I grew up in a conservative Christian home. Family life wasn’t great, nobody really got along. I went to church because that’s just what you did; my grandparents went, my parents went and now I was going.
Church to me seemed more like a place of rules than a place of worship. When I was old enough to ask serious questions about why Christians believe what they do, I felt like no one could give me a straight answer. Nobody ever told me that this God who determined heaven or hell, wanted a personal relationship with me, and even if they had, at that point I didn’t really know what a good relationship looked like. That’s when my rebellion took root.
In grade nine my friend Karl was killed in a car accident. I had never lost anyone close to me before, and I didn’t know how to deal with it so I spiralled into depression. My parents sent me to a psychiatrist who decided the easiest and quickest solution was to prescribe me Prozac. On top of these drugs I was in a very unhealthy relationship where we made a habit of drinking and smoking a lot of pot. I started cutting myself, until I got to the point where I couldn’t take it anymore and I tried to hang myself. As I was hanging over the ground, for reasons I couldn’t explain, the rope just broke. I realize now that that was God.
“We have escaped like a bird from the fowler’s snare; the snare has been broken, and we have escaped.”
Psalm 124:7
After that I continued in the same destructive pattern. Everything was going to crap, my girlfriend had left me and I had no memory of most weekends during that time. I woke up one day at a playground in a pile of my own vomit and I realized “I can’t do this without God”. Something just clicked.
I had never questioned the existence of God, I had simply never cared to associate or be associated with Him, until that day, because that day for the first time, I knew he was there. After that I started going back to church. Friends whom I had ignored for years accepted me without judgement. By God’s grace I am a new creation.
Now I feel Him calling me into missions, and I’m trying daily to be faithful to that call and not run from it; even though it is difficult and uncomfortable. My prayer is that my eyes will be opened and my heart will be willing to serve my God wherever he wants me to serve, now and in the future.
“Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”
Psalm 23:4
