Last week I spoke at the Huntington Christian Women’s Club. How this happened, I don’t even know. But it was out there and it always encourages me to meet Christians from places other than my church, or work — an encouragement to me that God’s hand is moving all over Huntington (and beyond).
So I thought I might share what I shared with all the sweet ladies:
“I was courted by a very determined carpenter from Nazareth…” or so quips one of my favorite authors, Lauren Winner. When I read that line in her first book When Girl Meets God, my heart understood what this author was saying. That was exactly how I felt about Jesus Christ, the carpenter from Nazareth. I had been courted – slowly awakened to something so good that had always been so close, so near to me.
Sunday school, church, Jesus, God, Christianity — it was all a world that I was familiar with. My parents raised me to memorize the Bible and to heartily sing the songs my beloved Sunday school teacher, Mrs. Mitchell taught me. God never seemed distant or scary – but welcoming and kind, like my grandfather. When I look back on childhood memories I see images of our broken in blue leather couch that sat in our family room, and the smell of our church’s basement. It seemed as though my four brothers and I were always being shuffled between our house and church – and home meant both those things to us. Family meant my parents and my brothers… and our friends at church.
I suppose I wasn’t the typical teenage girl – I never dated the bad boy, I wasn’t terribly popular but it didn’t bother me that much. I enjoyed spending time with my friends but remained communicative with my parents. I never rebelled against their rules regarding church attendance. I even went on numerous missions trips to South America with them. But whatever “it” was that I needed with God, with Jesus …it wasn’t there.
I can still remember this one moment so clearly as if I were watching it on dvd. It was the day my youth pastor asked us my church friends and I to share about the time we realized that our faith had become our own. I realized it hadn’t yet and I knew in my heart that I was lacking something important. Up until that point my faith was something my family did and I cared about it because it was what connected me with them. But my faith, becoming my own? I knew what he meant – where was my relationship with God? I couldn’t answer the question – If I had been honest, I would have been ashamed. I did not live with or for God, save for the mechanical prayers I muttered when half asleep.
But God was showing me who He is. I was able to look on my child hood and see how good he had been to me by blessing me with a loving home where I was protected from the world outside our doors. I was also able to start to understand that he was drawing me into friendsip with him In the bible, the book of Acts says : “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. 25And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. 26From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 27God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’
It was around this time when I started to pray on my own – to ask God questions, to cry to him in private. I would write everything in my journal. It was all about what I was wondering…all my complaints, happiness, sorrows, questions, hopes – I began to share and dialog with him. Church became less about the building, the people, the fun events. It was where we went to hear good news, to be edified and encouraged. I felt God responding to me and these prayers– sometimes concretely and sometimes without a definable answer but I noticed that when things did not go my way there was a calm assurance in my heart.
But it wasn’t just me talking to God – there were many people along the way that showed me what it meant to love God, to live for him with His real promises of peace and joy in their hearts. My parents and youth pastor were my first examples. After my freshman year in high school my parents blessed me by putting me into a Christian Secondary School. There I entered the classrooms where loving faculty guided me through the most wonderful curriculum – fusing together faith and learning into a harmonious relationship. During my senior year in high school, one woman even stepped out on her own to seek a relationship with me, to meet with me regularly in the early morning before classes began to mentor me. Not only did she teach me that coffee tastes best when you lighten it with real heavy cream, but she showed me what it meant to be a woman delighting in who God was, the gifts and resources he had given her and the importance to put him first above all things. She shared with me the unanswered longings of her heart for a baby but continued to praise God when he did not give her what she and her husband most wanted. I found that incredible. I felt like there was a parade of people before me, who were humbly showing their faith in God and it made me want more of what they all had – a true friendship with God where I would fully feel the peace of having his security around me, forever.
After graduating from high-school I moved onto a Christian college. There my world-view was broadened and God allowed me to experience new and great things—but as I stepped into this phase of my life, things seamed to become a lot more difficult. People I loved died before their time. As I learned more about our world I became very sensitive to its tragedies – the AIDS epidemic in Africa, poverty, hunger, human trafficking, overt hypocrisy and immorality in the church…I really struggled with Christians who were hypocrites but continued to succeed and seemingly be blessed. I had conflict with family members and made decisions that grieve me when I think back on them.
The worst part was that when things seemed so messed up on everyone else’s end – God revealed to me my own short-comings and the ugliness that I harbored in my own heart. He revealed to me that I was selfish. I was able to do things that looked good to everyone else but I was impacted with the reality that I needed Him to save me, to rescue me from my sin. I can remember that while helping out with the “Cubbies”- that would be the youngest kids at the children’s club at church. Every week we would methodically teach these little 4 and 5 year olds that sin was anything we did, said or thought that made God sad. I thought of how sad I had made God. Sure, I didn’t murder anyone, but things like gossiping, being deceitful, thinking and acting selfishly – these were all things I did frequently.
