applying the first chapter over and over again all day, really all day!  like a dozen times a day at least.  It felt so good and I never found any other book that caused me to weep so much over my sin.   I would often weep everyday just reading it.  Which seemed odd because it was a love poem about a man and an woman.  Little did I know that knowing what love is will convict you of any remaining hatred for God.

I was to immature to know what was going on.  Even though it hurt to weep so much, I felt like my heart was being cleansed from the filth that was in it by reading Scripture over and over again so I continued to do so.

As I read the commentary I understood more and more.  What God was doing in me through the Song was greater and faster than any other portion of Scripture so I tended to stay there often.  I was so excited about God that I thought it funny that other’s in church weren’t the same way.  Some where happy but it seemed most of them didn’t seem to care much about God, the Bible, the Song of Songs like I was.  It tasted so good to my soul.  Yet way to many cared more about tv or football. They would talk about work, football the weather after church when I wanted to talk about Jesus and the sermon.  The only thing I wanted to talk about was Jesus and God and how can I grow closer to Him.

I spend most of my first two years saved hanging around the Masters Seminary in Sun Valley California.  The guys there were so mature and encouraging.  I loved going to chapel with them.  I had so many questions and they were so happy to help.  I worked as little as possible and studied, prayed and worshipped as much as possible.  This meant about 3 hours of work a day and 12 hours of study, fortunately by then I was making about $50 an hour so I limited my work time to study.

About this time there was a mission trip to Ireland.  Where God taught me how to live by faith.  So much here to tell but I will hold back.

I started to have convictions that I should try to find Paul and witness to him.  I kept praying for him but how could he be saved if he hadn’t heard the Gospel that has power unto salvation.  So I asked family if they had any information.  Like me before, my family hated him and thought he deserved hell.  After some time I got his name but no location or phone number.  I prayed some more and then started to get stronger convictions to do something about finding Paul.

So I went on the internet and typed in  “his name and child molestation sex offender court”  thinking that some court record would have some info leading to where I may find him”  I even talked to a private eye and he couldn’t help.    So I googled some key words and spent hours each day looking through each page.  I believed it was God’s will for me to witness to Paul.  I came to the conclusion that it was God’s will for me to witness to him and to do whatever it took to share the Gospel with Paul. I wanted him to be saved.  Really bad!  So much so that I thought God would save Paul if I were to witness to him.  So I didn’t stop searching for him.  I kept my computer on each day and went page by page through thousands of pages.  It took two years to go through about 15,000 pages but I found someone who matched his name in a prison for molesting his grandchildren.

I wrote the prison and to my surprise Paul wrote back.  This was the first time in my life that I knew he was the father of my sister.  All kinds of emotions went through my body when I saw his letter from the jail.  I didn’t open it right away but two hours later God gave me enough courage to face my fears again and I opened the letter.  He admitted to being the one who molested me.  We wrote back and forth I told him I was angry before but now I was saved and that I loved him and believed God wanted me to talk to him.  He read my letters over and over again.  I shared the gospel in each one.

I got mad again at Paul 2x.   Once in a letter  he said that he loved me and my family.  I got really angry with him.  In a letter back, I told Paul that he didn’t love me but lusted after me.  That night it was hard to find any love Paul in my heart, I had to call a friend to pray for me so that I could repent, after he prayed I felt greater love for Paul.  Then  I wrote him back saying “I’m sorry but you can’t say that you loved me.  You did not love me you lusted after me.”  He admitted he didn’t love as he should have and admitted that it was lust and sinful.  Finally some conviction and I praised God for that.  Yet I only thought he was saying that because I was being nice to him and giving him money to show some true love.  All his family had left him and he said I was the only “friend” he had.

Wether or not it was true Paul said that he had cancer in his arm and that the help the prison gives was not enough and if he had money he could see a different doctor and get help.  I sent him some money and since I was in jail before I knew what it was like to be in there without money, so I sent him money.  All this in hopes that God would show Paul that Jesus was in me so that God would get the glory.

About 4-5 months into helping Paul out the economy went down, it was 2008.  Work was hard.  I still sent him money and I had to work harder.  This was a really good lesson for me because I had to “work hard for the benefit of someone who did not deserve it.”   I had to have grace and mercy in my heart where before I had only hatred and a desire for Paul to have God punish him. This was one of the greatest blessing ever because I realized with great certainty that Jesus was in me moving me to love and not hate.  This is what Jesus did.  Jesus worked his whole life for me and I didn’t deserve it!!  Christ was in me!  This was one of the best feelings ever and it put me in worship for months!  Jesus was in me! “Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment if In this world we are like Jesus, who loved sinners. 18 There is no fear of punishment in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” 1 John 4:16-18

Then a mission trip to Croatia.

Each Mission trip I left my whole business behind, and had to start off fresh. By God’s amazing Grace, I was completely okay each time. I am a self employed personal trainer and it is normally absurd to just leave and start over, but each time I had enough work within 2 weeks of coming back.  This is a flat out miracle!! I trusted God to provide and he did.  How many people can start up a business and in 2 weeks be fully operational!!  Only with the help of God.  God was teaching me early on in my walk that as long as I did what He wanted me to do then I had nothing to worry about.

