I guess I should start from the very beginning to really capture the entire story. I was raised Catholic my extended family was Catholic, I went to a Catholic grade school and CCD and was confirmed in highshool. I went to church every Sunday and a couple days a week while in grade school. Into my later teens my mom had to drag me out of bed to get to church, but at 18 I was relieved to not have to go anymore. Of course that wasn’t without a guilt trip from my parents, I can’t tell you how many times I heard “Jesus died on a cross for you, you can give him an hour of your week.” But looking back that was my problem with church; I got nothing out of it. It felt like this big guilt trip, I wasn’t there because I wanted to be there I was there because I had to or God would get mad at me. I guess I believed in God, I believed in Jesus. I believed there was something more than a big bang going on out there. However I had no real “relationship” with God, it was one where I just tried to not bother him or make him mad. I didn’t get anything out of that, the concept of building a relationship God just wasn’t there for me in the church. So I went on my way to living life, believing there was a being up there somewhere that I only spoke to when I really needed something.
Fast forward to my mid 20’s I became a party girl. I got drunk pretty much every weekend and thought I was cute because didn’t pay for any drinks or cover charges at local bars. I pretty much lived that life of painting my face up, needing a new cute outfit every weekend and spinning around on bar tops, getting gratification out of guys noticing me. I have to tell you this was such an empty time in my life. I tried so hard to be "the cool kid" and I guess I was, I knew all the "cool kids" I hung out with them all and this is what made me somebody. This was my identity. A drunk party girl who only felt pretty with a lot of make up, a lot of hairspray and the right outfit. For so long I cared about the wrong things but also looking back I know then God had a plan for me. I wasn't like the rest of the party girls. While I was absolutely shallow and young and dumb I still had a heart for something more, I still never fell into drugs or any of the other things that went on after hours.
In 2006 my life began to change. My dad was diagnosed with colon cancer that spread to his liver; he was given 5 years to live. He passed away less than two years later. They say that most people really connect to God when their world falls down around them; when they feel like they have nothing left but Him. This was 100% true for me. I think we go through life thinking we’re in complete control; that nothing bad can happen to us. When something tragic happens you realize that you’re not in control at all. You only have the illusion that you are. While I was off being young and wild and free chasing down being cool and accepted by people that didn't matter, time slipped away with my dad. It's like I was thrown full force into a brick wall and I was being shown what my life had become. Losing my dad is what started my journey. When he passed away I was so mad at God, I had no interest in Him. I had no real relationship with God so my faith and trust in Him was built on sand, it wasn’t really there at all. I thought that if he was good that he wouldn’t have taken my dad from my family and I.
It was a really dark time in my life. I had a lot of guilt over time lost with him. Now that I look back at it I can say that I've 100% forgiven myself for it. My initial reaction was to be mad at God for not giving me more time and then I was mad at myself for not making more time. Now I can count it all as wisdom for the future, for those I still have with me. I wrote a lot about it, I had a really great support system and it took a little over a year but I started asking for God’s forgiveness for the way I felt toward Him during that time of grieving. I started realizing just how many blessings I had. How blessed I was to have my dad at all, to have a dad who loved me so much. Who was so inspiring during his illness, to have 26 years with my dad, there are so many people who don’t get that. Then I thought about the fact that I have an amazing mother and an amazing stepfather and stepmother. I have siblings who are nothing but great to me. I have extended family that I am extremely close with. I have friends whom I’ve had for YEARS and they are real solid strong friendships that I know I can call on at any time I need them. I started to feel a bit selfish and spoiled. Of course no one wants to lose a parent, but to forget all of the blessings I had before me in the midst of it wasn’t the right way to handle it. I started thanking God for all that he had given me because without it, who knows where my life would be.
The year after my dad passed away I dove into some volunteering opportunities. I became a mentor, did some things through Give Back Cincinnati and at the time it had less to do with God and more to do with realizing how good I had it, realizing how many people out there were not as fortunate as me and feeling the need to "Pay it forward." In 2010 a friend of mine told me about a trip her church took every year to New Orleans to help Katrina victims. “Coincidentally” I had been researching a way to go there and help out but I had no idea that people still jumped on buses and went down there to get to work. I checked out one service at her church and liked it and decided to go on the trip with her. I was so excited to go to New Orleans and help but was nervous to go down with a church group that I knew absolutely nothing about. My only experience with church was the one I grew up in. Walking through the doors of Crossroads was an entirely different experience. I went to pre-trip meetings and it was full of people just so excited to be there, so enthusiastic. They sang all these songs and people were dancing and holding their palms out to God and at the time it made me feel a little uncomfortable. Not in a “I wish they wouldn’t do that” or “I don’t like being here” sort of way, but it was just different for me at the time. But something about this place was so different for me. Every time I walked through the doors I felt love, in an unexplainable way.
