10th re-birthday and how I got here
I became a Christian Summer of 2001, I was 13 years old. I don't remember the exact day or even the exact month, so a few years ago, I decided to adopt July as my birthday month. I've decided, in this blog post, to share my testimony. I always like to say that my testimony, how I came to believe, is backwards from how everyone else became a Christian. So strap yourself in.
My parents were raised in the church and so was I, but that's not out of the norm considering I live in the Bible belt. I grew up hearing that Jesus Christ died on the Cross for our sin; sin: killing people, stealing, and hurting people (being mean). I always figured that I was safe because I wasn't a 'bad' person, I didn't realize I was a sinner along with murderers and thieves and bullies (or terrorists, they're really the same thing). When I was nine, my family was together and some of the 'grown-ups' gathered us kids up and asked if we were saved. We all figured "no" and so we each partnered up with an adult and 'got saved'. And that's it! That's how I became a Christian...not!
After these occurrences I thought I was a Christian. I mean, the grown-ups did say that we were. But I didn't know why I would need saving, I didn't understand that I was a sinner doomed to Hell, but Christ took the sentence for me, for us. After that day, I figured I should start acting differently; so I tried to act like a Christian. I tried carrying on the facade for the next few years, except when I wanted to look cool in front of cute boys.
Summer of 2001, I was 13 and was a hot mess. My mom and I were fighting everyday, I felt like no one really knew me and thus no one really loved me. I felt purposeless. Essentially, I was miserable and didn't even know it. My mom was going to this (heavenly) international prayer convention in New Orleans and she made me come.
At said convention, people from all over the world, even places where it's illegal to publicly claim Christ as your Savior, came to pray. To pray for nations, for big things, for small things...to pray for everything. I went to the youth part of it and I was baffled and inspired by my peers. I had never seen youth so in love with Jesus, I had never seen youth so secure in their identity as sons and daughters of The Most High God! I was fascinated with the way they seemingly sparkled, I prayed for just one sparkle. I wanted that Shekinah Glory. At one point I took a look at myself in the mirror, I looked deep into my eyes and was frighten. I sensed something evil, and it was coming from within me. One night, I was at youth worship (which was so fantastic, some adults would come to that rather than the adult service) trying to get something, just something, off the ground to offer to God. I started spinning and next thing you know I'm on the floor. A lady asked me if I wanted to receive the Holy Spirit, I said yes without fully understanding what that would entail, but fully knowing that it's what I had always wanted. It's easily the most bizarre, terrifying, glorious time in my life. I was being exorcised. While my flesh was fighting (people were had to hold me down), I could feel the filth, the unclean spirits, fleeing me and the Holy Spirit flooding me. After all that, I felt whole; I couldn't stop smiling. I was a new creation.
When I returned home I wanted my life to be different, and it was. I was a much more pleasant person and I tried to be. But I hadn't the faintest clue on how to cultivate this relationship I now had with God. I figured I was supposed to read the Bible so I sporadically did so, I tried praying as often as I thought about it...I tried, I really tried!
A couple years later, my momma, six year old brother, and paternal granma died in a car accident. While I know many people would give up their faith in times like this, I clung desperately to the little that I knew about God. I was a scared little girl being brave for her now broken family. I felt it my role to be the strong Christian influence in the house because my dad was suffering the worst of the whole family. That adopted strength is something I've carried up until recently. It's not my responsibility to be the strong one in the family and that's a position I've started giving up (but not without me fighting).
Fast forward to the first week of University: my friend (eventually boyfriend) and I were walking up and down College Ave checking out the Activities Fair UNCG has at the beginning of every school year. We checked out a bunch of the Christian campus ministries and figured we' visit them all until we found the right fit. The second week of classes, that Thursday, we went to something called Campus Crusade for Christ, Cru for short, and we loved it. That, then, group of 20-30 people on a good day welcomed us with sincere community and we were both hooked! I went to the weekly meetings and eventually got involved in a ladies small group Bible study which I loved. I became very heavily invested in Cru, and eventually became part of the Student Leadership Team (that title changed so many times I lost count) and taught Bible studies and discipled ladies. Campus Crusade for Christ is big on discipleship, so since I was on leadership, I had to be discipled by someone on-staff with Cru. That (this) relationship changed my life so much that I'm going to start a new paragraph for it, but not just yet.
