That I May Know Him!
by
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Please God . . . Help me! My
heart is broken, and right now I am so confused. I don’t mean to sound angry. I
just don’t understand. My heart is deeply saturated with pain, and my soul is
held hostage by an abundance of grief and self-pity. Please answer me! Please
help me understand! I just need an answer to make the pain go away. Why is all
this so foreign to me? Am I speaking to you in a foreign language? Where are
you? Do I speak Greek and you only understand French? Why did all this happen
to me?
Why did my heart cling to fear
instead of teddy bears and baby dolls? Why was I born with a speech impediment?
Why was my father so mean? Why did he always tell me, “No?” Why did I have to
forge my mother’s name or my father’s name to my report card? Why did my father
abuse my mother so much? Why didn’t I ever think that I would live to see
another day? Why won’t the bad memories go away? Why do I still see the
weapons? Why do I still run? Why do I still hide my knives? Why didn’t my
father ever make me feel safe? Why did he reduce me to hating him?
Why did my mother have to suffer so much? Why
didn’t you help her? Why didn’t she come for me the day I swallowed those
pills? Why at age 15 did I make plans to leave home someday, and never return?
Why did my mother call me a liar when I told her that my pastor touched me? Why
didn’t she listen? Why didn’t she believe me? Why did she turn against me
because I chose my own path – my own religion? Why did she hurt me so bad that
I had to build concrete walls to protect my heart?
Why were you always in my
breakfast cereal? Why were you always in my peanut butter and jelly sandwich
for lunch? Why were you always stuffed inside my dinner roll? Why didn’t you
just let me be a normal teenager? Why were you always in my thoughts and
dreams?
Why did you allow me to get
involved in that cultic campus ministry? Why did you allow me to be placed on
academic probation? Why couldn’t I focus on my studies? Why did I wander off
into a wilderness where it was lonely, cold and cluttered with dark clouds of
doubt and uncertainty?
Why do some people use as a
punching bag? Why do they think that I don’t have any feelings? Why can’t they
ever see a fragile child inside my armor? Why can’t they come back and mend
what they have broken? Why do they exclude me before they get to know me? Why
do you always command me to love the unlovable? Why do people bother me when I
never bother them? Why do I have to keep forgiving the same people who bruise
me over and over again? Why do you allow evil people to sleep at night? Why do
Christians bruise one another? Why are there so many bleeding hearts in the
church? Why do the people in the world get along better than the people in the
church?
Why do my
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About the Book
THAT I MAY KNOW HIM is about a
Christian woman’s quest to calm a lifetime of unanswered questions. One gentle
morning, every question she had archived churned inside her until they spewed
forth into a tearful temper tantrum on God. She wanted to know the reason for
every horrific, tear-jerking trial that had plagued her since childhood. Her
father had a glass shattering temper that always made her fear him. At age 15,
her minister shattered her confidence in him, leaving her determined to find
another faith. Her college years weren’t anything to rejoice about either: She
had to overcome the shame of her brief association with a cultic campus
ministry that her friend unintentionally placed her in. Unable to focus on her
studies, her grades dropped and she was placed on academic probation. And she
had to endure her mother’s wrath and neglect because she deserted the Baptist
church. Later in life she sought refuge from strangers, family, and her new
faith - only to receive more scars and wounds. An unexpected series of wounds
from the hands of a faithful friend left her with not even a teaspoon of hope.
An evil force knocked on the door of her heart nightly and opted to steal her
confidence in God, man and the church. Her scarred soul drifted away to a state
of hopelessness where she lost her desire to pick up her shattered pieces to go
on. But on that same gentle morning, the faithful God of her youth spoke to her
just beyond a whisper, and He covered all of her wounds with a single Band-Aid.
About the Author
Joann Maria Pigott
currently resides in