If I’ve learned one thing in the past year, it’s that growth in your relationship with God happens most when you step out of your comfort zone and I’m so glad I did. I had the most amazing experience in New Orleans. I have never felt that much love, that much inspiration; it was just such an amazing experience from start to finish. You hop on buses with 300 people you don't know, ready to love on a city in need and these 'strangers' and the city end up loving on you, praying for you, inspiring you, helping heal YOU, in ways you never knew you needed healing. This is the first time I was introduced to really praying, to building a relationship with God. To doing his work for people whether they knew about Him, believed in Him or not. Whether they could repay you or not. It felt so great to be a part of that. It was like this whole new world that I had no idea existed. This was probably the first time in my life that I had felt totally full. I remember coming home and trying anything I could to remain on that high that I felt there. It’s so hard to do, especially when you don’t have a solid foundation. I came back and went to Crossroads church every once and a while, I had a pep in my step for a couple weeks but it faded. I know now that I also needed a church family, I came back to my regular world and went to Crossroads here and there but didn't get involved; life eventually pretty much went on as it was.
In 2012 I fell into a relationship, a very unexpected relationship, with a guy that I thought was going to be it for me and I remember thinking like "okay God thanks for the boyfriend" and I went full on into this relationship leaving any thought of a real relationship with God on the back burner. He had given me what I wanted in life so why did I need to bother Him with anything anymore, right? Of course a year later it started to fall apart (imagine that.) I started going back to church, I even had my first small group experience where I encountered real Christian relationships and marriages and I remember thinking this is nothing like the relationship I have and I want that type of relationship. Soon after that I had my first experience with hearing from God, it was last year in February. It’s what really solidified my trust in God, and my commitment to my faith and my commitment to grow. I finally realized that my relationship with God was a two way street and it truly exists. I always chased after what I wanted not really knowing I could pray to God about the direction He has for my life. I started praying really hard about my relationship. So many things were going wrong and I couldn't fix them so I prayed God would fix it, I prayed he'd make all these changes in my boyfriend at the time, I prayed that he'd "fix" these things I saw wrong with him so that I could have that marriage and family that I so desperately wanted. I remember one night at the end of my rope crying out to God for these changes and in the midst of my tears I was silenced. I had a crystal clear thought in my head that said "Why do you keep praying for what you want, when are you going to start praying for what I want?" This changed everything for me. I can remember sitting in bed dumbfounded by that thought. I had heard in church before that sometimes a nudge from God came in the form of a random thought, something way out of left field that maybe you wouldn't have come up with on your own. I can't remember how long I sat there in silence thinking about it. I remember my heart though, I remember feeling warm and at peace, my tears stopped and I just felt this incredible wave of calm come over me. I remember giving it up to God and saying okay, if this is really you and if this whole thing is real I'm going to need you to show me. I can't just walk away from the life I thought I was going to have. I'm going to need you to make it really clear what you want for me.
So I just started praying for guidance and asked that if this wasn’t the right thing for me that He would show me and guide me and give me the strength to do what He wanted me to do. And I did listen and I did follow what I felt like He was guiding me to do. I can’t tell you how much that clicking in me made a difference in my faith. How stepping out and trusting God when I was so unsure of what to do and if this whole thing was real made my faith and my relationship with God grow. After that I just started to see things happen, amazing things that just couldn’t be coincidences. My sister and I started reading the bible and we had specific questions on verses we were both reading and literally two days later at church the question was randomly but specifically answered. Another bible verse I struggled with understanding one night was addressed on the radio the next day. I started to realize that God wasn't just this far off being that I wasn't supposed to bother with my junk; God was everywhere. God chased after me, God wants to unpack all my baggage, God cares about me specifically. I can't begin to tell you how real the joy that followed this was. I had so much peace and I was just so excited about this new faith, this new relationship. It was a little bit obnoxious and ridiculous how joyful I was; it was totally unexplainable. People noticed. People asked and I told them it's Jesus. I know, believe me, I know 2 years ago I would have looked at you weird and probably made fun of you for saying those words to me but this is precisely why I know it's real. This is how God uses our lives and our mistakes to solidify our trust in Him. I've learned that it's not about reading the bible and checking off lists of things that you need to do to get to God. God comes to us and its a complete and total life change that has nothing to do with your acts or works. It is a gift. It's a new heart. A renewed soul. It changes EVERYTHING. People can come along and mock and make fun and say you take God too seriously but it doesn't matter once you've been given this new heart because it's as real as the sun. It's unshakeable. You feel it in every bone in your body, in the deepest depths of your soul. It's so crazy but it's so awesome.
