I left a piece my heart in prison last week…
and I’m not expecting to get it back.
This month, my team has been blessed with the opportunity to do many different types of ministry. If you had asked me last Monday, what my favorite ministry day so far, I would have told you about the medical expedition we helped with the last weekend in September, where a 3 year old little girl melted my heart and had me wrapped around her finger in no time flat. But, after Tuesday, my answer is completely different.
Every Tuesday our ministry host, Beth, goes to the women’s prison in San Jose to lead a Celebrate Recovery class. When we first got to Costa Rica, she told us that each week, 2 of us would be going with her. I about screeched I was so excited but then she got to the next part…
we were going to share our testimonies with these women.
Say what?! Sorry…no not happening.
I have no words to adequately describe the experience I had sharing my testimony with the women. It was humbling to sit in a room of women in prison and share what the Lord has done in your life and is still doing. It amazed me that even though these women are in prison (here in Costa Rica, a person is guilty until proven innocent) our stories still overlap in some way, shape or form. It inspired me, seeing some of them with a desire to turn their lives around and a longing for a relationship with the Lord. It was exciting but at the same time, uncomfortable sharing my story–the deepest, darkest parts of me that our sweet Lord has turned into beauty–with women I knew nothing about.
As usual, God blew my brains out of my head. The first woman who walked in the classroom, I felt immediately drawn to her and I didn’t know anything about her except her name. There was something about her, other than the fact that she was really small, that I couldn’t quite figure out…I couldn’t pinpoint why I felt so much love for her. It’s funny how Daddy works…when I finished sharing my testimony, I looked across from me and this woman had tears streaming down her face. I later found out a bit of her story and learned that she has struggled and still does struggle with eating disorders. My story involves so much…including a 6 year struggle with an eating disorder and it just blew me away that I just shared my testimony in a prison in a completely different country and one of the women currently struggles with something that Daddy has given me freedom and healing from. If that doesn’t send shivers down your spine, I don’t know what will.
I will leave you with something I heard the first year I went to Passion that completely changed the way I view my story and other people’s stories:
“Our witness to the world is our wounds being healed by Jesus. Our scars are our story.”
Sit and just let that resonate in your head. Let it soak into your heart…that any scar (emotional, physical, spiritual, etc) is proof that our sweet Lord heals and uses our stories of redemption to bring Him glory. if you are reading this, I pray you believe that your story is important. No ones story is any better or worse than the next person.