After being saved 3 years I had the strongest desire ever for children to grow up loving God instead of hating Him like I did, so I started teaching with a passion that has never stopped and only gets stronger.

I have taught the 4 year old’s at church Sunday morning for 10 years.

Left my business 2x for mission trips and God miraculously provided when I came back.

I taught 5 x a week at various places plus held a job.

1. Sunday morning to the kids.
2. Sunday night with the 5th graders
3. Friday afternoons at Good News Clubs 1st to 5th graders in the public schools. Sponsored by Child Evangelism Fellowship.
4. Friday Nights with the Kids teaching through Pilgrims Progress,  I did this 2x so far.
5. Teaching Monday afternoons at a nursing home.  Most of them only show up because I give them hugs, but I still teach anyway.  I taught through the Song of Songs once then John, then Romans then back to the Song of Solomon again!  I love the Song of Songs because it helped me grow more in Love with God better than anything else, this is why I started the Facebook page Song of Songs.

I grew up hating God for what happened to me, and now I love Him because He first loved me.  My passion is for children to grow up loving God and not hating Him like I did and to know what love is.  Interesting that I have been saved now over 20 years and now I have learned that you really don’t know what love is until you give your whole heart, mind, will, emotions, words and actions to God.

My other passion which has become ever greater is to help others see what love is in the Song of Songs!!  This is the whole reason for this blog.

I was told 16 years ago to find a book and really understand it.  Little did I know that I had embarked on trying to understand one of the most misunderstood books in the Bible.  I have read over 52 commentaries on the Song and have memorized it and taught through it twice at a nursing home.  I believe with all my heart that it is a love song between a man and a woman that is analogous to Christs love to His bride. The Song is in the first person, so you put yourself in her shoes so that you will both know and feel what love is and its seven characteristics as described in Song 8:6-7.

God bless you all and may the Lord show you His love over and over again to greater and greater degree’s as you seek to behold His Beauty at the cross!!

Steps to deliverance from continuing in sin, anger, depression and hopelessness.

1.  Anger is a sin.  Sin is disobedience to God.  God requires us to love our enemies.
   Matthew 5:44

   “I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,”  if you do not have love in your heart for the ones who have done you wrong then you need to confess your sin, repent and believe Jesus paid the penalty for your hatred for the one who did you wrong.  The trials or difficulties in our life expose what is really in our hearts.  Abuse will bring out the hatred within a non-believer or non devoted Christian.  But wrong doing to a believer will bring about prayer for forgiveness for them as Jesus prayed

   Luke 23:34

   “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”  As a Christian who reads their Bible and obeys daily this forgiveness will become more natural.  If you hold in anger, are not joyful but depressed or feel hopeless then you need to read Are you Feeling Guilty of Sin?
    
2. Lam. 3:39  We can’t complain about any evil done to us.  We deserve worse. Ps. 103:4-6
3. See your sin worse than before so that you can not be angry with your enemy.
4. See your sin in Adam and from birth in order to justify God in all He does. Ps. 51
5. Know that because of total depravity your enemy could have done worse, but by God’s grace they didn’t.
6. Think often of what God loves above and beyond our temporal pleasure.  God loves justice and holiness so He punishes sinners.  God loves mercy so He doesn’t treat us as our sins deserve and is slow to anger.  Whatever evil may befall us we deserve worse.
7. If you are not experiencing the love of God and feel He has abandoned you then the lessons on the Song of Songs will lead you to experiencing the Love of God like never before.  Start Here For Lesson 1
8. Learn, and train yourself to be “Biblically Happy in Christ in the Bad Times, Go Here

9. Gods purpose in allowing evil. Man is the author of evil but Here is why God allows sin and evil. Jonathan Edwards on Evil”It is a proper and excellent thing for infinite glory to shine forth; and for the same reason, it is proper that the shining forth of God’s glory should be complete; that is, that all parts of his glory should shine forth, that every beauty should be proportionably effulgent, that the beholder may have a proper notion of God. It is not proper that one glory should be exceedingly manifested, and another not at all. . . .Thus it is necessary, that God’s awful majesty, his authority and dreadful greatness, justice, and holiness, should be manifested. But this could not be, unless sin and punishment had been decreed; so that the shining forth of God’s glory would be very imperfect, both because these parts of divine glory would not shine forth as the others do, and also the glory of his goodness, love, and holiness would be faint without them; nay, they could scarcely shine forth at all.

   If it were not right that God should decree and permit and punish sin, there could be no manifestation of God’s holiness in hatred of sin, or in showing any preference, in his providence, of godliness before it. There would be no manifestation of God’s grace or true goodness, if there was no sin to be pardoned, no misery to be saved from. How much happiness soever he bestowed, his goodness would not be so much prized and admired. . . .

   So evil is necessary, in order to the highest happiness of the creature, and the completeness of that communication of God, for which he made the world; because the creature’s happiness consists in the knowledge of God, and the sense of his love. And if the knowledge of him be imperfect, the happiness of the creature must be proportionably imperfect.”