it's funny - well not funny, but just so like God - how the Lord can put something on your heart randomly, and then it ends up coming up all over the place in various forms. this happened to me this week. i suppose for you to understand this blog, i'm going to have to do a little soul-baring for a minute. i talk a lot about "my story" or "my testimony" in my blog, but most of you probably have no idea what i'm talking about. i'm going to summarize it for you, leaving out a lot of details and names and specifics. i am more than willing to answer questions, because this vague interpretation of what happened in my life won't do any justice to how it actually happened or how the Savior actually went about redeeming me. in a nutshell:
i grew up in a christian home, and gave my life to Jesus when i was eight, although i didn't actually do much with that until i was a junior in high school (i'm ashamed to say). my sophomore year at clemson, i was completely satisfied being single. in fact, i was extremely happy with my life. however, one of my best friends told me she wanted to set me up with a friend of her's. i hesitantly agreed. after many, many attempts to meet this guy and after many, many wild circumstances not allowing it, we began to email. i should interject here that i knew from day one that i should not email this guy and that i should not let myself get involved at all - not even a little bit. but, in my great and infinite wisdom i did it anyway. for a year i emailed back and forth with this person, getting in deeper and deeper and deeper until eventually i was planning a wedding, shopping for apartments, planning kids' names, and imagining our perfect life together. keep in mind i still have not met this person. every time we made plans something tragic happened in his life. i spent a year - april to april - in constant misery: wanting so badly to be with this person who i was planning on spending my life with, but in total heartache and hurt because i couldn't be with him. not to mention that every time his mom got sick or he had a wreck or something happened to a family friend i had my heart broken just a little more - because i cared about who he cared about. anyway, this lasted a year, and i had given every little tiny piece of myself - and my heart - away to this guy. all this time i know that the Lord is asking me to give up the relationship, to trust Him, and to get out, but i didn't. i knew what i wanted, and i tried to fake my relationship with God by having quiet times and praying over the relationship and raising my hands at fca. i was completely dying inside, because i knew that my life was a mess. turns out, he wasn't real. as in he did not exist. my best friend was emailing me as him the whole time. i don't think i can convey in words or in analogies or in any way possible the devestation that abruptly entered my world. i can remember it hurting me to breathe. i think i cried for about 2 weeks straight, and i only remember sleeping when my mom gave me dramamine (or something similar) to make me sleep at night. i had lost two of the most important people in my life: a best friend and the guy i was planning to marry. i had totally and utterly destroyed my life all because i was certain that i knew better than my Father.
for some of you reading this, you might have already known this story, and you may be rolling your eyes and thinking, "she really needs to get over that by now." if you're thinking that, i'm sorry i've bored you. if you just read it for the first time, you might be thinking, "what an idiot." don't worry, that's nothing i haven't heard before. the thing is, i don't regret it (now), and i don't think i will ever be "over it." it changed my life. but there is so much beauty to my story. i cannot even begin to describe to you the way i watched and experienced the Lord slowly taking me apart and redeeming all the little piece of myself that i had given away. it fills my heart with unspeakable joy to think of how He reached down to me - when i was so far gone from Him - and gently (or not so gently, as this was a pretty traumatic event) pulled me out. the timing was completely perfect. the way it all came to light was completely perfect. in no way do i mean that it was sweet and neat and a clean break, but everything about it was totally God. i have watched Him love me in my rebellion and pursue me in the desert and truly bind up my wounds. i have been given beauty for ashes - because He truly burned away everything in my life that was not of Himself. i feel like israel. or maybe gomer. despite all the ways i ran away from God in that year, He still didn't give up on me - there wasn't a distance He wasn't willing to go. i've watched as He's healed relationships i destroyed in that year while i gave up everything and everybody for this person i'd never met. i've watched as He's given me a love and desire for truth and honesty in my life. i've learned so much about forgiveness - His for me and mine for others. i've learned what it is to trust Him and to truly make Him the great love of my life.
that short little insight into my life in no way does any justice at all to the story. there is so much more i want to share and write about. but that's exactly where this all comes together. the Lord has really laid my testimony on my heart lately. i find myself practicing it in my head over and over again (and that has never happened before). i brainstorm ways to use it, and lately i've really been desiring to share it. in bible study at church we've been talking about how our dreams might fit in to God's dreams for us, and last night we were asked to think about how God might reclaim a mistake we've made and use it for His glory. hm. coincidence? i think not. God absolutely wants to use my testimony. a book? sharing it with other women? i don't know yet. i'm excited about the possibilites, though. Satan attacks me by making me think that my story isn't that interesting and that it's really not anything anybody would want to hear, but i KNOW that the Lord has put it on my heart for a reason. i know that SOMEBODY could find truth and hope in what happened in my life. and so for that to happen, i'll do with it whatever Jesus wants me to.
so that was quite the epic post. sorry about that. i hope you'll think about this from time to time and remember to pray for me as i'm seeking the Lord's desires for sharing my testimony.
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