Hi, I’m Connie and the last 4 years I’ve been wrecked for Jesus. 4 years ago, I never would have imagined myself to be where I am today.
My latter high school and college years, I was lost; adrift; doing my own thing. Living in an angst ridden world, away from the Lord and so full of it (of myself really).
After graduating from college, I found a job in Los Angeles. Miraculously! Why would someone from LA hire a new grad from TX with no industry experience or cultural experience? And pay a relocation fee? Divine!
After feeling so blessed in getting a job and moving cross country from TX, I thought everything would be peachy. Guess again… God started his stripping away process.
I was so alone. I had never lived so long for so far from my family before. I didn’t know anyone in LA. I was living in a less than ideal housing situation and the ‘amazing’ job turned out to be the opposite of that. I’d call my mom every night and cry and ask and think and analyze: Why was I there?
I couldn’t understand it. All my nice clothes were being eaten by moths that had been hiding in the empty room that I moved into. My emotions were getting battered at work and coming home wasn’t better with my bitter-spirited older landlady/roommate. I was battling adult acne and felt horribly self conscious. All of my identity: my physical appearance, materialism, job, status with friends…was getting completely stripped away and all I had was God.
In the very depths of that first year, He pulled me in. I found a community of good people who supported and prayed for me. He put people in my life who embodied good relationships and real, Christian living. We put on taco cookouts for the neighborhood, had rowdy (and sometimes heated) biblical debates, and naturally hung out together. I experienced community. It’s funny: I found Jesus in secular, sin-filled Hollywood LA and not in the Bible belt south of Dallas.
Living through that desperation in that first job in LA, taught me to start my morning with worship. I’d have Pandora on set to the Jesus Culture station, brave traffic, only to sit cringing at my desk until I could leave. I couldn’t calm my heart unless I listened to worship music. It gave me a peace that I didn’t have and a joy in my trials. And I was introduced to Kim Walker Smith that way. “You won’t relent until You have it all. My heart is yours. I’ll set you as a seal on my heart. As a seal upon my arm. For there is love that is as strong as death.”
That time in Hollywood, that first year, it awakened a hunger in me. I saw the importance of community. I understood that the Bible was truth, not just outdated, metaphorical good stories and morals, but real. And that the people who followed Jesus were real too. They weren’t these square, boring, legalistic Christians that I had stereotyped in my mind. I wanted more. I wanted the relationship with Jesus. I didn’t just want the knowledge.
God provided me with an amazing job in Santa Monica that was night and day from that first job in LA. I’m so thankful! There’s a testimony there too. And from that first year, I just got hungrier and hungrier. I found an amazing Spirit led church on the west side (best side) and was exposed to wonderful leaders of our day and their testimonies like Bill & Beni Johnson, Heidi Baker, Lou Engle, Todd White & Mike Bickle.
I found out about LA’s incredible Azusa Street Revival and soaked up all the stories that came from there. I worshiped in the rain for 10 hours at the Coliseum at Azusa Now. I spent time going to the Pasadena International House of Prayer and just soaked it up and soaked it up. This past summer, I responded to a call; my first mission trip: Engage the Crisis. We traveled to Europe to care for and serve the Syrian refugees and found that we didn’t just serve them, we served ourselves and each other, refugees of so many nationalities and Europeans alike. Although it was a trying experience at times and a lot of my expectations had to be given up, it really opened the door to seeing what it’s like to live and worship in community and to serve out of the overflow.
I started this trajectory. Before: I would fall asleep in church, drag my feet to go. The sermon would fly out of my mind the moment I heard it. I did the actions, but my heart wasn’t there.
Now: I soak up church. I soak up worship. I listen to sermons in my free time and use vacation time to volunteer and go to conferences or travel to houses of prayer. My perspective has shifted from a me first mentality to breathing God first. I know why I came to LA. It served and is serving as a launching pad, a reshaping, a renewing, a pruning, a growth stage in my life.
This trajectory has taken me from a baby Christian who joined a church to make friends to intentionally cultivating community to completely changing my heart. My heart was softened and it can soften a whole lot more! But I (try to) view through the lens of compassion and love and not through the world’s view. I’ve become one of those Jesus freaks. Crazy right? If I told my 4 year ago self that this is my life now, I would have scoffed and laughed. This is really a story of how God can transform people.
In August, I will be going to 11 countries in 11 months in the 10/40 window as part of World Race’s expedition route.
I am so looking forward to being the hands and feet of Jesus and see the world through His eyes. I feel so blessed to have this opportunity.
Please pray for me and our team whenever you think of it! We need your prayer support. Please donate if you feel compelled and are able to do so. We need financial partnership as well.
In love,
Connie
