I'm just a 28 year old woman trying to explain what being a modern day Christian is about as humble, openly and transparently possible. I'll do it in hopes that it will help someone some day.
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The Things I Learned this Week
The things I learned in this last week are many and most of them I learned because I messed up in the first place. I started out very strong, I reconnected with my dad that I hadn’t spoken to since last year and kept talking to God. Even when life’s trials got in the way, I focused on God and kept going. But then live’s trials just kept on coming. My boss would snap at me about things that were not my fault, when I did talk to my dad I was extremely wary and I started having horrible dizzy spells in the middle of my work day around residents. It was one thing after another and I would remember bits and pieces of scriptures not all of them though. It felt like something has come over my mind to make me forget the promises I knew God had for me and my family. It was honestly very difficult. It still is.
I had a prayer and worship night right here at home by myself and an old injury came back up. Now the range of motion of my arm is limited and all I can do is remember that the Lord is my healer, put it in prayer and move forward. Some mornings when it hurt, putting it in prayer didn’t seem like enough. It felt like I was being ignored by God. I wasn’t of course, I wasn’t listening. I didn’t want to listen. I wanted Him to fix it so my path in faith was an easy one. I wanted Him to fix it my way and on my timetable so I could keep being the good young lady He wanted me to be. He wasn’t doing it though. I alternated between pretending to do what He wanted me to do and actually doing it. And when I did read my bible or listen to my Christian podcasts it was with only the minimum of interest. My rebellious nature that had served me well in the past, was making itself known in the present. Even now I have the urge to go out and do whatever I want. The truth is, I want to do whatever I want so I don’t focus on my hurt.
I have plenty of leftover issues from my past. I tend to headbutt with authority figures because growing up I was angry at my parents. They cared more about sating their desires and getting what they needed to feed their addictions than they did about their own five children. I grew up wary of anyone in a leadership position. I was ready to argue and fight with anyone who pushed the little people around. Now I’m not saying God was pushing me around this week, it felt like He was letting it happen and if anyone should come to my rescue it should be Him right? But He wasn’t coming to my rescue and fighting off whatever had chosen to pick on me that week. I felt alone.
In a moment of feeling entirely alone I said to God, “I feel alone. I feel so alone. My siblings are grown and don’t need me. Even the youngest one is going to leave the nest soon to dorm at college. I don’t have a husband, I don’t have kids. I don’t have anything 28 year old women have. I don’t have anything for myself or anyone else. I don’t have a career or any idea what I’m suppose to do. I have nothing”. In that moment of self pity I remembered how wrong I was. I have my heavenly Father that would never leave me. I remembered Isaiah 43:1-4,
“But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Isreal, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine.
When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.
For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Isreal, thy Saviour: I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee.
Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honourable, and I have loved thee: therefore will I give men for thee, and people for thy life”.
Meaning, God knows me, He will not leave me, He will go with me where ever I go. Through the good and the bad He will not leave me. I will never be alone. All I need to do is look at His word and allow myself to be reminded of that. When I did remember I remembered a bunch of other things too.
I was wary of talking to my earthly father because of all the hurt he put me through in the past. I hadn’t forgiven him and I need to work on that. When I prayed on it the Lord pointed me back towards His word and it will guide me through forgiveness.
I don’t have a husband or children but the Lord will provide those things for me when I’m ready. When I take a closer look at all of my intimacy and commitment issues, I’m not ready to be a wife or mother yet. I only want those things so I don’t feel so empty. However, the only way to fill that hole in my heart is to let God into it. It’s His spot to fill and no one else’s. I need to focus on that and prioritize it.
Health issues like dizzy spells and a hurt shoulder are not big issues. They do deserve some attention but they aren’t anything beyond what I’ve dealt with in the past. I’ll start taking vitamins because the dizzy spells are probably a result of low iron (I’ve gone through it before). And the shoulder will heal with rest and time. If it gets worse then sure, I will be consulting a physician.
As I write this I realize that to anyone reading this, I am a hot mess. I am no where near perfect and still God loves me just as I am. He looks at me, dusts me off some, takes me in His arm and says, “Keep going. I’ve got you” (in my mind we aren’t very formal). Which means I’m still worthy no matter what I do and that’s called grace. God loves me, He is for me and He will never leave me. All I have to do is accept His grace, the greatest gift He’s given any of us through His one and only son Jesus Christ. So I encourage anyone out there reading this, if anyone is reading this, to try to remember that with me as we go into this following week. We may not be going super fast in the whole progressing as a Christian business but at least we’re going.
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Taking it one day at a time
I’ve always been one of those Christians that goes through these cycles of going to church every Sunday and being involved to completely disappearing for a couple of months. I always thought I was too sinful to go to church. Like it disqualified me from being allowed into church even though no one ever said that to me. I started my journey with Jesus at 17 years old and I had a clean slate. As I got older that changed and because I judged myself and disliked myself for the decisions I made, I thought God felt the same. I couldn’t go to his house of worship, how could I? A hypocrite could not possibly be welcome there. As time went on I projected those insecurities towards my fellow churchgoers and felt as if I didn’t belong. When that happened I would disappear for a while and hope they’d forget the person I use to be and take me as the new person I was now. A person who was really trying not to sin.
