My Story

Well I said I was going to tell you my story so here it is friends!

I was raised in a Christian home by wonderful Christian parents who taught me the Bible and lived out their faith. I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Savior when I was very young. As I grew up I was like a lot of Christian kids, I went to church every Sunday, attended Sunday school, went through AWANA and moved on to youth group when I was old enough. At church I learned more about Jesus Christ but with my friends I wanted to fit in so I ignored my faith and tried to "be cool". Like a lot of teenage girls I craved attention and I didn't realize that the only way I would get the love and attention I wanted was through a personal relationship with Christ.

At some point I stopped eating very much, it started out as nothing really, just didn't feel like eating in front of people but then I discovered that not eating got me attention. People worried about me, my friends tried to get me to eat or checked in on me but like most eating disorders it went from being a simple attention getting thing and moved into an addiction or a habit. I started lying to people, telling friends that I'd eaten at home, telling family I'd eaten at school. I ate some places but not others but by the grace of God my problem didn't get nearly out of control as it could've, He intervened first.

Hypoglycemia is a fancy word for when your blood sugar crashes too often. It runs in my family and I wasn't immune. When my blood sugar kept crashing and I started getting dizzy, even blacking out sometimes it wasn't long before my friends and family started noticing that something wasn't right. They became much more aware of making sure I was eating, taking care of me but even though I became physically better I wasn't dealing with the real issue, the issue of my heart.

At seventeen I went to a conference called "Acquire the Fire" with my youth group. As the speaker was talking about forgiveness I got angry. When my friend sitting next to me stood up to go to the floor and pray that God would help him forgive I stood to, to walk out. I was so angry, later I realized the person I was really angry with was myself, and God, I blamed the people closest to me for my problems. Instead of walking out of the conference I ended up on the back steps crying harder then I ever have before. That's when I met Corina.

Corina and Ivan were youth leaders from a different church but when Corina saw me crying she sat down next to me. She followed the Holy Spirit's prompting and waited out my tears to comfort me. She asked me if I was a Christian and right at that moment I said "I don't know." The more we talked the more I poured my heart out and eventually we got to the root of the issue. Love. I asked Corina "Why would God love me?" The way I saw it I'd never done anything that would make God want to love me. Corina pointed to the bottom of the steps where her husband was sitting with their small son. She pointed to the little boy and said "That's my son and no matter what he does in his life I will always love him. If that's the way I feel about my son imagine how God feels about you. You're His child!"

That's the most important lesson I've ever learned, God doesn't love me or you because of what you do, because of what you can do or have done. He doesn't love us because He has to but because He wants to. He created us, we are His children and He loves us as His children. End of story.

That day, April 4th, 2009 I gave my life back to Christ and chose to become more then just a Christian in name only. I became of disciple of Christ, committing to give Him my life and follow Him.

It hasn't always been easy, that's for sure. There's up and downs but I recognize that Jesus Christ loves me and nothing I ever do will change that. But because I love Him in return I choose to live my life to bring glory and honor to His name.

Writing Your Story

How do you write your story? Or a better question, why would you want to? I remember wondering that when I filled out my application for Bible college and they asked for my testimony. It sort of made sense that they wanted to hear how I came to Christ but years later I learned that's not where your testimony or your story ends.

One of the first time I shared part of my story in a public setting was when I wrote an article. I wasn't really sure that it would do any good but then I got a comment from a total stranger thanking me for my article, for sharing my story. See even though it's your story other people can relate to it and God can help them through you. It's one of the most amazing phenomenons I've ever seen.

Let me see if I can explain this better. Say that you had a struggle with insecurity (something I think we can all relate to) maybe your problem got so bad that it really started affecting your life. You were constantly wondering what other people thought of you or if they were talking about you, maybe it affected your job, your relationship with your family, your friends, with your coworkers. But then through the grace of God something changed, you learned to be confident in the person God made you, confident in who you'd become and confident that Christ is still working in you. Through that experience your whole life changed but there's still that voice in the back of your head that says, "No one wants to hear my story. No one cares about that." But people do! Somewhere in the world there is someone who needs to hear that story, someone that your story of how Christ has changed your life will help, someone who will be reached and inspired by how God has changed you.

So why tell your story? Because God can use it.

How do you write your story, just by telling what's happened. If you're a Christian then you realize that you wouldn't be who you were without Christ. So telling your story should be about what He's done in your life.

In my next post I'll share my story, who knows, maybe someone else needs to hear it.

Through the Fog Part Two

Last post we talked about how God brings us through the fog but now I want to talk about why we have fog in our lives. I don't want to sound insensitive in what I'm about to say but I do want to share the thoughts on my heart so please bear with me.

This last weekend I heard someone say that we don't have joy unless we go through pain, in other words we don't understand what we have or we don't appreciate it as much if we've never had anything else. (Just for the record I don't think this applies to heaven, the Bible talks about no more tears of sadness and so I think there we'll experience all sorts of joy without having to go through the bad stuff first.) For example, if you had been born blind you wouldn't be able to really understand color but now imagine that you were miraculously healed, think how fascinated you would be by those colors that other people take for granted all the time. Does that make sense?

