So, I come back to the blog world and I bring lots with me! I haven’t posted much anything since January but, that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been writing! Just want to share something I wrote about my personal experiences with God! If it can help in any way, shape or form then, I’m glad I shared. And, if all it does is show a part of myself that I never really share with anyone then, I’m glad for that too! Anyway, here it goes!
I am seriously a average girl. My life has been filled with many simple pleasures and blessed with countless little joys. I have never done anything you might consider life-changing. My testimony is not some earth shattering story that can bring you to your knees. It is simply, for lack of a better word, a result of being born into the right family at the right time. I was born, spent a few days in the hospital, and then proceeded to a life filled with God. There were no hoops to jump through, no big doubts to answer, no terribly ill-fated past occurrences to forget. There was me and there was God. And, from the moment I came into this Earth, He was the center of my universe. And so, you must think then, “what could this girl ever tell me about God?” I ask myself that question everyday.
But, before I get to that I do want to put out a disclaimer, I do not pretend to be faultless. No, I may have not ever gone out into the world and been a “heathen” but, I have had my fair share of faults and shortcomings just like anyone else. And, even more importantly, since God weighs all sins equally, I’m just as big of a sinner as you are. So there. Now, we’re even.
Ok, let’s talk. What could I ever tell you? Simple me, with my limited life experiences, and quiet life, with a family that was, and still is, completely built on a foundation of God and faith. How about this: I can tell you that no matter where you come from, what you’ve done, who you are, where you’re going, what you’ve been through-despite every single one of those things- God is the center of everything. He always has been and He always will be.
Easy to say from my side of the grass, right? Wrong.
See, faith is important to me because of how I was raised but, faith was also my biggest enemy because of how I was raised.
What?! Yeah. Exactly.
A lot of people come to find God through a path of unfortunate choices and decisions. One day they set out on this road and that road looks great. The path seems easy and the answers seem to be at reach. Like, all they have to do is walk a few steps further and clarification will just come to them. But, as their journey proceeds, things start to get difficult, complicated, messy, and sometimes just downright wrong. They take wrong turns, blow past caution signs, and sometimes come right to the edge of a cliff.
This cliff is their ‘point of no return.’ What they do there determines everything for them.
It’s at this moment, after a life of missteps and mishaps, that many people come to find that God is not just their best solution, He was their only solution. It’s in the sweet embrace, the gentle, yet strong voice that calls to them, the satisfaction of finally being whole, the immovable and unshakable love that many people find, not just their savior, but the greatest love story anyone has ever encountered. And even though those things cannot make life with God any easier, the memory of a life void of His true love and joy must, I imagine, make any trial or tribulation a pinch easier to withstand.
Now, let me pause a moment to say that I do not in any way, shape, or form believe that I should’ve have had some big sinful life in order to appreciate my salvation. I am, however, trying to make a point.
My point is this, I did not have a “this is the end of the road” moment. Like I said: I was born and then, I went to church. Church was as much a part of my life as anything. God was everywhere from the moment I began to comprehend anything. My earliest memories are of being at church and worshipping God with my aunt and uncle in the front rows of the sanctuary on Sunday mornings. My closest friends are people I met at Segadores De Vida. I never questioned God’s sovereignty in my life. Never once did I doubt his existence of His power. The idea that God is real and his son died on the cross for my sins never seemed anything more than the single most important fact I could ever know. My faith was unshakable.
I want to tell you that I stayed this unrelentingly pious girl but, I didn’t. The older I got, the more serious my doubts and questions seemed. I felt like maybe there was more to this life and maybe God wasn’t the only path to this joy and happiness. Suffice to say that a lot of these questions entered my brain at the same time that I entered college. A place of learning that was supposed to be helping to expand my mind. A place where I often times found that faith in God, was something to be scoffed at. My professors occasionally mocked religion and the religious, my peers laughed at the seemingly far-fetched belief that God could have created the heavens and the earth. In this place, where I had come to grow and evolve as a human being, I automatically felt like I was 10 steps behind everyone else.
I needed to catch up. Fast.
The problem was that every 2 steps closer I was to an intellectual level where I felt comfortable and, dare I say it, accepted was 5 steps away from this relationship I had with God. A God that I wasn’t even sure I wanted to believe in anymore. So, did it really matter? I didn’t think so, not at the time anyway.
But, boy was I wrong! Two years. That’s about how long it took me to realize that by becoming ‘smarter’ I was making the dumbest choice I had ever made. See, God NEVER cared about my shortcomings. He didn’t question any part of my wholly imperfect self before accepting me. He didn’t provide a long list of criterion that needed to be met before he used me to impact others. No, God loved me. Unconditionally, madly, irrevocably, and completely. The best part? When I realized my mistake, when I acknowledged that I was completely at fault and asked for forgiveness I was not met with a scolding tone. I was not turned away or scoffed at. My cries for forgiveness were met with a simple but life-altering “I love you.”
See, I may never do anything to change the world. I may never have stories to tell that will bring people to tears. I may never end world hunger and restore peace to the nations of the Earth but, I carry something in me that is so mind-blowing, so perfect, and so real that it is the only thing I need. I, with all my simplicity, all of my imperfections, all of my shortcomings, was important enough to be considered by a God with a power to change everything. I can never find the words to explain the depth of God’s power and love. I could probably write for days and still never effectively make you understand what makes God so good.
Because that’s the thing about God, you have to feel it. I may not see God, I may not be able to scientifically explain how he could have created the heavens and the earth but, I know that when I speak to him, he hears me. And at every moment that I need to be held, he holds me. I have felt his embrace and I can tell you that there is not a single thing on this earth, no feeling on this earth that can compare to that. Seek God because no matter what He’s the only one who will never leave you, doubt you, or stop loving you. Seek God because He is the only one who can make you whole.
Ma Vie en Mots 