Let's be Real Story #1
Sharing our story isn't always easy. But the more I think about it, the more I realize how much glory God is given when we open up and show how God has worked and is working.
This November I want to provide a place for testimonies to be shared. One of my best friends since second grade went to a state school up North. She quickly became involved with an on campus ministry and has grown immensely. It's really neat, that for the same reasons I chose my Christian campus, to grow in my relationship with God, she chose her secular campus. When we catch-up on the holidays, it's really amazing to hear her experiences and all the ways in which God is revealing Himself to her as well and challenging her campus. Here is her testimony 2.5 years into this journey.
This November I want to provide a place for testimonies to be shared. One of my best friends since second grade went to a state school up North. She quickly became involved with an on campus ministry and has grown immensely. It's really neat, that for the same reasons I chose my Christian campus, to grow in my relationship with God, she chose her secular campus. When we catch-up on the holidays, it's really amazing to hear her experiences and all the ways in which God is revealing Himself to her as well and challenging her campus. Here is her testimony 2.5 years into this journey.
Jess M’s Story
When I first heard about the opportunity to share “my story” I
wasn’t going to do it. In a weird way I didn’t think my story was worthy
of sharing or that I was in a good enough place to be sharing my life.
Don’t get me wrong, God has done amazing things in my life and blessed
me beyond belief. He has healed me when I was broken physically and
mentally. He has given me the wisdom to make hard decisions. And he has
surrounded me with friends, family, and roommates who challenge me,
encourage me, and love me. But I think all Christians have mountaintops
and valleys in their relationship with God. There are moments when we
feel intimately connected to God and moments when we feel like we are
blindly walking through the valley.
I didn’t originally want to share because I feel like I’m walking through the valley right now. I am not sure what God has in store for me next, but as I was doing a quiet time this afternoon I realized that’s okay. That God can teach us just as much in the valleys as when we’re dancing on the mountain. Oswald Chambers says, “Why shouldn’t we go through heartbreaks? Through those doorways God is opening up ways of fellowship with His Son. Most of us fall and collapse at the first grip of pain; we sit down on the threshold of God’s purpose and die away of self-pity, and all so-called Christian sympathy will aid us to our death bed. But God will not. He comes with the grip of the pierced hand of His Son, and says—‘Enter into fellowship with Me; arise and shine.’ If through a broken heart God can bring His purposes to pass in the world, then thank Him for breaking your heart.”
I may not have the clearest direction right now but it doesn’t change what God did. He died for me at all stages of my life. It’s when I feel lost or confused that I am reminded how desperately I need God. I look back at the times when I felt closest to God, and it was when I couldn’t see around the next corner, or when I was going through trials. It was waiting impatiently for an injury to heal in high school, and then seeing God do awesome things in my heart and my teammates in the process. It was wrestling with where to go to college, and 2.5 years later, not being able to see myself anywhere else. It was getting sick in Africa this summer, but then being loved on by my teammates. It was feeling lost this morning and opening up to the perfect verses in the Bible.
I guess what I’m trying to say with all this, is that being a Christian doesn’t promise an easy life, but it’s sometimes when we are most broken that we see God as biggest. I wouldn’t change the times when life was unclear or hard because God makes us stronger through it. Jeremiah 17:7-8 says, “But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.“
Friends, our circumstances don’t change our God. I challenge you to be rooted in Him and take joy in both the mountains and valleys. I desperately want to know God better, and sometimes for me to know him better he has to show me how much I need him.
I didn’t originally want to share because I feel like I’m walking through the valley right now. I am not sure what God has in store for me next, but as I was doing a quiet time this afternoon I realized that’s okay. That God can teach us just as much in the valleys as when we’re dancing on the mountain. Oswald Chambers says, “Why shouldn’t we go through heartbreaks? Through those doorways God is opening up ways of fellowship with His Son. Most of us fall and collapse at the first grip of pain; we sit down on the threshold of God’s purpose and die away of self-pity, and all so-called Christian sympathy will aid us to our death bed. But God will not. He comes with the grip of the pierced hand of His Son, and says—‘Enter into fellowship with Me; arise and shine.’ If through a broken heart God can bring His purposes to pass in the world, then thank Him for breaking your heart.”
I may not have the clearest direction right now but it doesn’t change what God did. He died for me at all stages of my life. It’s when I feel lost or confused that I am reminded how desperately I need God. I look back at the times when I felt closest to God, and it was when I couldn’t see around the next corner, or when I was going through trials. It was waiting impatiently for an injury to heal in high school, and then seeing God do awesome things in my heart and my teammates in the process. It was wrestling with where to go to college, and 2.5 years later, not being able to see myself anywhere else. It was getting sick in Africa this summer, but then being loved on by my teammates. It was feeling lost this morning and opening up to the perfect verses in the Bible.
I guess what I’m trying to say with all this, is that being a Christian doesn’t promise an easy life, but it’s sometimes when we are most broken that we see God as biggest. I wouldn’t change the times when life was unclear or hard because God makes us stronger through it. Jeremiah 17:7-8 says, “But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.“
Friends, our circumstances don’t change our God. I challenge you to be rooted in Him and take joy in both the mountains and valleys. I desperately want to know God better, and sometimes for me to know him better he has to show me how much I need him.
Comments
Post a Comment