I grew up in a Christian family, said the sinners’ prayer by 7, and knew all the right answers to Bible Trivia by the time I was ten. I was the epitome of the good church girl, and before the age of 7 I knew I was going to “be a missionary” when I was older. I became enamored with the story of Mother Teresa, and other faithful believers who went on grand adventures to share the gospel and help the desolate, poor, and alien.
However, as I entered middle-school I became sick of Christianity, and began resenting all the rules it imposed on me. Quickly, I turned my back to God, telling Him that I didn’t need him to thrive. I started living a life obsessed with popular culture, and became an expert on living a double-standard lifestyle acting as a chameleon wherever I went. After a year of living a lifestyle going against God’s teaching, everything that I had built up to bring me happiness began to crash down around me. Slowly, I sunk into a deep depression that I blamed solely on God.
I hated God and I hated people.
God is faithful though, and he shone through my hatred bringing me back into His arms. I decided to give God a try again, and my sophomore year of high school I choose to go on a mission’s trip that changed my life – There I experienced for the first time the unspeakable joy of speaking freely about My Savior. This began a two-year time period where I was living the Christian lifestyle in a small and unremarkable way to make everyone around me comfortable. I was doing all of the right things, and in some ways even for the right reasons. In retrospect, the lifestyle I was living was simply to live up to the “perfect Christian girl” label I had.
Senior year I began walking away from the Lord again, I was getting sick of trying really hard and honestly didn’t see what was so great about the “Christian” life. To me, it seemed like a good excuse to judge everyone around me because of my “moral superiority”. From my senior year of high school to my first year at UNI I struggled with how I wanted to live. There was a large part of me that wanted to live for the Lord – but I didn’t know how to truly do that and honestly trying to force happiness through others acceptance, as miserable as it was, lay easily accessible in front of me.
Somehow, my brother managed to convince me to work at a camp in Colorado last summer, and God began blessing me with a community of believers who were seeking the Lord. As the summer ended, I began praying that God would give me someone at UNI that wanted to follow Him so we could journey together and find community. Thankfully, God is faithful and answered that prayer and I have come to my knees multiple times in wonder that God would bless me with so many wonderful people who truly love the Lord all around me.
As God has blessed me, I’ve come to understand that we are all blessed to be a blessing that others may also know the abundant life that God provides to all who follow Him. Honestly, I wish you could see the sick nature of my heart a year and a half ago, or even a few months ago – because God has been so incredible to take me from my miserable state of self-dependency to Christ-dependency. To a life that is so full of His joy & peace. I know that there will be tough times ahead, but I am confident that the Lord will continue the work He has begun in me and complete it.
The fact that I can stand and proclaim the name of the Lord is a testimony to His faithfulness and ultimate power over the devils evil schemes and my own inadequacies. I am in awe that he has brought me to a place where I am able to consistently choose obedience to His will and plan for me, instead of my own. To a place where I have finally come to the realization that His way is costly, but that it is WORTH the price. Because the joy and life that Christ brings is the only thing that makes this life meaningful.
I’ve tasted the darkness that those living apart from total surrender to Christ experience, and am desperately, earnestly clinging to the knowledge that the Lord can open the eyes of the lost to accept the Good News of Jesus death and resurrection! That they may experience the abundant life only He can give. Therefore my life mission is this: To zealously proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom of Heaven to ALL nations that He may be glorified!
How Good the Lord is to relentlessly pursue!
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