The sand looked liked gold. I couldn’t help but let it run through my fingers. It glittered and sparkled in the scorching sun. This sand, was the only beautiful thing around.
People lived in homes that looked nothing like homes. Just a few pieces of plastic stuck together. Children lived alone in the city dump. No education. For their dinner, was your forgotten yogurt, 3 months passed the best by date, which was found in freshly delivered pile of trash. Gangs ran the street leaving no sense of safety. A guard kept watch for us all night with a gun by his side. This place was rough.
My job was to shovel sand. I got to be apart of building an orphanage for children living in the city dump. One day, I had a different task. “Go door to door and tell people your testimony”. There was no part of me that wanted to do this. How would my testimony do anything? People don’t want you knocking on their door. My story isn’t even great. I’ve always been a believer.
I was with a group of 6 or 7 people and rotating who would share their testimony. This time, it was my turn. A older women opened the door. I didn’t have anything planned but I sputtered off what God has done in my life. It went something like this:
My parents taught me about Jesus from a very early age. I think I came out the womb knowing about him because, my parents always followed him. I grew up wanting to follow him. I went to church all the time and tried to do everything it said. I didn’t party. I was nice to people, and I loved my friends from church.
My life was planned out by the time I was in 7th grade. I was going to become a great bass guitarist and move to Nashville to become a studio musician. After high school that’s what I did. It was harder being away from home than I thought and my boyfriend, at the time, was home as well. After Three semesters at school, I gave up and went home. Soon after, we broke up and I didn’t have any friends. All I had to turn to was Him. This is why he became the most important thing in my life. I realized what was most important. Even though I loved the Lord I still felt like I needed to do “awesome things” in order to have people like me.
I went out trying to please people and doing what the world thought I should do. Like living in NYC and working for big fashion companies. I was consumed with wanting to become successful but then all a sudden doors started to close and I was becoming miserable. I was on my knees again. Begging for The Lord to do something. All I wanted to do was spend more time with him. To fall more in love him.
This led me to do something people would call crazy. I quit everything and went on the World Race. Things I never thought were possible happened while I was out. First off, I was able to raise $15, 500. In four months I saved enough money to pay my student loans for six months while I was gone. The months went by quickly and month six came and my account was dwindling. I needed to sell my car to pay for my student loans. So I prayed. And prayed that by tomorrow it would sell. That next day I got a text from my dad. It had sold.
I can’t tell you how many times God has shown up and provided for me when I’m in need. While I was in Swaziland, I had to make some hard decisions. Let go of people I was holding onto. People who made me feel safe and secure. But I opened my hands. Stopped clenching to what I could see. Now I’m walking blindly but learning to trust fully in The Lord.
During this time I had given up chocolate. I wanted to give up something I loved for him. By Swaziland it had been 4 months since I’d had any. But The Lord wanted to comfort me. An American was traveling to Swaziland. She knew we were World Racers and came to meet us to encourage and bring Reese’s Peanut-butter cups!. You can’t find them anywhere outside the states and they just happened to be my favorite. Every time I would go to bed, somehow there would be a chocolate bar on my bed. How cool is it that He showed me he cared through chocolate?!
After I was done sharing. I looked up to see the women crying. Before I left, she asked Jesus to come into her heart.
Your Story is powerful. Start telling it