There was a huge period of my life where I thought, I’ll just be a good person and God will let me in those gates. I finally see how empty that is. I finally see that I was missing the point entirely. I will trip, I will stumble, I will make mistakes, I will never be perfect but I never want to try to figure this life out on my own again. I still have so much to learn and need to grow in so many ways but I am 100% committed to it. I finally realize that this life is not my own. I don't get to do whatever I want whenever I want because that only brings more emptiness and pain in the end. I’m finally starting to see myself through God’s eyes and not the world’s. That is such an amazing feeling because I have no one to impress but Him. He doesn’t care about all of the shallow superficial things that the world does. He cares about whether or not I love people, whether or not I love Him.
There's a design, a great design, to follow and to be valued above all. It's not easy, it's not like you're just zapped one day and everything is different, well it's a little like that, but once you receive it, it's definitely a wrestling match between who you were and who you'll become. One of the greatest things I’ve come to know is that God gave me this new life. God gave me a new heart. There are things I care about that I never used to care about. There are things that I’ve stopped doing that 2 years ago I didn’t think twice about doing, I have really been given this completely new outlook, sometimes radically different but looking back on it I can see that I didn’t have anything to do with it. These thoughts and feeling and changes don’t come from me they come from God. We crazy Christians believe that when we get baptized that God's spirit comes and lives in us. The more we decrease our selfish wants, our plans, etc. the more we give room to that spirit to grow in us. So when you see me becoming a little more loving, a little more humble, a little more joyful, a little more patient and a little more kind, that's the very spirit Jesus had increasing in me. The goal is to exude Him and to draw those around you to Him through you, to be a part of whatever God has planned for you that day. I've gotten to the point where I can't wait to see what's revealed next, what life change is next? What else am I holding onto that's essentially holding me back? It's not always easy and sometimes the things revealed hurt a lot, but I'm thankful that He chose my heart to change. That there is a God out there that will chase after you every single day until you're able to take your blinders off and receive. I see now that we're all given a chance to love God, He doesn't force us. He created us to have a relationship with Him, but who wants to be in a relationship with someone who you have to try and force to love you, force to pay attention to you, force to value you. God doesn't want that from us either. He is continuously inviting us into a loving relationship and once we say yes once we surrender, watch out, because your entire life will change. It’s so amazing.
In the past year I have learned so many things, I've had peaks and I've had pits, but I have never had so much unexplainable peace, unexplainable joy and never had I had so much hope. I can’t tell you how many people in my life has asked me what is happening with me. Why am I so different? What am I so happy for all the time? What drug am I on? And I tell them it’s Jesus. Because it most certainly is. I’m so thankful that life means so much more than it ever did. Jesus gives us a purpose and our purpose it to share His story with others. To become a disciple and to make disciples to love each other as they are, to love them as you love yourself, no matter how they act toward you. Do you know how much easier it is to love people when you know that God loves them just as much as He loves you? That each person has a soul and showing love to them as Jesus would have could save it? Could transform it? Nothing is more important than that.
When my journey began I was a lost scared 20 something year old that was broken from losing her father. After New Orleans I would go to Crossroads Oakley and sit in the very top corner and cry during the songs, during the sermons because they were speaking to me, they were speaking truths to me about my life and I needed healing. From being that girl who thought God didn’t have time for her, who thought God didn’t care about me because he took my dad, from thinking that I needed to be the prettiest girl in the room for validation and every time I stepped inside those walls of Crossroads more and more weight and hurt shed from my back. I could feel God's presence there. Even though I still resisted I was still chased after, even though I thought my last relationship was my savior and my life was going to be great because I was going to fulfill a part of the American dream God still had so much more, he still pursued, he never gives up. After that night in February last year I just began receiving, I went from being that girl hiding in the top corner to of the church to serving the church in every way I can. I learned that church shouldn't just be a place that you go to once a week, it should be a community of people in and outside of those 4 walls who are changing the world together. I have such an amazing church family now, God has really used Crossroads to show me who Christ’s church is, what His love is really looks like, everyone has an encouraging word and support. I'm pushed out of my comfort zone in loving ways and challenged in ways I need to be challenged. I used to think that church was just this place you went because you had to, because it was the least you could do for God. But it’s so much more than that to me now. It’s a place I GET to go to, it’s a place that I go to several times a week to love on people and welcome people and build community, to grow spiritually, or just to have quiet time to read and reflect. It's a second home to me now. My world has been turned upside down and I love it.
No comments:
Post a Comment