One day after a very stimulating discussion in one of my classes I scheduled an appointment with my professor. I went to his office under the supposition that I needed to ask him a technical question – but God allowed him to see through my exterior self. He asked me why I really came to speak to him and I just began to cry…I unloaded everything on him. And he prayed for me. He prayed that I would know and grasp how much Jesus loves me and that is what motivated him to die on the cross, enduring the consequences of my sin, that I might benefit by becoming a beloved daughter in God’s kingdom. I thought of all the times I had sang that familiar song “Jesus loves me this I know for the bible tells me so, little ones to him belong, they are weak and he is strong.” But those simply put truths became even more real and true to me that day.
Some of you might be very familiar with what the Bible says in John chapter three, verse 16 - For God so loved the world that he sent his only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. That is the truth that is the very focal point of why we do what we do –but I wonder why Christians often forget to include what the bible says next — For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
Have you felt like I did, that you were being courted by a very determined carpenter from Nazareth. Jesus was something I was so familiar with, but it was through time, and his people, and experiences that he kept showing me how much he loved me. And over time, I began to really accept it and live my life based on the promises given to us in the Bible.
My story doesn’t end there. And God is never finished with us…the Bible says that he has set eternity in our hearts – we long to be with him in the way that he designed things to be before our sin entered the picture. And when you accept that he sent his son to die for your sins, that you gain fellowship with him for eternity.
But we are still living on this side of eternity, aren’t we? God loves us and we can choose to accept that or not accept that – but life with God will not always be easy, however, with God we will see hope born of our suffering. That’s one of the things that I find captivating about God, about his word…it breaks all of our paradigms and thoughts of how things should be…Hope? Coming from suffering?
You see last year was one of the hardest years of my life. When you dig down deep enough in people’s stories, often you will find there is some event or tragedy that haunts their thoughts…perhaps for you it was a mistake of your youth, the untimely death of a child, a failed marriage, a parent’s rejection…something.
Last year was my first year of marriage – things stared out blissfully in typical “honeymooner’s” fashion…I loved my husband, I loved my home and I loved being a newlywed. Last April though, I started to feel “different”—tired all the time, nauseous, wanting nothing to do with food…I was overwhelmed when I discovered myself pregnant. This was not what I had planned. Although Sam and I were worried about how we would make ends meet we looked joyfully towards holding our little one.
On Mother’s Day we told our families the news and everything seemed to be coming up roses! Later that week we had our first doctor’s appointment. As the doctor moved the tools around I gleefully watched the monitor… I could see a spine, a head, tiny arms, a face…I could see all these wonderful things but I didn’t know to look for something that was not there – the heartbeat. Our doctor very sympathetically told us the news … phrases like “stopped developing at a couple weeks ago” and “this is nature’s way” went in one ear and out the other. I couldn’t stop crying. When we left the office, it was pouring, and the tears that fell from my eyes seemed to keep up with the rate of the drops from the sky. I spent that night praying for a miracle, that when we returned for an appointment the next day, the baby would have a strong, beating heart. It was so hard to grasp that something so sad would happen during a phase in my life that was supposed to be so lovely. Alas, God did not accomplish what I had spent the night begging for.
The next day I was brought into Huntington Hospital for a D&C. I’ll never forget how I felt afterwards…pregnant one minute…empty the next. Settling into bed, I polished off a whole bag of oreo’s—the nurse told me I should probably eat something “light.” I was so angry and heart broken– but then I prayed and I felt a peace come over me…I know it was from God for I felt him impressing on my heart his deep, deep love for me, but also for my baby that was now in heaven with him…Throughout my life, God used so many things to woo me closer to him, nearer to his heart, replacing my wants and desires with joyful acceptance of his plans…and this situation was the same.
After some weeks had passed my mother gave me one of my favorite gifts – this locket – which is a type of frame, so it seemed fitting that I share about it with all of you. She intended for our baby’s sonogram picture to go into it – she knew that this life was precious to God and I and we chose to be thankful for it. She had the phrase “I will hold you in heaven” engraved on one side of the locket, and some scripture references engraved on the other. Within this locket there is a smaller locket, and on that piece she had the word “hope” engraved with the intention that I would give it to my daughter – should God will that I have one. Hope…born after suffering…
Thinking about a framework for life I am reminded of the scripture references my mom had engraved on the locket to remind me of what to frame my life around…These are God’s promises, for me, for you, found in His word, the Bible.
Romans 8:38-39
38For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[a] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither 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.
Psalm 46:1-5
1 God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
3 though its waters roar and foam
and the mountains quake with their surging.
4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy place where the Most High dwells.
5 God is within her, she will not fall;
God will help her at break of day.
I love that last verse because I can read myself into it. You can too!
Joshua 1:9
9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”
Remember, that God is with you wherever you go. My hope is that you would accept the promises he has given us. Regardless of your past, he loves you and wants to welcome you as his treasure. He is waiting, already forgiven you of your mistakes…he wants you to experience life with him.
