Life has been pretty consistent. My schedule week-by-week stays the same and I usually see most of the same people each week. My days are filled with knowing what assignments I have coming up and writing them down. Each morning I try to get up early enough to read my Bible, eat a good breakfast, make a French Press, and leave right on time to get to class (some days that ideal is simply not met and I’m left rushing out the door with a banana in hand and without having been in the Word). On those days, I tend to feel that the Lord is not happy with me. Satan constantly tells me lies that I have to be at my full potential at all times in order for the Lord to delight in me, which just simply isn’t true. When I think of this feeling, this wrong, misdirected thinking, I think of my testimony. I think of that as being the overarching feeling as I was growing up- that if I’m not doing my best, then I must not be saved or the Lord must be disappointed in me.
I have been exploring this for the past couple of weeks and then thought I would share my testimony with all of you. In RUF, the campus ministry I am involved in, our campus minister, Josh, has been asking if people would be open to sharing their testimonies at our weekly “large group” on Wednesday nights. This is a time that everyone gets together and we sing some worship songs and Josh gives a message. Throughout this semester, 4 people have gave their testimonies. It was so cool to hear the way God has worked through them and how He is still working through them. I had the opportunity to share my testimony with a campus ministry called Impact during a week where Impact does various fellowship events and joins RUF with a service outreach at the end of the week. As I prepared to give the testimony, I started to really dread actually giving it. Not because I was nervous, but in my head the words kept ringing, I just really don’t like my testimony. It seemed like a shallow, not-a-big-deal, no-one-will-relate type story. So, when I gave it, it felt empty, almost like I had’t thought it all through yet. It almost felt like I was downplaying God’s work in my life as if what He did was meaningless. I wasn’t living in the freedom Christ had now given to me by His death and resurrection.
After hearing a friend’s testimony at RUF this past Wednesday, I started to really rethink my own. After pondering for a couple of days (and after certain topics from my Child and Family Development classes brought up particular memories), I realized that there were huge portions of my life I was forgetting that I now see the Lord helped me overcome, and every single one of them was regarding fear.
When I was in first grade, a family friend of ours died from cancer around the age of 5. I remember sitting in the backseat of my mom’s car when she told my sister and I the news. We weren’t super close with them, but the news of him dying was enough to throw the the next few years of my life into a state of being utterly afraid and anxious. When I look back, I remember being worrisome at all times and possibly having what I now think might have been panic attacks. There would be a lot of times when I would be at Wednesday Night Church and my mom would have to come get me. All of the sudden I would feel like I was going to pass out and that, in my young mind, meant I must have cancer. This lasted for a few years.
After this fear of becoming sick started to fade, a friend of mine from elementary school got into a really bad car wreck. Her mom and brother passed away in that wreck. From that, my fear of car wrecks grew. If my mom was out, I was certain she was going to get into a car accident. I would call her a lot when she was gone from home and make sure she was okay. It was constant fear all of the time.
At some point during those years of fear, my mom wrote on about 10 different notecards 10 different Bible verses regarding fear and being anxious and worrisome- all of them talked about trusting the Lord and praying at all times. The verses consisted of ones like Philippians 4:6, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication…” The compilation of verses was sweet and I clung to them daily. I remember reading through them a lot, and eventually I wasn’t worrisome of those things anymore. I was running around on the playground at school and I had sort of an epiphany and realized I hadn’t worried at all that whole day. I told my mom about it and looking back, the Lord drew near to me, comforted me, and stripped the fear of sickness and death from my inner being.
I wish I could say that that was the last of fear, but fear creeped its way into my life in such different ways. When I entered middle school, I was constantly worried that my salvation wasn’t real. Without knowing it, I lived in such legalism. If I missed reading my Bible for a day or was disrespectful to my family, I thought I must not be saved because a Christian wouldn’t do these things. I was expecting salvation to fix my sin problem, not to take me through the process of sanctification. Of course, I didn’t know what legalism and sanctification were, but looking back, legalism was exactly what I was doing.
Fear would keep me up at night. I can’t even tell you how many times I have prayed the “the prayer” in order to secure my salvation. The next day I would blatantly sin, and the fear would overtake me again and again. I did not understand the Gospel and its grace and forgiveness it offers to God’s children. I think I genuinely wanted to know Christ, but really I just didn’t want to disappoint Him. This struggle continued into high school, but by that time, fear of my salvation wasn’t the only area in my life where I was afraid.
When you enter high school as a freshman, there’s kind of this understanding that you’re pretty much a loser with braces and acne. To say I was insecure was an understatement. I was petrified of people. Some call it fear of man and I definitely was experiencing just that. I joined the Varsity softball team as a Freshman and I was really scared to be myself when I was around my team. But, I was a pretty good player, which was honestly my saving grace when it came to being on the team. Fear of man creeped into every area. I was deeply insecure about what people thought of how I looked, if they thought I was funny enough (which I definitely thought I wasn’t), and if I was smart enough. Fear. It consumed me.
At the end of my sophomore year, I began to be mentored by my Bible teacher and now friend. Through talking with each other and being open and honest, there was an understanding that fear of man is something I struggle with. There was no understanding of the Lord being a safe place for me. I did not understand the grace and the love He had for me. I’m not even sure if I was a true believer at that time. Somewhere along the way, the Lord gave me a true understanding of His Gospel. What good news. The Lord sent down His son, Jesus, to save me from my sin, my fear, my pride in the form of insecurity, my selfishness, and many more things that were overpowering high school me. He has taken the pressure off. He raised me from death to life. I have been set free. Galatians 5:1 “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”
While I finally began to understand freedom and grace, I still struggle so much with fear, understanding grace, and insecurity. Fear comes in the form of the unknown. I now tend to want to know every detail the Lord has for my life. There is so much life ahead of me and not knowing even what the next year or so holds sometimes drives me crazy. Will my friendships remain after college? Will my relationships change? Where will I go to grad school? Am I even going to go to grad school? What’s the Lord’s plan for my life. These questions consume me so much sometimes that I forget to just live in the grace and freedom and just laugh. I admire the woman described in Proverbs 31, especially in verse 25. “She is clothed with strength and dignity, and she laughs without fear of the future.” Oh, how much I want to be like this woman! Oh, how much I want to be seen as this woman (which probably feeds that fear of man a little bit), but man, to laugh without fear? Sometimes it seems impossible and out of reach.
The Lord is still working in my hear. He is sanctifying me. He is stripping away fear and insecurity through this process of grace and becoming more like Christ.
I am so glad I have this resource to be able to share my story with all of you.
With that being said, I am so excited to tell all of you that I am now 66% funded for my trip. I am way ahead on deadlines and it is a lot of thanks to all of you!
I am so thankful the Lord has been such a provider through this process. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
