The Winding Road , livre ebook

WestBow Press - Annalise McKay

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

52 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

God wants to give you hope, to inspire you, to bring you closer to him and to show you just how much he truly loves you.

While on her earthly journey, God has taken Annalise McKay on a winding road of faith. In those moments, God always has had a message for her as well as a plan and purpose. Now with the intent of reminding other believers that God is always with us and for us, she shares candid insight into her personal journey of faith.

While leading others through her challenges and inspirational lessons learned, McKay demonstrates evidence of God’s love as well as the purpose he designed for her. As she details her trials that included a first marriage to an angry and abusive non-believer who ultimately left her and their three children after eight years, McKay also discloses how her own lack of belief in Jesus’s love negatively altered the vision she had for herself and her identity, and how she finally learned to accept what it means to be a Christian and that God is always in control.

The Winding Road is a testimony of faith that shines a light on a believer’s path through her trials to find hope, forgiveness, and the comforting knowledge that God truly loves all of us.

Sujets

Religion

Christianisme

Christian Living

Inspirational

Philosophie et théologie

Christianity

Informations

Publié par	WestBow Press
Date de parution	02 mars 2023
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781664293182
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0200€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

THE Winding ROAD

A JOURNEY OF FAITH through TRIALS

ANNALISE MCKAY

Copyright © 2023 Annalise McKay.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

WestBow Press
A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.westbowpress.com
844-714-3454

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Scriptures are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-6642-9319-9 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6642-9320-5 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-6642-9318-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023903184

WestBow Press rev. date: 02/25/2023

In honor of my three beautiful children whom I cherish

Contents
Introduction
Trials
Under Fire

Chapter 1 God Loves You
Chapter 2 Who Are You in Christ?
Chapter 3 Calamity
Chapter 4 A Victory Only God Can Take Credit For
Chapter 5 Blessings Don’t Have a Cap Limit
Chapter 6 Prayer Warriors
Chapter 7 When We Make Our Own Storms
Chapter 8 Tithe
Chapter 9 When God Says to Wait
Chapter 10 Trusting God Under Pressure
Chapter 11 Prepare for the Mental Battle Ahead
Chapter 12 When My Hope Center Is Lost
Chapter 13 Speak Belief Out Loud
Chapter 14 God Is Always In Control

End Summary
End Prayer

Introduction
First, I would like to start us off with a prayer. It would be my honor to pray for you and over you and of course add my own prayer into the mix. This prayer is something you can save for yourself as well if you feel that you need to come back to it at any time.
Dear Abba Father,
I come before you humble to pray over those whom you cherish. Let their sufferings be heard, let healing begin, let peace be triumphant over the evil one’s calamities. Let your glory be praised for you are a righteous God, a loving and merciful God, a God who will never forsake us. You are more powerful than comprehension. You are bigger than any problems and sufferings. I thank you so much Father for all that you have done, for all that you are doing, and for all that will be done in Jesus’s name.
You are in control Father. Thy will be done. I give myself and my troubles into your capable hands. More than anything else, Lord, I believe in you. I believe you are for me not against me. I believe in your love. I trust in your timing and that the outcome is what you have designed it to be; even if it is an outcome, I do not favor I will trust in your answer. Above all things I thank you for this life you have given me, and in my sufferings, I thank you God. Amen.

Trials
Consider it pure joy my brothers and sisters whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom you should ask God who gives generously to all without finding fault and it will be given to you. But when you ask you must believe and not doubt because the one who doubts is like a wave up on the seat blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double minded and unstable in all that they do.
—James 18:2–8
When we are in the process of a long wait, or waiting in general, this is a prime time for us to be attacked and put through trials. Whenever we go through trials of any kind, we often feel alone or doubt God’s grace, or even his love for us. I always doubted whether I was doing what I was supposed to be doing or if God could even love me after all I had done. In my own life, I’ve had to go through a series of trials which, if I’m being honest, felt like a complete bombardment of tribulations back-to-back. Within the past few years, God has taken me on a slow and long journey through the wilderness, much like the Israelites. This journey was very painful not only in the trauma of certain events but also in the healing and aftermath of those events.
To give some context, I married a man who was not a saved Christian when I was twenty-one. He was a very angry and abusive husband. After being married for almost eight years and having three children, he decided to end our marriage, with a replacement already waiting behind the scenes. Now our marriage was not a great marriage; being with someone like that is never a wonderful thing for anyone. I had been crying out to the Lord desperately for many years to be free of the burden and shackles of being married to such a man as him. Even though he did have someone else and was essentially leaving our family for that person, it was painful, and in some ways a shock. His choices were hard to process and hard for our children to process in a lot of ways. But it was also a blessing!
God was giving me a second chance at life. I didn’t know it in that moment all those years ago, but it absolutely was a starting point for change in the right direction. In the years following that divorce, my three children and I were avalanched with a series of bad happenings, wave after wave after continuous wave of trouble. In those moments, with those waves crashing down upon me and my children, God always had a message for me. He had a plan and a purpose. I wasn’t being thrown into the fire for no reason other than to burn. That is what I wanted to share with you in this book. God has a purpose and a plan for you too. Whatever pain, whatever trials you are facing in this moment, God is with you and God is for you. All the lessons that God let me experience were so that I could share them. I hope they will help ease some of that burden on your heart. God loves you and I want you to know that I love you too. You are not alone.

Under Fire
There are many ways to describe what can happen to a substance under pressure or when it is put through extreme heat. For instance, there is the forging of metals and the creation of diamonds. Such beautiful things are evidence that even under fire or pressure, marvelous things can happen. It’s the same for us humans too.
When he has tested me, I will come forth as gold. My feet have closely followed his steps. (Job 23:11)
Whenever I was struggling and under siege from the enemy, there were quite a few things I needed to learn and remember. In this process of learning, God really wanted to instill in me the evidence of his love. He wanted me to know the purpose in this world that he designed for me. He wanted me to know the healing process I needed to go through in order to come out on the other side with a victory that only Jesus could claim. I want to share that with you, and I hope, at the very least, you can connect with what my journey means for you. There will be healing and peace, victory, and understanding of the current and potential strife that you experience. God wants to give you hope, to inspire you, to bring you closer to him, and to show you the truth behind the lies of the evil one. I hope to show you what trusting God can do for you and show you the magic of belief. This testing of our faith, and this endurance run for the race of Jesus, is called faith under pressure and trust through fire. We are being forged and perfected.
Many times we have no other choice but to give it all to God and say, “Okay, take it from me Lord. Do with me as you will.” Then we can see what wonders God will bring to finality.

Chapter 1
God Loves You
The most important part of this entire book, and what I hope you will grasp firmly and etch into your hearts, is the part that I struggled with the most. More often than not, I need a continual reminder of this lesson. It’s just three little words, and they hold so much power and so much mercy. Those three little words were so very hard for me to even understand and accept. Yet they are the most basic principle and foundation for everything else that will follow. Words hold power. Saying them out loud holds power. Believing in those words solidifies that power. I would like for you to practice saying these three little words out loud: “God loves me.”
It might seem silly at first, but I hope you will trust me. Saying, “God loves me” repeatedly—not just in our minds, which is great also, but out loud—will eventually lead to believing and accepting those words. Over time, it will not seem so strange.
If I’m being completely transparent and vulnerable, this topic is by far the most difficult to wrap my head around. Even as I write this, I still struggle occasi