Towards the end of my first semester at University I entered into a dating/boyfriend-girlfriend relationship with the guy I mentioned above. We had known each other for about 4 years because we had gone to the same youth group and were now living in the same residence hall at UNCG. The relationship, in a word, was unbalanced. He pressured me into a physical relationship no one needed to be in and made me feel bad about myself. Of course I didn't realize this until after he broke up with me (I have excellent hindsight) when he realized he wanted sex and I wouldn't give it to him. About a day and a half later, a few days before my 19th birthday, I was all over the ended relationship with no resentment or guilt, when I started talking to this other guy, a "jazzer". That's a word used in the School of Music at UNCG we to describe a person in the Jazz Studies program. This guy was easily the best jazz trumpeter in the SoM at the time; I mean, he was phenomenal and that's the main reason I dug his chili. We dated-ish and 'talked' for a month or something (I honestly don't remember how long); I liked the way he made me feel. He made me think he was interested in who I was, he didn't pressure me into a physical relationship, and he didn't mind talking, just talking no touching. But there were some red flags and eventually I found out he smoked pot, AND , get this, he didn't think it was illegal. In the argument about whether or not pot is illegal in North Carolina, he also showed that he had been lying about other things and was blaspheming all over the place, so the relationship ended just as quickly as it had began. I was okay with that, like I said, I have fabulous hindsight. Through those relationships I learned a lot about what I wanted/needed from relationships and that I am a valuable person.
Now we're in my sophomore year, I'm on student leadership with Campus Crusade for Christ's catalytic movement at UNCG. As mentioned before, students on leadership had to be discipled by someone (of the same gender) on staff with Cru. Michelle (hey Michelle!) and I got started. I had never been discipled before and so this relationship was very special to me. It was through Michelle's guidance that I learned that I hadn't become a Christian when I was 9 at my aunt's house, because when one becomes a Christian they are indwelt with the Holy Spirit. That indwelling hadn't happened until I was exorcised when I was 13. I had always thought of becoming a Christian and being filled with the Holy Spirit as two separate events. What a revelation! It was through being Michelle's disciple that I learned: the complete Gospel, why I needed a Saviour, how to have spiritual conversations, different gifts I had, and like a bajillion other things that helped me grow and thrive in my walk with the Lord. This relationship continued and grew all throughout my college years and I still consider her a great friend today. We'll probably be friends forever, that's my plan for our life (inside joke).
Summer of 2008, I went on a Summer Missions Project with Cru to Daytona Beach Florida (which I wouldn't have even applied to if it weren't for Michelle). I was there for 10 weeks and was with a group of almost 50 other college students. In this Summer Project we were trained on how to share our faith, how to disciple, how to study the Bible, how to do a lot of things. I also learned what it was like to be a part a Christian community that ate together, worked together (we had to have full time jobs), lived together, do everything together. It was most excellent and I am forever changed from it.
My junior year was incredible-ish. I honestly don't remember it very well, is that sad? I do remember going to Encounter '08 and having the Lord put the cherry on top. Encounter is Campus Crusade for Christ's Mid-South (NC, SC, GA, TN, WV, KY) winter conference; it was, conveniently for me, in Greensboro. It was there that I was reunited with my Summer Project friends, which was glorious! The theme for that year was Encounter Christ the Redeemer. This conference was a summation of the message of redemption the Lord had been teaching me all year. In 2008 my sin was very real to me, I was finally grasping that I am a deeply flawed and broken person, I felt dirty and ashamed. But God has redeemed me and that's what I was learning; I learned that no matter how broken, how filthy, God can redeem me. God can save me. God can use me! That's part of the beauty of the Gospel, that: yes, we are deeply damaged, but God loves us enough to fix us and use us for His Glory. Such good news!
The Summer before my senior year, 2009, I went on another Summer Missions Project to Costa Rica. To say that I fell in love would be an understatement. The Lord stretched me in ways that I didn't know existed and had the pleasure of seeing Him be God in a completely different culture. Being in Costa Rica for those five weeks reaffirmed and strengthened my desire to be a missionary to Latin America, a dream of mine since I was like five years old.
