I don’t have a “special” story. There’s nothing overwhelmingly fantastic or gripping about my story. But it’s worth telling. Because my God is the God of the ordinary, as well as the extraordinary.
I’m going to be a little vulnerable here.
I was in a relationship with someone I thought I wanted to marry. I thought I had my life planned out and I thought God had brought me to this place. Well, I told myself that God had brought me there. I loved this man with all my heart and I really thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with him. My parents had serious concerns, but I told them and convinced myself things would be fine. I just knew that this was God’s plan. It had to be. I spent a year and a half in an unhealthy relationship. I began to feel constantly stressed, my anxiety was always around the corner waiting to strike, I was distancing myself from my family and my best friend. Red flashing signs were going off everywhere, but I still wanted to believe that God had led me to this man and that I was going to help him and we were going to be married.
Eventually, the stress got to be too much. Eventually, the emotional abuse got to be too much.
Eventually, I became lonely- even though I was surrounded by those who loved me, I had pushed them away and began to believe that they were against me.
I thank God that relationship ended. It hurt so bad when it did. I really didn’t know how I was going to move on. My heart was broken. I was left questioning everything. Especially God. Because He was the one who had led me to this man, right? I was supposed to help him and we were going to be together forever. I felt like I had failed somehow.
I spent what felt like forever (but in reality was only two weeks) depressed. And in that time, I asked God “why?” about a thousand times.
I learned some hard lessons through all of that.
1. God gave me amazing parents. They are the kindest, most generous and loving people I’ve met to this day. If they love me that much, what they were warning me about was out of love, not because they wanted me to be unhappy. Quite the opposite. They knew he wasn’t good for me.
2. God gave me a great friend. Don’t turn your back on true friends. They’re hard to come by.
3. You can’t fix people. I hate this fact. But it is a fact, nonetheless. I always want to help fix people. I always want to see the best in people. But it’s not up to me to fix them. That’s between them and God to make them a better person.
4. I had actually turned away from God. I replaced him with this relationship. I wanted to make it work so bad. I let this man convince me that he was sure that we were meant to be, and he made me feel like a doubter and unbeliever if I had concerns. So, I trusted in man instead if God. Bad idea.
5. I have trust issues. Sometimes I trust people too easily, and God not enough.
For the next month following the ugly breakup, I began to recover and started to feel more relaxed and closer to God. In my brokenness, I started to realize I wanted more. I wanted more than just the nine to five, five days a week, 365 days a year. I wanted my life to count. I wanted to be used by God. I wasn’t sure what that would look like and I wasn’t sure how to go about acting upon these thoughts. I just kept praying and trying to stay close to God. I became close to my family again. I began to feel like a sponge at church.
And that’s where I was hit. That’s where I was called. The first time it was mentioned that our church was helping sponsor a World Racer, it didn’t phase me. I thought it was neat and moved on. I’ve never had an interest in missions. In my mind, that was always for great people who knew what they were doing and just knew that that’s what God wanted then to do. I didn’t give it a second thought.
The next week when it was mentioned again, I felt prompted by the Holy Spirit.
I didn’t want to do this! But I couldn’t deny the call I felt that day. I began praying…even praying that God would take it off my mind (yeah, pretty selfish). But, it’s all I could think about or pray about. I found myself researching it.
Then I decided I needed to let my parents know what was going on. My mom and I are practically the same person. It’s almost frightening. And I knew that she is a logical person just like me and would tell me all the things I had already been thinking- it’s too long for a first missions trip, it’s too much money, etc. All of the logical things. So I told her and my dad. You know what my mom said? “That sounds like it would be amazing”
That is not what I wanted to hear. I was hoping for her to say all of the cons, and talk me out of it.
Thanks, mom. No, really. Thank you. You’re incredible.
I then went on with life, wondering if I would hear back about my application. My family and I then went to a homeschool convention. And every session I went to, the theme I kept getting was to let go of my plans and trust God. Let go and trust. Let go and trust…let go….and trust….
Okay, God, I got it. So I let go and trust that God would take care of the application process. If He really wanted me to go, I would be accepted and things would proceed. If not, I looked at it as a trust training exercise.
But I got a call back. I had been accepted. Then it was on. I had to start fundraising and writing blogs; things I had never done before and had no clue what I was doing. I had to trust God and let go of my plans. I prayed earnestly for what I should do and how to go about raising the funds.
God has shown me so much about trust in the last year. I feel like I’ve drawn closer to Him. And I feel like this is just the beginning. Every day is a battle, but I can rest knowing He’s already won the war.
And this is where I am today. It may not be a spectacular story, but God uses the ordinary to do His extraordinary. I want to be used for His kingdom. Whether it’s helping build a church in a village in Africa, playing with orphans in South America, or loving my family at home. I want to be broken for Him, because that’s when we are the most usable. In that place when we have nothing to hold on to but Him, we learn trust.
