The previous testimony posted here was a long, play-by-play run-through of the year before I decided to rededicate my life to Christ. You can read that story here. At this point in my renewed faith, I wanted to tell my story and get some things off my chest, and when I got accepted to the World Race six months later, the same testimony was copied and pasted onto this blog. I don’t feel like I gave the full picture, and I’ve recently felt a tug to rewrite my testimony now that I’m outside of that moment.
So I’d really like to tell you the story of how I fell head-over-heels in love with Jesus Christ.
I grew up knowing how much He loved me, and I believed every minute of it. We talked every single night. My parents told me stories about Him and taught me how to love Him by loving the people around me. My favorite part was singing songs about Him, because you want to sing love songs when you’re in love. I even went to a school that had teachers that loved Him as much as I did. Everything was done for me to ensure I’d always be in relationship with Him, and know how much He loved me and wanted only the best things for me.
Yet somewhere in junior high, a lie snuck into this relationship.
I was going through a lot at that time. On the outside, life looked perfect: my basketball team won state, I was at a Junior Olympics swimming level, I had an incredible group of friends, great grades, and was winning awards in choir and art. But behind closed doors, life was really hard. I began seeing a different mom than the one I knew growing up. Instead of my Sunday school teacher who sang hymns to me at night, she became an alcoholic who was drunk by the time I got home from school. I missed my real mom so much; my talks with Jesus each night turned into desperate pleas for her to come back. And the next day, no matter how much it seemed like my real mom was there in the morning, I would come home from practice and the other woman would be back. I began to question if He was even listening to me anymore. Did our talks mean nothing to Him?
Once that lie crept in, I began to feel really betrayed and alone. So instead of trusting Him and running to Him, I took the reins into my own hands, and tried to control everything I could, which at the time meant sports and grades. These aspects of my life, along with my friends, were all I could rely on. Church was just something I did, and also was a way to hang out with my friends, and when I failed to connect with the girls in my high school’s YoungLife club, I was over it. By the time I was sixteen, I fully believed the lie that Jesus was done being in a relationship with me, and I detached myself from both Him and my parents. I chose feeling numb towards them over feeling hurt and betrayed.
When our family moved from Illinois to Washington, I was over the “sweet Christian athlete in AP classes” image. I wanted something more interesting, something with more edge—an image I created easily in Seattle. I never talked to or about my first Love. By my senior year, the party scene had filled the space in my life where He used to be. The control I had over my life slipped out the window, and soon I found myself facing desperate nights of seeking out the quickest fix I could find. I needed the parties; when these were out of the picture, I couldn’t stand myself and was furious with everyone around me.
The “edge” I so desired came to fruition—I was now the stereotypical rebellious, angry teenage girl. This became even more extreme when my mom came back into the picture. Moving was the perfect fresh start she needed. She was now sober, solely due to her completely surrendering her disease to Jesus. Instead of being happy for her, I was irritated at her (and mostly Him) for trying to step back into the place in my life that I’d taken control of myself. The lie I mentioned earlier had germinated in my mind and set root, causing my heart to become calloused and blind to the reality that Jesus was still there and loved me immensely and that I needed Him more than anything.
My prodigal season was sending me on a downward spiral and my priorities had completely changed by my senior year. I dropped out of sports and my full-IB classes, and lost hope of applying to any of the prestigious colleges I was on track to go to—in fact, I barely graduated high school. The only school I was accepted to was Washington State, which also happened to be one of the top party schools in the country. I joined a sorority and quickly became a part of the Greek partying culture. This lasted the first four years of college. I had a lot of crazy experiences, and met a lot of awesome people. However, as my senior year went on I started to realize that many of those experiences were because of alcohol, and that many of those relationships were surface-level and maintained through partying.
I found myself looking around at the people I had partied with for four years of my life, realizing that I had no idea who they were. In addition, I started to think more of the girl I was before I started partying. The stark contrast between the person I was raised to be and the woman I was becoming kept creeping into my thoughts. Where was that sweet, giggly little girl so full of joy? She seemed so far away from the cynical, sarcastic girl I saw in the mirror—the one who would become overwhelmingly depressed at the start of each semester and who only seemed happy and alive after a few shots or a complement from a cute boy.
I thought I just needed to work out more, or eat better, or find the right medication, or be outside more, or think more positive thoughts. I started pursuing the idea of a “God” who could help me out and I could pray to when I fell short doing these things, or when the things themselves would fall short of giving me happiness. However, this God had nothing to do with the Jesus of my childhood.
Through my lens of bitterness and betrayal, I thought that Christianity seemed childish. I was an open minded and educated woman who couldn’t see why a so-called “loving” God would exclude so many people for not believing in this Jesus. I also thought I had a good grasp of the life you were supposed to live and the personality you were supposed to have to fit into the mold of a “good Christian,” and I wasn’t interested in it. In one of my first prayers, I ended it with this statement: “If there is a higher power out there (which I know there is, my species is not the biggest thing out here), please show me how to follow you, because I only know a way that brings the world oppression, restriction, guilt, and corruption. Amen."
The idea of a higher power became clearer and clearer as the year went on, but I was lost as to who this was or what this meant for me.
Then, a dream changed it all. The day before, I had read a magazine article titled "Are you following your dreams?" It explained how common dreams (flying, getting chased, etc.) corresponded to goals in real life, and I wanted to have one of these dreams to see where I was.
