So… I kind of did everything in my power to skip out on the 3 min. testimonies at training camp. There were a lot of reasons, the main one was because I feel like I have to justify my story. Like you can't completely understand where God has taken me unless you know everything that has gone on, how it all ties together and what changed. That's foolish and I know it. You don't have to know everything to appreciate where I was and where I am now. With that in mind forgive me for being so guarded and I hope this encourages you as we prepare to leave for Thailand in 9 days!
As a kid I used to write letters to missionaries and members of the persecuted church who were experiencing hardships for the sake of the gospel. I used to carefully copy a list of prepared scripture verses in various languages to send along with my letters wrote in English to encourage and bless them by letting them know that someone out there knew about their struggle and was praying for them. At that time I wanted nothing more than to be priviledged enough to be counted amoung those who were preaching the gospel, even in the face of adversity.
I was impatient as a child and at 7 years old I could not understand why God wouldn't let me go. That impatience didn't get any better as I grew up, it just got worse. I did everything I could think of to please God thinking that maybe if I really excelled at being Christian he would speed up the process a little and give me what I wanted. Apparently it doesn't work that way. I took his silence as a sign that he wasn't concerned with me. That he didn't care about what happened to me and wasn't interested in seeing me accomplish anything really valuable or good with my life. After all He couldnt' trust me with anything really important.
I became bitter, I stopped believing that God loved me. I didn't have God so I threw myself into being a people pleaser and ended up burnt out and depressed by the end of high school. I followed moral guidelines, rules and regulations to the letter. I might have been unimportant, unloved and a failure but I was determined to be dignified about it, legalism gave me that air. It also made me capable of seeing myself as better than those around me, justifying my own failures and misgivings. As a result I justified taking out my frustrations on a friend of mine who practiced a different religion and threw away 4 years of friendship on purpose.
I became a very experienced liar. I have never been overly expressive and stiffling my emotions slowly became my way of putting my best foot forward. I went to work, smiled at customers, spoke politely, talked pleasantly about the weather, the headlines on the newspaper, how busy it was and how nice the produce section smelled during the summer months when all the fresh fruit and vegetables came in. I talked and smiled about anything that diverted my attention from the inescapable numbness I felt inside or how fake I felt on a daily basis. At home I had little energy or motivation to do anything. Hours passed in minutes and I struggled to remember to do simple tasks. When I found myself alone the pressure and discouragement would cause my carefully composed mask to slip. Then I sobbed so hard I couldn't stop myself, felt desperately alone and tried to stop the overwhelming fear that I was suffering from complete insanity.
It was in those moments when I was certain I was losing control of my mind that God began to speak truth to me. Blind with panic, struggling to breathe a memory verse from Sunday school class would come to mind. 'I will never leave you or forsake you.' I couldn't remember where it was found, (honestly I still don't), but there it would appear in my head. I would contradict it, pointing out how false it was and God would again bring the verse to mind – I will NEVER leave you. I have NEVER left you. I have ALWAYS been there. I AM HERE.
Slowly God began to uproot all of the lies that I had believed about who he is, how he operates, who I am, what my purpose is and what God sees when he looks at me. As my heart yielded to the movement of his trowel making the soil of my heart capable of recieving truth other memory verses would come to mind to dispute the lies I was still holding on to.
I began to recognize that the dream God placed inside of me when I was 7 was real and beautiful but, like any pregnant mother will tell you, it takes time for such a beautiful dream to be birthed. There are pains that go along with it and a lot of waiting but the waiting is necessary and worth it. I tried to abort that dream and I believed that it was dead but God resurrected it and he showed me that there was still a tiny heartbeat thrumming inside of me for the nations. Now it's time for life in all of its abundance.
That's my 3 mins…
