You are important. Your story is important. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
I grew up in the church and never really left, and as a result I have often been guilty of thinking that my testimony is boring, or that it doesn’t hold the same weight as someone who’s experienced a more drastic change. In the last couple years, I have come to realize how untrue that is. We have all been redeemed by the same God, and He has pulled us all out of a life of sin. That fact alone is powerful enough, regardless of what you have been through. Even though I had that head knowledge, these last two weeks at training camp reaffirmed that for me over and over again with each new day and with each new conversation with my teammates.
Two days into training camp, we were split into small groups and asked to share our three minute testimonies. Up until this point, most of my interactions had been fairly surface level – I figured I hadn’t known them long enough to dig any deeper. However, after seeing just how quickly three minutes goes by, and how little can actually be said in that time, I realized I wanted to know more. God had brought together an incredible group of forty people to travel the world and do ministry as a community, and I wanted to know where we all came from and how we all fit together. I started asking for stories. I didn’t want three minutes – I wanted as long as it took to tell. We started opening up with each other more than people who just met face to face less than a week prior had any business doing. Let me tell you, friends – this mosaic is more beautiful than I ever imagined it could be.
We are teachers, nurses, accountants, students, interns, church leaders, coaches, musicians, manual laborers, counselors, sales reps, and everything in between. Above all, we are servants, and that is what unifies us. Nothing else could have brought this group of forty wildly different individuals together into such a beautiful community in the way that God has. No one but Jesus could have redeemed the pasts of forty very broken people and brought them into a home that is so wholly intact. We, as a team, have been redeemed from so. much. brokenness.
He has pulled us out of abusive relationships and shown us what true love looks like in the form of loving church communities and real, pure friendships.
He has pulled us out of addictions to drugs, alcohol, sex, and pornography that at one point controlled every aspect of our lives and shown us what it looks like to instead walk in step with the Holy Spirit.
He has pulled us out of toxic church communities that for years hindered our spiritual growth and shown us what it looks like to be truly discipled in the way Jesus did in the New Testament church.
He has pulled us out of families that wanted nothing to do with the church and shown us what a loving family really looks like, with a loving Father at the head of it all and brothers and sisters all around us for encouragement.
He has pulled us out of lives of apathy and shown us what it looks like to live and breathe our faith in a way that makes everyone around us notice something unique.
He has pulled us back into His fold when we spent years of our lives sprinting in the opposite direction, thinking we knew what was best for us better than He did.
He has been our comforter when we have lost loved ones – parents, friends, and significant others.
He has been our guide when we ached from loneliness, depression, and anxiety and couldn’t see any way out.
He has been our healer when our pain, whether physical or emotional, was too much for us to bear on our own.
He has been our Father when our own fathers were absent or simply wouldn’t step up to the plate and take responsibility.
Most importantly, and above all else, He has been our God whether we knew we needed Him or not, through all of this pain, sin, and brokenness, and He has brought us all together, redeemed and whole, for a purpose. Where once we were forty individual stories we are now one, and every piece of that story has the power to change lives. Every piece of that story has already changed mine, in one way or another. We are a family. And we are ready for anything the world has to throw at us.
To my new family: Thank you so much for sharing your hearts with me. You are seen. You are heard. And I’m glad you’re here.