Well I think the fog in our lives cane be the same way. Sometimes God allows us to go through things to teach us, to help us grow, to encourage us, or to encourage others. One of my favorite sayings is "beauty from the ashes". God does that all the time. He takes the ashes of our lives, our dreams, our hopes, and he restores them, restores us and makes something more beautiful then we could imagine out of our pain.

Why do we go through fog? I don't know. But God does and He has a plan for us and that fog is all part of it. He has not abandoned you, He's still with you and He still loves you. He's still listening, He still sees you, He's still the One who called you and He is the One who redeems you and He will bring you through the fog.

Through the Fog

On the train to go visit my precious goddaughter for her birthday I looked out the window early in the morning and noticed how foggy it was as we went across a bridge. It was so thick you could scarecely see anything and I smiled, thinking what a strange kind of beauty there was in the sight. It was eerie and made me shiver, glad for the warmth of the train but it was still beautiful. But then a thought began to form of how that fog is so much like our lives.

So often we are going through some difficulty in our lives and we wonder "where is God" we can't see Him through the fog of our own pain. We can't see His hand at work or His plan beginning to form because we can't see beyond our own circumstances. But as the train continued down the tracks the fog began to lift and slowly the view became more clear. Aren't our lives the same?

God will bring us through the fog, maybe it's taking longer then we hoped, maybe it seems like the fog is getting worse and not better but the fog had not blinded the Lord, we simply need to keep reaching out for His hand and trust Him to guide us through it.

What's Heaven Like?

What's heaven like? The truth is I don't know but the more events I see happening around the world the more I believe it won't be that long until I find out. So I find myself anticipating and wondering what it will be like. 

The Bible tells us of streets of gold, the crystal sea, the tree of life, and many other small details that we can start piecing together a picture. But I wonder about what it doesn't say. Our lives on earth are pretty simple, as Christians we have church, work, our families, time with friends, and building our relationship with Christ as well as reaching out to others. How many of those things will translate to heaven?

In heaven we'll dwell with Christ, so I can't imagine any need for church. We'll constantly be with other believers, we won't need to go to a building to find that fellowship. So if there's not church what is there?

Will there be jobs? I don't know. But I like to think there will be, I'm not sure what exactly there will be but in the Garden of Eden Adam and Eve were tasked with taking care of the animals and the garden so I imagine that there will be some sort of jobs or tasks in heaven we can do. I don't think there will be need for a paycheck and since we know the Bible says there will be no tears in heaven I doubt any of us will dislike what we're doing but I don't think we'll be sitting idle either.

What about our families and friends? The body of Christ, the church, is our family, our brothers and sisters in Christ, God is our Father, so our families and friends will still be part of our lives because they will be the people we're in heaven with. For many of us that means our families will be different people then the ones we call family on earth for others our earthly families will be in heaven with us.

How about building our relationship with Christ? We'll be with Christ! (Can you imagine how amazing that will be?) So will we still have more to learn? I don't know but maybe, either way I have to believe that if we do have more to learn that process will look a lot different in heaven then it does here on earth.

And reaching out to others, again, we'll be in heaven! Who will there be to reach out to? I imagine we'll still be spending time with each other but there won't be anyone to tell the good news of Christ to since we'll all be together in heaven with Christ.

Anyways, I don't know what heaven will be like but I look forward to when it's time to find out. Thanks for letting me ramble, as always, my friends. I hope you're as excited to find out what God has in store for you, on earth and in heaven, as I am!

Prayers for those at Umpqua Community College

This morning as many of you know there was an incident at Umpqua Community College leaving ten dead and at least seven injured. I won't go discuss politics here about what could have led up to this or what could have prevented it the fact is it happened and many are hurting in its wake.

In times like this the easy thing to do is to rail at God, demand to know why, demand to know why he didn't stop it. Job, in the Bible, wanted those same answers. He lost his possessions, his wealth, his children then his friends and even his wife turned on him. He asked God why and God basically told him that He doesn't have to explain Himself. At first that answer seems unfair to me but here's what I know, God was there during that shooting, He did not abandon them He was there the whole time. We live in a fallen world and bad things will continue to happen until Jesus returns.

I can't give those people hurting answers as to why this happened but I can pray for them and I hope you'll join me in lifting up this prayer on their behalf.

Lord, be with those who are hurting today. Wrap your arms around them and let them feel your presence. Comfort them in their time of need, give them strength in the days to come, catch their tears and hold them close as they weep. Show them your glory through this tragedy, use this pain to bring about something of beauty that none of us could ever have imagined. Use this time to bring glory to your name and to restore the city of Roseburg, the state of Oregon, and this country, the United States of America, back to you.
God I ask you to be with the families and friends of the victims of this tragedy and show them how to make the difficult but necessary decision to forgive.
Father be with the families and friends of the shooter, provide comfort in the wake of confusion and pain and show them your love in the difficult days ahead.
Heal the school Lord, heal the city, heal the state, heal our country.
Bring these people to know and love you.
Thank you Lord that we know you have a plan and that you have not abandoned us.
In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.