Pressing the ‘publish’ button on this blog is probably one of the most terrifying things I will do. Because to do so is to make myself vulnerable.
Yet, to refrain from doing so would be disobedience.
God does not give us a spirit of fear. Nor does He give us shame.
Christ gives us freedom. And, it is for freedom that he has set us free.
Back when we were in Nepal, I was listening to a sermon from back home on suffering. My pastor said, “Suffering is not wasted. God redeems it. In the way the devil would never have expected. Through our weaknesses, God’s power is revealed.”
And, I’ve seen this to be very evident in my life.
God has used my shame and weaknesses, the hard things in my life, for His glory.
One of the ways we bring God glory is by sharing our testimonies. By sharing how God walked with us in our suffering and shame. How He brought restoration to our brokenness.
Our testimonies are not truly our own. They are His.
This is God’s story of how He saved my life:
I grew up in a strong Christian household, with a legacy of faith. My family has been a part of my home church for over 150 years. We have always been active in the church, and I grew up knowing every inch of our church building. My parents worked hard to send us through Christian schools and gave my siblings and I a strong Christian foundation.
I grew up having a solid grasp of Scripture, and I accepted Christ at a young age.
At twelve, I made the decision to profess my faith in front of my church.
Yet, growing up, I always struggled to feel like I belonged. I was the only one in my grade that attended my church, and my class size at school had always been small. I was shy and had a hard time making friends. And, I had the uncanny ability to befriend kids who would end up moving the next year.
I can remember sitting on the playground at recess by myself in early elementary school wanting desperately for someone to ask me to play with them and, when no one did, consoling myself with the thought that God had a bigger purpose. That He would use this experience for good.
After years of reassuring myself with this thought, I began to lose sight of the hope that I had. Despite my efforts to be more helpful, kind, and friendly, nothing seemed to be changing. At thirteen, I still felt excluded and lonely. And, I began to convince myself that no one loved me and that no one would miss me if I died, even through this was far from true.
One day that year, when I had begun thinking about killing myself, God transformed my mind. All it took was the passing smile of a sixth grade girl in the hallway after school and a Bible verse that I remembered memorizing a few years before.
That night, I pulled out Romans 8:31-39 and began reading it’s words, which say:
“What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? How did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
‘For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Through this passage, God spoke of His love for me. The love that I had been searching for in my classmates. This reminder was exactly what I needed.
God saved my life that day, yet I remained buried under shame and lies. I couldn’t reconcile my thoughts of self harm with my faith. Ashamed, I didn’t share with anyone about God’s transformative work in my life for eight years.
In college, I finally got the courage to share with my friends. In opening up to them, I experienced freedom and felt empowered to share how God moved in my life. But, a few months later, something happened that changed everything.
That semester, I lost a cousin to suicide. Seeing the way this impacted my family, shame twisted my perceptions once again. Retreating back to a state of shame, I decided to keep my story, rather God’s story, to myself.
After graduating from college, I once again found myself struggling to find community back in my hometown. Waiting to hear back about job offers, and moving away from my college community, I felt purposeless and lonely. When I did find a job teaching that year, I put all of my focus into the work to keep me from feeling so alone.
Halfway through my first year of teaching, I was asked to volunteer with Young Life. While I was familiar with Young Life in name only when I said yes, that ‘yes’ radically transformed my life.
Through leading and through my co-leaders, I learned to grieve for the community I had lost—because, while we are still good friends, distance changes friendship and community—and I grew in confidence. And, though Young Life, the Lord revealed to me more clearly the calling that He has placed on my life. He also gave me access to materials that brought me here on the World Race.
When I chose to come on the Race, I struggled to decide if I wanted to leave my new community or not. The weekend I had to decide, I was at a YL leadership retreat, and during our first session, the speaker said, “God doesn’t call us to be comfortable.” I immediately knew that was for me. I could be comfortable and content with the community that I had begun to develop, but if I trusted that God’s plans are better than our own, I needed to take this step of faith and trust that my prayer for community would extend into this new opportunity as well.
And, God has been so faithful.
Even when I feel unqualified and lacking, God has shown to be faithful if I simply say ‘yes’ to him.
As I look back on the hard things in my life, I see how God has used them for His glory. His faithful love and pursuit of me in the times of my life that I’ve felt unloved have led me to work with youth and pursue teaching. My experiences have given me a passion for showing others the same love that I received from my Savior—to show others that they belong and are deeply loved. It is through my weaknesses, hardship and shame that He told me about the World Race. God used these things to lead me here—and He has used these things to give me a direction for the future—and for that, I am so thankful.
“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” – Romans 8:18
“God said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” – 2 Corinthians 12:9-10