So here's the dream: I am in a room where the DJ of my then-favorite bar's head (just his head) is on this platform and it looks lifeless. I suddenly feel this huge wave of evilness come from that region of the room. I look straight at the head, saying, "you realize I don't believe in this right?" and suddenly the head comes to life, looks straight at me, and says: "Oh yeah? You don't believe in this? Hah!" and I'm thrown to the back of the room, overcome with the evil feeling. I'm completely overwhelmed, and the head is over me laughing along with another disturbing figurine skull that had red blinking eyes. I start yelling out everything I could think of–"This isn't real! It's just a dream!" and even got to the point of saying "Get away from me in the name of God!" None of it made the evilness stop. Then I remembered what I had to do from my childhood. I gave up struggling on my own and let out a bold shout: "Get away from me in the name of Jesus Christ!”
I woke up.
It was the most powerful dream that I had ever experienced. As a psych major, I had been enchanted by the symbolism in dreams. The next morning I looked at that article again and discovered one of the possible dreams listed was a nightmare. It said: "There are some aspects of your life that are unfulfilled, and there are negative things in your life that are stopping you from fulfilling them."
I was blown away, and really scared. I had so many questions—that evil feeling was never anything I’d experienced before—what was that? And Jesus had the power to stop it? Why did that work? Was Jesus really the answer I had been searching for?
My best friend from elementary school helped answer some of those questions, and directed me to open my bible—something I had avoided for years. I started opening up to the idea of Christianity, and letting Jesus back into my life. I began to see the truth in the magazine article. Negative things in my life were stopping me from being fulfilled, and I didn't realize the power Jesus had to stop them until my eyes were opened to the evilness surrounding me.
Honestly, it took months for me to fully agree to Christianity. I knew that if I was going to say I believed in Jesus, I would have to give Him my life and trust. I knew it meant submitting to the things the Bible said, and giving Him control, and letting the church back into my life. It meant loving Jesus and the church and letting them love me. But when I went to the Easter service at Mars Hill that year, the good news sunk in my heart, and I was wrecked. I had heard the Gospel thousands of time in my life, but that day I understood it and could no longer deny its truth.
God is so real, and He loves me. He loves us all—so much that He sent His only son to die to take on the punishment of the world’s sins. We can be reunited with Him when we confess that we are sinners and are really messed up without Him. He forgives us and wants to help us with this mess. He wants to not only help us with the mess—but He doesn’t see us as messy anymore. He sees us as pure and blameless because we are covered by the blood of His son, Jesus. It sounds bizarre, trust me, I know. I thought that too. When God lifted the veil from my eyes and showed me the truth of the Gospel, it hit me, and it hit me hard. It became perfectly clear to me that Jesus was the answer to all the questions I had about myself and this life.
Once I confessed my sins and re-dedicated my life to Christ, God did a mighty work in me. I can genuinely say that I am not the person I was a year and a half ago. When I realized that Jesus still wanted me and still loved me, and that I needed Him more than anything, it changed my entire life. I began to see all the times He didn’t leave me, how much He was protecting me during those years, how much it pained Him to see all the situations I’d been through, because He was there. I began to see how fervently He was pursuing me that past year and how much He wanted me back. However, when I gave Him my life, I was still really dealing with trust issues with Him. I still needed to get over the lie that He couldn't hear me or would abandon me if I didn’t live up to the standards He wanted for His people.
During my fifth year of college, He continued to make it crystal clear how much He knows and loves me and that His love is the same no matter what I do. I began to see what it means to be blameless and pure in His eyes. He’s been patient with me through times of arrogance and stubbornness, when I feel like my way of living is the best or most free way to live. He's shown me what it means to live in true community and be mentored and poured in to by older women. It’s taken time, but I’ve learned that when I stop fighting and fully submit to the Creator of the universe’s will, I have never felt more free, alive, and satisfied.
God's been faithful and patient in showing me why some of the things are in the Bible and why He has so many instructions regarding how we live our lives. He loves me and wants the best for me, not because they’re things I need to do to receive His love. He’s been so faithful and good to me. It brings me so much joy to be faithful and good to Him. You know, kind of like how you feel towards a significant other or a best friend.
He’s helped my other relationships too. He’s restored my relationships with my parents and the church. He’s taken away the bitterness I felt towards them, and brought me to forgive them for my past hurts, take responsibility for my actions instead of transferring the blame to them, and love and trust them.
I’m genuinely a whole new person since I’ve been with Jesus. He’s softened the hard edges of my personality, so that I’m still Emily, but I don’t bubble up with irritation and anger as much as I used to. I’m able to love people more, I'm able to be patient and forgiving and compassionate. I’m able to control myself more. I’m not as arrogant. I’m still stubborn, but He’s making me to be stubborn for HIM.
For the first time in years I’ve been able to feel the pure, unadulterated happiness and joy that I had thought only little kids could experience before they were jaded by the world. I’m not saying my life has been all perfection and happiness since then (please—read old blogs if you want a taste), but a huge weight has been lifted from my life and He’s teaching me how I can be content in all circumstances, because He’s got it under control and He is all I need.
Once God changed me from the inside, it naturally overflowed into how I am externally. I had always been interested in international volunteer work, but now this moved into mission and service work for God. I know He's called me to this, and placed me in the World Race for a reason. He's shown me that He trusts me by putting me in a leadership position, and has given me huge responsibilities for this next year that He empowers me to carry out. Literally, if Jesus doesn't show up during this Race I'm going to fall flat on my face. I'm so unqualified for this yet He's giving me the skills to qualify me each day. It's all Him.
It’s a beautiful thing, and it really blesses my heart to see how He's written my story. I'm so excited to see how He writes the next season in my life, because I trust Him and know He's going to challenge me and make me a better woman. I'm ecstatic to be back in the relationship. God is so good, and I’m never leaving Him again.
[Psalm 40]
