This month I felt God calling me to share my testimony, but I wasn’t sure what He wanted me to share about. So I sat down at the dining room table and said, “Alright God, I said yes. But I have no idea what to write about so I need your help.” I sat there staring at a wall when I started to write.
Going to God
‘ “You never let me rock you to sleep. You would just cry.” My mother told me. “Until I would lay you down, to leave you be and then you would fall asleep on your own.”
Taking care of myself is a trait that I have had ever since I was an infant, and while growing up my father taught me to be independent. That I shouldn’t depend on others to help me that I should be able to provide/care for myself.
When I found out that I wanted to be on my own since I was an infant, it didn’t surprise me that I was an introvert. So it wasn’t surprising that being independent worked well for me. I thrived being by myself, but I wasn’t happy with being by myself, but I could never go to anyone to asked for help.. even when I should have I couldn’t bring myself to ask. I wouldn’t even go to God when I should have. My reason was because there’s a billion people in the world, He surely didn’t notice me. There are enough people with problems in the world that He didn’t take an interest in me, so if He ever did notice me He would check me off as being ok and go onto the next person who truly needed Him. The more I thought about this logic the more I believed in it, and the more unhappy I was. For I had big plans for my life, I’ve always said “dream big or go home” and here I was coming undone because all my dreams seemed to be impossible to reach. I soon started asking myself, “Did God really create me to be unhappy with myself?”
Days came and days went and my plans kept fading, goals that I had set up seemed to be disappearing and I didn’t understand why. The thought came to my mind once to ask for help, but I didn’t know how to ask for it. Even if I wanted help, which I didn’t. As I started opening up to people about my dreams people often times said, “impossible” so I listened to these voices of impossible and give up on the dreams. Each time I gave up on a dream, I felt like a piece of my heart was chipped off. For each dream I had, there was a grand picture; I loved the painting, I was proud of it and I saw it clearly as seeing a person standing in front of me. But now the beautiful painting was turning black. Fir my heart was hardening and turning cold. I cried out, “Why did You create me to be so visual, and to have these big dreams if their impossible for me to reach? Do you like teasing me? Did you really create me just too miserable?” in the moment of my self-pity party, I wasn’t aware that He took notice in me and He was listening to my cry. I was convincing myself that my only purpose in this world is to only be a dreamer, that I was never supposed to reach my dreams, to only taste it them. If that was the case I needed to stop dreaming, because no matter how much heart I put into my plans that they would never happen. “Come to Me.” a thought came to my mind. But this couldn’t be my thought, right? I would never say something like ‘come to me’ that would mean going to someone and asking them for help. Which is something that I didn’t do. No, I would have answered myself my saying, ‘get over it’ or ‘toughen up.’
This had to be God. But why? Why was He talking to me? Why did He take notice in me?
Last month while serving in China, I sat in on a class and listened to a man talk about dreams. How God loves our dreams. I shrugged a little and thought ‘yeah right.’ But I listened very carefully to this man as though God was telling me to listen because this message was important. This man claimed that God loves our dreams, that our Heavenly Father, our great Provider wants to provide for us, that He wants bless our dreams because He loves to bless us, because He LOVES US, and all we need to do is GO to Him and ask. That’s it.
I immediately sat up straight and said ‘uh-oh’, knew I what was going on. I could feel God smirking at me, He was calling me out, and He was about to change me even more than bringing me to the World Race.
I looked up and glared at Him for His smirking and said, “I’m fine.” I still felt His smirk. It was like He was saying telling me, you’ll be more fine once I’m through with you. Now for the next lesson.
The grand question, why? Why did God take notice in me now? Why did God want me to start going to Him? When He already knows my thoughts, and He knows my heart. So if He knows everything about me, why should I have to go to Him with my dreams?
The answer, ‘hold onto your seats’ I discovered while talking to God was ‘freedom.’ It’s so simple, and yet I missed it.
God gave me the freedom to dream up my own dreams. He gave me freedom not to rely on Him and if I wanted to rely on others.
Why would He do such a foolish thing?
It’s because I am one in a billion and He loves me, He wants me to return His love without forcing me to love Him. He wants me to above all else to stop relying on myself and to rely completely on Him, with everything; with my hopes, dreams, and plans. To Him I am not just one in a billion, I am His child. He holds me in the palm of His hands and while there are many other people in His hands I don’t slip through His fingers. He sees me clearly, He sees my painting just like I do, expect He sees a bigger picture than what I can. He doesn’t take any of me lightly and neither should I.’
While I was writing this at the dining room table I felt God wrapped His arms around me. I was overwhelmed by His love for me and I had to jump up out of my seat and walk around the table with giggles. I returned to the table ready to finish my testimony and He wrapped His loving arms around me again as He helped me write again.