When I returned to the University for my Senior year I felt very uneasy about my future. I felt that perhaps the Lord wanted me to do something else besides teach when I graduated in the Spring of 2010. Stuff happened and it ended up that I wouldn't graduate until December of 2010 instead of May. This bummed me out because I paid for my schooling and that was another $5000. But the good news was that I felt called to applying to STINT when I graduated. STINT stands for Short Term International and I would be interning with Campus Crusade for Christ in another country for around a year. I had applied to STINT in Costa Rica because not a day went (goes) by when I didn't (don't) think of it, but they (the powers that be) wanted me to go to Argentina. I agreed with a drastic change of heart from God. When they asked me to consider Argentina I, for some reason, thought of it as hell on Earth, but the Lord quickly changed my heart and I was more than happy to go to Argentina!
As I raised support to STINT in Argentina, I was met with my ideology of God's provision. I concluded that I had never thought of God as my Provider; it had always been my parents or me who had provided with what I needed. Raising support was a struggle that I don't think I'll ever fully understand or appreciate; eventually, I was asked to stop because the Lord wasn't providing, and that was a sign that He didn't want me to go. This crushed me and I was very angry with God, an emotion I rarely feel towards humans and had never felt toward God. It took me over a month to stop being angry with Him and I'd be lying if I said that I'm fully recovered from that anger. There are still days when I whimper 'why?', when I feel frustration in regards to what my life is now. I still feel frustration when provision comes to people who never even wanted to be missionaries. I'm still learning how to even like Him, I'm still chiseling away at the cognitive dissonance that asks "if God is the Provider then why didn't He provide?" and "You say the harvest is plentiful and the workers are few, well here I am God, why aren't You sending me?" I'm still gaining my composure, but it's not pretty.
God's presence in my life is, to me, quite evident. I look forward to another 10 years of learning to live life.
Fast forward to the first week of University: my friend (eventually boyfriend) and I were walking up and down College Ave checking out the Activities Fair UNCG has at the beginning of every school year. We checked out a bunch of the Christian campus ministries and figured we' visit them all until we found the right fit. The second week of classes, that Thursday, we went to something called Campus Crusade for Christ, Cru for short, and we loved it. That, then, group of 20-30 people on a good day welcomed us with sincere community and we were both hooked! I went to the weekly meetings and eventually got involved in a ladies small group Bible study which I loved. I became very heavily invested in Cru, and eventually became part of the Student Leadership Team (that title changed so many times I lost count) and taught Bible studies and discipled ladies. Campus Crusade for Christ is big on discipleship, so since I was on leadership, I had to be discipled by someone on-staff with Cru. That (this) relationship changed my life so much that I'm going to start a new paragraph for it, but not just yet.
Towards the end of my first semester at University I entered into a dating/boyfriend-girlfriend relationship with the guy I mentioned above. We had known each other for about 4 years because we had gone to the same youth group and were now living in the same residence hall at UNCG. The relationship, in a word, was unbalanced. He pressured me into a physical relationship no one needed to be in and made me feel bad about myself. Of course I didn't realize this until after he broke up with me (I have excellent hindsight) when he realized he wanted sex and I wouldn't give it to him. About a day and a half later, a few days before my 19th birthday, I was all over the ended relationship with no resentment or guilt, when I started talking to this other guy, a "jazzer". That's a word used in the School of Music at UNCG we to describe a person in the Jazz Studies program. This guy was easily the best jazz trumpeter in the SoM at the time; I mean, he was phenomenal and that's the main reason I dug his chili. We dated-ish and 'talked' for a month or something (I honestly don't remember how long); I liked the way he made me feel. He made me think he was interested in who I was, he didn't pressure me into a physical relationship, and he didn't mind talking, just talking no touching. But there were some red flags and eventually I found out he smoked pot, AND , get this, he didn't think it was illegal. In the argument about whether or not pot is illegal in North Carolina, he also showed that he had been lying about other things and was blaspheming all over the place, so the relationship ended just as quickly as it had began. I was okay with that, like I said, I have fabulous hindsight. Through those relationships I learned a lot about what I wanted/needed from relationships and that I am a valuable person.