In reality, they had no idea about any of the things I had done. If they ever had suspicions they never let it show either. The truth is they loved me as my brothers and sisters in Christ. They saw me and always had good things to say to me and invited me to events with an open heart. I was the one pushing them away. I was the one putting myself out of place because I loved them too and I had allot of residual abandonment issues from my childhood. Although all of that was wrong for me to do, the worst was letting how I felt about people keep me from God. I was so caught up in the wrong things that I never opened up the bible and read it for myself until about a year and a half ago. The small church I had attended in the past was closed down and everyone went their separate ways. I was the only member of the church who attended without any family members and so felt lost and alone once again. I still wanted to know about God but I was much more wary of who I would listen to up on a pulpit. I waked away with church hurt of my own making. I didn’t want to try going to any new churches, I felt sure I would only meet the same kind of people and go through the same thing all over again.
One day someone shared a video of Elevation Church and it appeared on my Facebook feed. I watched it for a few minutes and then I went ahead and connected my phone to my living room television. I was taken in. I had never heard anyone preach like that. He was honest, he kept it real, he was funny and most importantly, the Holy Spirit told me he was telling everyone some truth. Later on I came to find out it was Lead Pastor Michael Todd from Transformation Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He had only been a guest preacher at Elevation Church. And don’t get me wrong, I really like Pastor Steven Furtick too. He also hands out God’s word like Oprah does prizes but Pastor Mike’s style generally suits me better for some reason. Anyway, I entered another cycle. After watching quite a few videos of Pastor Mike and Transformation church I stopped. If I’m being honest it’s because God had gotten me another job. I felt like I should take my blessing and walk away before God realized that I was still a sinner.
Fast forward to ten months later. My grandmother, who I had taken care of my siblings and I since our mother had passed away 14 years prior, was diagnosed with cancer a third time. They didn’t know exactly where it was but they said we can assume it’s in her brain or her lungs by her symptoms. We didn’t know what to make of it. She had beat it twice before and it should have been the third time a few years back but god heard our prayers and made it disappear. Unfortunately, it did not seem we would see that kind of miracle this time. The doctors didn’t really have any answers for us and uncertainty over where it was seemed to be the most pressing issue. They scheduled her for a PET scan a month later. A PET scanner is such a rare and in demand piece of equipment they could not get her an appointment any earlier.
We tried to go on about our lives. My younger sister was graduating from law school in a little less than a week. I was set to graduate from community college a few weeks later. We have wonderful pictures of my grandmother at my sisters graduation but we weren’t able to get any of hers at mine. She watched me go up on stage and get my degree and shortly after felt too ill to stay in such a confined space any longer. She and my younger brother left to his car. Sometime between the end of my graduation and when I got home after having dinner with a couple of family friends she had collapsed and needed to be taken to the hospital.
My brother and sister had gone with her, I would stay home with my youngest brother and trade places with my siblings the next morning so they could get some rest. And that’s how we spent the next 20 days. We took turns staying at the hospital with her day and night giving each other just enough of a break to go to work or get a few hours of sleep in our beds before going to work. None of us complained, we knew it could be the very last thing we ever did for her. And it was. However, in those 20 days we experienced mercy and grace like we had never known. At some point when she went into the hospital there was too much water in her brain and it kept her from being conscious. We thought we would never hear her voice again and see her eyes open. We lived in that fear. I remember wishing I could have God hold my hand and let me now everything would be okay. I am blessed with my best friend who told me to pray.
And pray I did. I prayed, knowing I had to let God do His will and so I asked that He would please just let us talk to her one last time. See her eyes look at us and remember who we are. That I could hold her hand one more time and feel it squeeze mine. I wasn’t asking God to let me keep her, I had the feeling it was her time. All I asked was that he please let us tell her goodbye. After everything was said and done I found out my siblings had done the same, even my brother who had said he didn’t believe in God, had prayed for the same. That’s exactly what God gave us. The surgery to place a drain in her skull had gone well and she regained consciousness. When she did it felt like a miracle, a small one we knew had to be cherished while we had it. During the week she recovered at the nursing home she was discharged to recover we continued taking shifts to stay with her. My grandmother was never alone. We shared more laughs with her, looked into her eyes more often, held her hand for longer, sang with her, gave her any food she wanted, we did everything we could because we knew her recovery was a result of God’s mercy towards our family even if it did not last for long. On day 10 she went back to the hospital with a horrible headache. Everyone called off of work again and met my younger sister and grandmother at the hospital. This was it. The doctors hadn’t outright said it but they didn’t give us too much hope either, it wouldn’t have been fair. She was gone three days later.
We were lucky. We could let her go knowing she was going with God. Through that experience, though I still mourn my grandmother, I know how real God is. He showered us with his mercy, to let us really be with her for a little while longer. I was proud that my faith had grown enough to let God be God even if it hurt. Most importantly, I learned I had a wonderful father who heard me and loved me and postponed his plans to show me His mercy is real. I will never forget that and as many times as people let me tell this story I will tell it because it glorified Him and his work.
Now it is nearly a year later and the church hurt hasn’t entirely gone away. With the stay-at-home orders going on right now though it doesn’t seem to matter much. I went through multiple hobbies before I decided to watch another Transformation church video. I thought it would be one and I’d be done. One turned into two and two into three and I got to the point where I’m watching one most nights of the week. I’m falling in love with God and His word and I can’t really keep it to myself anymore. I still make mistakes but because I know God, I know they do not disqualify me from getting his love. He won’t look at me and then look away in disapproval. God loves me. So much so that He sent His one and only son to the cross just for me. I will continue to delve deeper into the word of God and prayer and try to keep myself from sinning. I still slip up here and there and I have to remember that God has already forgiven me and it is not a reason to run away and hope I’m avoiding angering Him. I will continue to take it one day at a time as a Christian woman in progress and hope that what I write will ring a bell in someone and let them know that God loves them too. He doesn’t expect us to be perfect, Jesus already paid the price for our sins, all we have to do now is go to Him with open arms and accept the gift He has already given us with each and every single one of us in mind.
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