Something we talked about at training camp was what does the gospel mean to you. This honestly confused me, the gospel is pretty straight forward. Jesus died for you and I, so that we can spend eternity with Him if we chose to accept this gift. However, the past few weeks I’ve been learning what the gospel means to me, personally. So, in order for you to get the full picture of what it means to me, I’ll share a little bit about myself.
So, hello my names Emily Jones, welcome to my testimony. I grew up in a Christian home, with my parents Jeff and Jeni Jones and an older brother and sister. I think I was saved maybe when I was like 6 or 7, I really don’t remember when, but I do remember I just wanted to be saved for the sake of going to heaven. Growing up I never actually have a relationship with God, because I didn’t think I could. Certain people would talk about it maybe at church or youth group but whenever I’d try to talk to God, I never heard anything from God, so I just assumed that having a direct relationship with God just wasn’t for me. So that was all my faith ever was until a night that changed my entire family’s life. On November 24, 2017, my sister had a seizure, she was alone upstairs but my whole family heard this noise that I will never forget, and we all ran up to find her on the couch not breathing. I mean I could tell you every word that came out of my mouth or my dad’s, moms, or brothers because no matter how hard I try I can’t seem to forget a single detail. Anyway, that’s not the point, to say the least that was probably the worst day of my life. After a late night at the ER my brother and I had to leave early because I had practiced the next day, fun fact it was also pictures day. Since I didn’t sleep a wink that night, I wasn’t looking my greatest. I cried my whole way to practice and during most of practice. But you know if anyone asks, I’m fine, because I was just sweating, right? Well, as some of you may know for my basketball team, we have a huge poster that hangs in the gym of the whole team and we are all doing the straight face trying to look as cool as possible. But on this poster it’s also black and white so you could see my undereye bags like no other and people would always ask me why I looked like that in the pictures and I would just always say that it must be some sort of shadow, but I knew why. Every day I would walk into the gym and see that poster and be reminded of the worst day of my life. While all this was going on my sister was still having seizures on a pretty regular basis and every time it would happen, I would start to cry less and less. Feeling more and more numb to the pain, because I just didn’t want to feel it anymore. Eventually, I had a hard time feeling things, like true joy and real sadness. I was just gliding through life, trying so hard to live as numb as possible because when I would try to feel things it would just hurt. So, as you can imagine during this time, I was also pretty mad, I was so mad at God. I would scream at Him, because I couldn’t understand that if He was sooooo good like everyone says He is why on earth is He putting my sister through this?!? I just could not comprehend it and even doubted the existence of God. Something that also didn’t help this situation is my constant desire to not be a burden, I knew my family was going through a lot. I did not want to add to that, so I did the only thing I knew how to do. Keep it bottled up and tell no one how I was really feeling. Eventually through all of the hurt and the madness i kept yelling at God and searching for some sort of answer. Every time I searched; I found a bit more peace. I got to a place where I still didn’t understand like anything, but I had a peace. Don’t get me wrong at times it felt like that peace would go away at times when terrible things would happen. Like when I was playing a basketball game and I don’t see my parents in the stands. Then having to continue to play an entire game just waiting to get back to my locker room to see a text from my mom “Sorry we couldn’t make it to your game, your sister had a seizure and we are at the ER, buy yourself supper on the way home and don’t wait up for us.” Things like that would once again make me hurt and be mad. But God kept pursuing me and comforting me, whether I accepted it or not. Then once my junior year was over, I had to figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my life. Let me tell you, I had zero clue and quite frankly I still don’t know. However, the Lord showed me the World Race. It seemed like the answer to every problem. Every single time people would ask me what I’m doing next year I would finally have an answer. This would be great. There is more to that part of the story, but I already wrote a blog on it, if you want to go to the beginning of my blogs to read it. So, skip forward to training camp, I went home. I didn’t entirely know why but I none the less I listened to God and just came home. A part of me wondered if this was me showing weakness without even knowing it. To just come home and then live a dead-end life. However, coming home was not comfortable. It was so hard, I hated having to tell everyone that I wasn’t going. I felt as though I let everyone down. I didn’t know how to move on, so I hid. Without the World Race, I didn’t even know who I was. My relationship with Christ was solid and I would still talk to Him on a daily basis, I just hid it, because I assumed everyone thought that I was running away because I was scared. I don’t’ know if this all makes sense and I didn’t completely realize all of this until training camp and coming to Cicrin. So, now I know that my identity isn’t in the World Race, or anything else for that matter. I’m not a victim, a 18 year old girl out of high school and has no idea what God has in store for her life, or even a “religious Christian”. My identity is found in who my father this and I am a child of the most high king, and I know who my father is and He is GOOD. Because through the worst times of my life, when I couldn’t see Him answering any of my prayers, He was sitting right next to me through it all and it brought me to where I am today. God works through the brokenness of this world and put the pieces back together. He is putting me back together.
So, what does the gospel mean to me you ask?
Well it means that there is a God who is so good all the time and even when I think He isn’t; He still is I just have to wait and while I wait, He comforts me because He loves me. He knows just what I need and He wants to listen to me because my feelings are valid. That is the good news of the gospel to me. gg
This isn’t exactly something I feel comfortable sharing, and if I’m being honest, I’ve had this blog post written up for a couple weeks, but I just didn’t want to post it. But vulnerability breeds vulnerability. So, if you’d like to feel free to share what the gospel means to you. You can comment down below or even private message me. Because testimonies aren’t meant to be hidden “And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony; and they loved not their life even unto death.” Revelation 12:11
So yeah posting this is low-key terrifying but by doing this I am overcoming death and giving God all the glory. So, even though I’m a little uncomfortable now, it’s all going to be worth it for the kingdom.
Love,
Emily<3