Now we're in my sophomore year, I'm on student leadership with Campus Crusade for Christ's catalytic movement at UNCG. As mentioned before, students on leadership had to be discipled by someone (of the same gender) on staff with Cru. Michelle (hey Michelle!) and I got started. I had never been discipled before and so this relationship was very special to me. It was through Michelle's guidance that I learned that I hadn't become a Christian when I was 9 at my aunt's house, because when one becomes a Christian they are indwelt with the Holy Spirit. That indwelling hadn't happened until I was exorcised when I was 13. I had always thought of becoming a Christian and being filled with the Holy Spirit as two separate events. What a revelation! It was through being Michelle's disciple that I learned: the complete Gospel, why I needed a Saviour, how to have spiritual conversations, different gifts I had, and like a bajillion other things that helped me grow and thrive in my walk with the Lord. This relationship continued and grew all throughout my college years and I still consider her a great friend today. We'll probably be friends forever, that's my plan for our life (inside joke).
Summer of 2008, I went on a Summer Missions Project with Cru to Daytona Beach Florida (which I wouldn't have even applied to if it weren't for Michelle). I was there for 10 weeks and was with a group of almost 50 other college students. In this Summer Project we were trained on how to share our faith, how to disciple, how to study the Bible, how to do a lot of things. I also learned what it was like to be a part a Christian community that ate together, worked together (we had to have full time jobs), lived together, do everything together. It was most excellent and I am forever changed from it.
My junior year was incredible-ish. I honestly don't remember it very well, is that sad? I do remember going to Encounter '08 and having the Lord put the cherry on top. Encounter is Campus Crusade for Christ's Mid-South (NC, SC, GA, TN, WV, KY) winter conference; it was, conveniently for me, in Greensboro. It was there that I was reunited with my Summer Project friends, which was glorious! The theme for that year was Encounter Christ the Redeemer. This conference was a summation of the message of redemption the Lord had been teaching me all year. In 2008 my sin was very real to me, I was finally grasping that I am a deeply flawed and broken person, I felt dirty and ashamed. But God has redeemed me and that's what I was learning; I learned that no matter how broken, how filthy, God can redeem me. God can save me. God can use me! That's part of the beauty of the Gospel, that: yes, we are deeply damaged, but God loves us enough to fix us and use us for His Glory. Such good news!
The Summer before my senior year, 2009, I went on another Summer Missions Project to Costa Rica. To say that I fell in love would be an understatement. The Lord stretched me in ways that I didn't know existed and had the pleasure of seeing Him be God in a completely different culture. Being in Costa Rica for those five weeks reaffirmed and strengthened my desire to be a missionary to Latin America, a dream of mine since I was like five years old.
When I returned to the University for my Senior year I felt very uneasy about my future. I felt that perhaps the Lord wanted me to do something else besides teach when I graduated in the Spring of 2010. Stuff happened and it ended up that I wouldn't graduate until December of 2010 instead of May. This bummed me out because I paid for my schooling and that was another $5000. But the good news was that I felt called to applying to STINT when I graduated. STINT stands for Short Term International and I would be interning with Campus Crusade for Christ in another country for around a year. I had applied to STINT in Costa Rica because not a day went (goes) by when I didn't (don't) think of it, but they (the powers that be) wanted me to go to Argentina. I agreed with a drastic change of heart from God. When they asked me to consider Argentina I, for some reason, thought of it as hell on Earth, but the Lord quickly changed my heart and I was more than happy to go to Argentina!
As I raised support to STINT in Argentina, I was met with my ideology of God's provision. I concluded that I had never thought of God as my Provider; it had always been my parents or me who had provided with what I needed. Raising support was a struggle that I don't think I'll ever fully understand or appreciate; eventually, I was asked to stop because the Lord wasn't providing, and that was a sign that He didn't want me to go. This crushed me and I was very angry with God, an emotion I rarely feel towards humans and had never felt toward God. It took me over a month to stop being angry with Him and I'd be lying if I said that I'm fully recovered from that anger. There are still days when I whimper 'why?', when I feel frustration in regards to what my life is now. I still feel frustration when provision comes to people who never even wanted to be missionaries. I'm still learning how to even like Him, I'm still chiseling away at the cognitive dissonance that asks "if God is the Provider then why didn't He provide?" and "You say the harvest is plentiful and the workers are few, well here I am God, why aren't You sending me?" I'm still gaining my composure, but it's not pretty.
God's presence in my life is, to me, quite evident. I look forward to another 10 years of learning to live life.
I love this!! Thanks for the encouragement, and I'm excited to see what the rest of the story will entail. Also, I like this particular aspect of your plan for my life - hope it works out better than that other plan. ;-)
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