Have you ever been in a season of your life where you feel like you’re in the trenches. A place where you are fighting a battle but you just seem to be losing over and over again? Defeated. Tired. Where the end seems so far away?
I feel like I can deliberately remember multiple seasons in my young adulthood where I have felt like this. Because, well, life is a roller coaster. There are two times in my life that I have felt utterly defeated in the dark. One time in high school and one time in college.
Today I am sharing just one part of my testimony that I have been afraid to talk about in the past, but I am on the other side now. The devil has had a hold on my family, but today I am waving my victory flag and it is such a privilege to be a living testimony to Gods goodness. I cry every time I think about these seasons in my life and I am excited to share what the Lord has done in my life.
When I was 16 I was living the typical high school life. Feeling pressure from school to get good grades for college. Feeling pressure from my peers to be involved and improve my resume. Feeling pressure from friends to do things that I wasn’t always comfortable doing. Trying my best to fit in, but often feeling so far from who I really was. But at that age I didn’t know who I was, I didn’t even know what direction to go in. I was just kind of just swimming and trying my best to stay afloat. I was performing in front of the crowds, but there was so much more going on behind the curtain.
My parents marriage was struggling. My step dad was in rehab. My mom was at a loss of how to deal with everything and trying her best too. We were all looking for ways to make it all “right” again but didn’t know where to look to for the strength or answers.
The only place I really felt like I could be myself was at my youth group, young life. I could go and have fun, hang with friends who could be real about their feelings & learn about Jesus. I grew up in the church so I knew some things about this guy Jesus, but not much. I hadn’t really formed my own ideas about him yet, I was intrigued.
Fast forward one year into youth group and I was really starting to like this guy Jesus. He seemed like my only way out of this messiness going on at home and in my heart. It felt like I was standing in the middle of a crazy whirlwind storm but I had this one focal point that kept me sane. It was Jesus.
While everyone else was spiraling, I was just longing to hold onto this one point that kept me still.
I remember one specific day my junior year I was at a weekend retreat with young life and I decided to give my life to Jesus. I hadn’t realized at the time that I was surrendering everything to him in the moment, but I know what happened afterwards was God radically changing my heart.
I remember feeling so heavy for my family that day at the retreat. Feeling like I had no answers or way to make the people around me feel better. I told Jesus that I wanted to give it all to him. I didn’t want to carry the weight of “fixing my family” and I had been told over and over again that he would take it from me. So I decided to trust my peers, and Jesus and really give it to him. I went home that day and cried for hours. I mean ugly cried for hours upon hours because I was just so relieved and happy that it wasn’t mine to carry and I had a new Heavenly Father who would take care of all of it.
I didn’t know what was happening to me. I assumed Jesus was speaking to me in that time of my life so I didn’t feel the pressure of helping everyone around me. But that same night I came to the dinner table to tell my mom about my decision to love and live for Christ and she exchanged my words with some even crazier news. She was going to rehab too.
What? God just told me he was going to take care of everything?
But he was. For the first time in my life I felt at peace. Peace and stillness and a supernatural assurance that God would take care of us.
Well let me tell you this next season in my life was not easy. Just because I said yes to God, nothing necessarily got easier. In fact I found myself crying at the gym, school, and in my bedroom at night. Overwhelmed with all the turmoil happening in my family.
But I wasn’t alone. For the first time in my life I knew I really wasn’t alone. God was with me in every moment. He was giving me strength to go to school. He was comforting me in bed at night as I read his words in my new bible. I had someone to confide in who knew my every thought. I had someone to cry out to with my every worry, my confusion, my anger and despair. He listened every step of the way.
I would like to say that is where my story ends. Knowing that eventually my family was all better. That my parents overcame their addictions and we became a happy dandy family after that. But it’s not. Well it was for a moment. For a couple of years we pulled it together. We tried our best, we really did. But as life goes, we were back in the trenches only a couple years later when I was in college.
Except this time I was even stronger. My foundation was stronger. I knew the Lord and I knew him well. He had already known that my family was hiding our deeper inner thoughts and pains down in our hearts. He knew they had to come back up because you can only hide them for so long. A storm was coming and I felt scared, but I had practice this time. I knew I had to keep my eyes on the Lord. The God who had walked me through love, heartbreak, college, friendships and so much more at this point.
