February, 2025 – STILL – I CHOOSE YOU, JESUS

My time in Romania – July, 2024 to December, 2024 – was an unparalleled challenge – like never before.  Everything did not go wrong.  It just seemed as if it were ‘everything’.  I had only been in the country less than two weeks when I had a horrific accident – totaling my car.  The impact was so great I can remember thinking in a nano-second, “I can’t believe that I’m not dead”.  (For whatever reason those are the words that came to mind as opposed to ‘I’m alive’.)  My next thoughts were of such gratitude that apparently no great bodily damage had been done to me (plenty emotionally, but not physically) – and, thank You, Jesus, that the men in the car in front of me were not hurt!  My heart was filled with praise!

It was several weeks after that before I got another car having to depend on others (very busy others!) to give me rides from time to time to the orphanages resulting in making it difficult for me to see our precious orphans.  There were days that I didn’t get to visit these precious ones.  My descent into despair had begun.  I could not discern whether the Lord wanted the ministry to end and that I should return to America – or, was this a trial that He had allowed on my life, and I was to endure.  I John 4.1 says to ‘discern/test the spirits’ – and I couldn’t!

Secondly, the beautiful and extremely capable young woman who had worked with me for the past six years seemed so distant.  We didn’t have the closeness that we had had previously. Even simple conversation was strained.  Not being on the same page with the one with whom you are ministering, as some of you know, can be difficult.  Awkward!

Because of the Romanian government’s banning any foreign volunteers in the orphanages for the past four years, my getting to see our ‘kids’ and ‘littles’ was even more difficult this time – resulting in our visits to them becoming more infrequent, and incurring a fear that ‘what if I were caught?’ (by the government at one of the orphanages).  This had been my calling – the orphans!  More discouragement – and more confusion as to whether Love From Above was coming to a close in Romania, or was I under a spiritual attack . . . (?)

One afternoon, and out of the blue, I was struck by such pain in my left Achilles tendon that I was totally unable to walk having to drag myself on one leg with a cane just to get to the bathroom.  Having never had trouble with an Achilles tendon, I researched it online and found that it would more than likely be better only in two to three months!  Now what?  I couldn’t even walk well enough to board a plane to return to Massachusetts!

I began to experience depression. It is safe to say that I felt like my life had descended into a ‘black hole’ which carried on even after I left Romania and returned to MA.  I felt like I was falling apart, physically and emotionally.  What was happening??

And then, without mentioning specifics, there was a huge blow to the ministry.  That took my depression to an all-time low!  I remember the second to last Sunday (in November) that I was in Romania, I ‘couldn’t’ get to church because —  I  didn’t even have the energy to smile! – at anyone.  I was beyond empty – beyond a shell.  Many times I cried (more like whimpered) out to the Lord in my little living room, “Lord, where are You?!!”  I finally told Him that I just didn’t want to live anymore.  There was absolutely no thought of suicide.  I just didn’t want to ‘be’.  My words to Him were:  “I don’t want to die – because if I do, I will still have to live (in Heaven).  Lord, if You could bring me into existence/create me (and He could, and He did!), then Lord, You could uncreate me.  You could make it so that no one ever heard of me, never knew I existed, had never known there had been a Dawn Bean Mattera.  You could do this, Lord!”

This shell of a person turned and left the little living room to I don’t know where – maybe the kitchen, bathroom, my bedroom, the little office – and the words that came out of my mouth, for all that I was going through surprised even me —  ‘Still.  I Choose You, Jesus’.  No matter what! – I choose You, Jesus!

During this time of trial, I had buried myself in the Word – had listened, daily, to choice sermons online, had prayed with my co-worker (without giving her details) – and when I could, praised our Most High God.  I’m sure it probably sounded more like a dirge to His ears.  Many years ago, I taught a whole weekend Women’s Seminar on the ‘Principle of Praise’, so  I knew it was what I was supposed to do – praise.  I did the best I could.

There’s a pattern in what I have written above.  It became obvious to me that I wasn’t experiencing trial after trial just for ‘trials’ sake’, but rather the ‘enemy’ was trying to give me more than a bad day – a bad month – a bad five months.  He was trying to destroy me – to chase me from the ministry that GOD gave me to ‘the least of these’ in Romania, and to physically, emotionally, and spiritually get rid of me to never mention the Name of Jesus ever again.

The accident was horrific – yet, I was not even hurt, physically.  The difficult time with my co-worker supernaturally became the relationship we had always had ministering (after that first two difficult months together).  The pain in my heel/tendon miraculously disappeared – not in two or three months, but in two days.  The blow to the ministry has been just that – a blow.  But ‘greater is He Who is in me, than he that is in the world’!  And, then I discovered that the depression I was experiencing was from a mild morning drink that I find in Romania. When God revealed that to me, immediately the depression left.   In those five months of being in a ‘battle’, I had truly followed the advice from the last words of Deuteronomy 13.4 that I would advise for anyone, “Cling to Him”.   And, for sure, I knew that He was clinging to me!  I am so grateful, too, to our Almighty God for giving me a couple of months of reprieve to rest physically and emotionally.   I read the following words in a post on Facebook recently:

‘You have a choice each and every single day.   I choose to feel blessed.  I choose to feel grateful.  I choose to feel excited.  I choose to feel thankful.  I choose to feel happy.’

Those are all lovely, but,   Still – I Choose You, Jesus . . . !