#spoiler alert: there is no such thing as a cool youth pastor

[goatbeard-goatbeard]

look I know the metatron is supposed to be menacing, but “I’ve ingested things in my time” radiates such powerful Cool Youth Pastor energy that I can’t take him seriously. textually he’s in a black suit but spiritually he’s wearing flip-flops and has a guitar slung over his shoulder

[callmetatenda]

How I got saved

“God will break you to position you, break you to put you in your right place; but when He breaks you He doesn’t hurt you, He doesn’t destroy you. He does it with grace.” 

I grew up knowing who “God” was, and I put that in quotation marks because it gets a little bit more complicated than that so, bear with me. I was baptized as a baby and grew up going to church and had my confirmation at 13 years old. So yes, I would always proudly claim that I was a Christian and that I believed Jesus Christ was my Lord and savior. However, it isn’t until recently where it dawned on me that last summer is when I truly came to an understanding of what living a Christian life meant (I know a lot of people will roll their eyes at that statement because the first thing that will come to mind is probably crazy over the top Christians who are critical, hypocritical and condemnatory to people who sin [spoiler alert: we’re all sinners]). Anyway, back to my point; up until this point in my life, my Christian life had been extremely lukewarm. Everything about it was going through the motions or doing certain things because that’s all I knew. You know, praying and listening to T.D Jakes sermons intensely around exam season, but then the exams come and go and I go back about my regular life: not praying like I should, not filling myself with the Word of God, not rooting back all that I do to my foundation (which by the way, leads to a rolling ball effect of things not working out or you just not being the utmost best version of yourself).

I’m lucky enough to have tapped into my secret language to God at a very young age, from the time that I was probably around 10 years old my mother always had Mary Mary and Kirk Franklin CD’s playing in the house and as music is my first love this was my first direct point of contact to Him. At an age where I couldn’t understand why it was when I sang certain lyrics I would get shivers or why when I sang certain gospel songs they’d have me balling on the floor. I never fully understood that it was the Holy Spirit and in a sense it was a voice saying He’s right here and He’s always been right here and He’ll never leave. Now, I didn’t per se have a wow, there’s a God I have never known of this is so amazing, I am now a believer kind of moment because as mentioned, I was conditioned to always know that there was God of signs and wonders who parted the red Sea and did all sorts of unheard of things that were in my children’s bible story books. Okay so, let’s go back to why I put God in quotation marks at the start of this post…

So, growing up the idea of God was always that He was the creator of all things the Beginning and the End, the Alpha and Omega some huge unreachable thing. I always knew He was there but thought that somehow, I could not reach him. Yes, I prayed and loved to worship but it was always like I thought He’s this figure this all knowing powerful being… I’m not sure how to put it in words but I hope I’m making sense. Anyway, last year I came to a point in my life where I genuinely lost everything that I knew—my friendships were crumbling as I was at a dark and low point and the people I looked to for help and guidance weren’t there for me in the ways that I needed them to be there for me (which, now I completely understand that there was no one who could carry me into this next dimension and this level of healing that I was about to go into… but, for the sake of getting into the mindset that I was in at this point in time let’s just omit that). I repeatedly was seeing patterns of rejection and failure in many areas of my life and found myself crushed and heartbroken. And the worst part was that everything seemed to all come crashing down at the same time. My 20th birthday is one I’ll never forget because I will always vividly remember crying like I’d never cried before the day of and the days surrounding that day. I felt like I was losing everything I knew, I was lost, I didn’t know who I was, I didn’t know where I wanted to be what I wanted to do or why I was on this planet. Everything I had ever worked for in my life at this point felt like a lost cause as every pillar in my life came crashing down. Out of habit when things tended to go bad for me I would run from God. I would run as far as was humanly possible. I only recently began to understand that it was shame that made me run from Him rather than to Him. While I was going through the most painful and grueling time of my life was when I finally earnestly sought God and was able to cry unto Him and give Him everything. I was finally able to release years of pent up anger, hurt, abandonment, negativity, depression…. Everything. Finally. I could r e l e a s e. I was at a youth conference and usually when I went to these things, yes, I was there to receive my blessing but there is always an underlying element of ‘I’m still gonna be cool,’ or ‘I’m not trying to do the most or be crazy super spiritual’ but I recall the exact moment of release when a pastor was laying hands on everyone and I was surrounded by sounds of worship and people being slain in the spirit and I found myself at a point of tears. Nah, not a cute thug tear that you could wipe away. I was bawling like a baby and for the first time began to pray eagerly and with aggression and with passion. When we got done, we started to sing ‘Way Maker’ and I honestly wish I could describe—there aren’t enough words in the English language that could describe the great load that I felt lifted off my shoulders when I finally was able to surrender and say, “You know what Lord, have Your way in my life. Guide me, help me, heal me and mostly carry this weight because it’s too much for me to take on my own.” That’s the funny thing about God, He’s always there. He’s always been there. But He won’t move for you until you allow Him to. You have to open the door, let Him in and give Him the keys so he can drive.

So I’ll leave you with this, I came across a video online of Tasha Cobbs Leonard ministering that really registered with my soul and she said, “What if you’re not able to get to your next place without being broken? Some of us are running away from our broken place. How many know that in your broken place you have to be separated from some people and separated from some things. You gotta pull yourself into a place where you can hear God. God if you gotta break me, I would rather you do it because you know how to do it with grace.”