I found myself in a very similar season my junior year of college. It is funny how God works in his timing and how I found myself in the same place from junior year in high school to junior year in college. I was only a couple years older, seasoned with a little more maturity and faith.
My family was breaking up for good. My mom and step dad were divorcing. My mom was moving to California only 20 minutes away where I would be the only person she knew. The life I had left behind so I could start fresh in college was following me and I was an emotional mess. Everything came rising up again.
Anger, bitterness, hurt and this deep longing to just want to feel okay. It was a season of walking through some of the hardest emotions, secrets and hidden pain. But this time God wasn’t just good to me. I wasn’t the only one clinging to his words. My whole family was. He was speaking individually to all of us, reminding us of his promises to take us out of the wilderness at some point. We weren’t always going to be in the valley.
2016 was probably the hardest year of my life. I felt like I was in a sea of massive crashing waves this time, wadding water, gulping in the sea salt & trying to really stay afloat. There were tears everyday. Turning to alcohol, food, boys, friends… any comfort I could get. But at the end of the day the ONLY one who knew my heart was Jesus.
Deep down I knew this. I knew there was no one else who could heal my heart. The only one who could heal my families broken hearts and past. He was the only one who could redeem us. And guess what? He redeemed each and every one of us. He continues to redeem us.
I knew in that season he was my only hope and the only one I could cling to. So even in the darkness, it took all my might but I would speak his words over my life. Over my family. Even when I didn’t feel like I believed them, I sang his praises because God is good and he is good all the time. He never left me. He stayed right there and held my hand showing me more of him and his glory.
Today we stand on a mountain. Waving our victory flags. Singing his praises. Closer to him than I have ever felt before.
I was so scared to leave for the Wolrd Race because I didn’t want to leave my family. I didn’t want to give him full trust to take care of them. Even when I had seen him work so much of his good in them, I had a tight grip on my family. Especially my mom who is rebuilding her life in Los Angeles.
But here I am writing this story on a mountain in Peru (literally) and just in awe at Gods goodness. Not only did he lead me to do missions around the world but he has taken SUCH good care of my family. He has done some incredible miracles in their lives this year and pursues them each and everyday. He takes much better care than I ever could.
I wanted to share this testimony to encourage anyone who is feeling like they are in the trenches. Anyone who feels like they are in a dark, lonely place. God will take you from Glory to Glory. However, this year I have learned that we can’t always be in the “glory” season of life. Remember there is a “to” season also. There are always going to be times in our life when we are in the valley, in the wilderness wondering where to go and how to find the light.
Jesus never leaves you. He is there for you just as he was and always will be for me and my family.
If you don’t believe in Jesus that is okay too. I know for me I will live the rest of my life sharing these testimonies because there is no one else that could have healed my heart like this, than Jesus Christ. I may not be able to prove all the doctrine in the Bible or the stories of miracles, but I can hold on tight to the testimonies of what God has done in my life. Now I not only have my testimony, but thousands of others that I have experienced and seen throughout this year. This year is a year of testimonies of God working in powerful ways in people all around the world.
If you are a believer and you find yourself standing in victory right now too, share how you got there. These are the stories that allow us to claim victory over the devil, over sin, over our past and anything holding us back from complete freedom. Even if you are in the trenches, reflect on what God has done in your life and claim those fulfilled promises over what is to come. We have a big God. A God who has healed my family of addiction, deceit, hardened hearts, shame and guilt. He can do that for you too.
Pslam 66: 8-12
“ Praise our God, all peoples,
let the sound of his praise be heard;
he has preserved our lives
and kept our feet from slipping.
For you, God, tested us;
you refined us like silver.
You brought us into prison
and laid burdens on our backs.
You let people ride over our heads;
we went through fire and water,
but you brought us to a place of abundance.”
17-20: “Come and hear, all you who fear God;
let me tell you what he has done for me.
I cried out to him with my mouth;
his praise was on my tongue.
If I had cherished sin in my heart,
the Lord would not have listened;
but God has surely listened
and has heard my prayer.
Praise be to God,
who has not rejected my prayer
or withheld his love from me!”
