For some time, I have been pressed to write my story. At first I thought right....why in the world would I want to do that. I came up with every excuse in the book.....what would I write? I don't really have anything exciting to say.... No one would even want to read it.
And for a while I didn't even think about it. But. It kept coming back to me. And coming back to me.
My Story.
So here I sit.
Still not quite for sure what to write.
I was born one cold winter's day. I actually don't even know what time I was born. I think it was late. I think I will have to call my mother. I am sure that she will remember. ;) I am the 4th child of a family of 6. My mother was told and thought that I was a boy. All the way up until I was born did they think I was a boy. I think my parents were shocked to have another girl. My mother has told me that everyone in my family was sick that year at Christmas. My Dad was sick...like flu sick driving my mom to the hospital. But I guess he was a trooper. lol.
My birthday is 2 days after Christmas. I think growing up I always thought that was pretty special. I waited all year....and then I got Christmas AND my bday.
I am the daughter of a Pastor.
I of course remember myself being a good kid. I had a best friend who I just remember always being there. We grew up in the nursery together. She was the jelly to my peanut butter sandwich, she was the root ( I actually just typed toot, which would still be very fitting....right Erica??) to my beer. The chili to my dog. I think you get the point. We were inseperable.
When I was about 5 I asked Jesus into my heart. I knew I didn't want to go to hell. I knew that Hell was scary and bad and that by asking Jesus to come into my heart, that by doing that, I wouldn't have to ever go to hell. I remember being baptized. For who but my friend Erica was getting baptized the same night. I remember being downstairs at our church in white little slips waiting to go upstairs to be baptized. So Erica and I, scared to death, faced that together.
I don't remember much about my young years. I remember riding on the back of my Dad's bike, which is the same bike I ride now with Emma on the back. A special thing for me.
I have a memory of me and my Mom standing in my parents bedroom, sun was shining, it was a beautiful spring morning. She had the windows open, and she had on a red wrap around skirt. Her blond hair was up in a bun. I was hugging her legs. I think I remember this bc I was happy.
I remember once getting up early. My dad was up, reading his bible at the kitchen table, the older kids must have been getting ready for school. We used to have some kind of gas heater in the kitchen, and I remember laying in front of it and falling asleep. I think I remember this bc I felt safe.
As I said, I remember being a good kid. ;) Well....that is up until I hit my early teenage years. I was, like any teenager, struggling to find where I fit. Where I belonged. I searched in every wrong place. I wanted to "fit in." I started to run from everything that I had known.....why....I don't really know. I felt like I was searching for something. Something better. Something different then what I was being taught.
I felt like everyone was a hypocrite. I had all these questions, but felt like no one took the time to give me the answers. People saw what they wanted to see. They didn't look past the stupid teenager into the person who God saw me to be. They judged and I ran. Ran right into a world where I thought I would find the answers. And search I did. I wanted to know what every joke meant. I wanted to know what every look meant. I wanted to KNOW. I didn't want anyone making fun of ME for being a naïve little pastors daughter.
Oh yes. Answers I got. Lessons I got about questions I asked and questions I didn't ask. Older kids were all to eager to tell me what I wanted to know. I learned things a
teenager person should never ever know.
Yes, I ran.
But what I was running from wasn't really parents. It was from God.
Bc you see, I don't think I really was saved at that little age of 5. I maybe believed out of fear. But I didn't believe out of a desire to know who the One true God was. That wouldn't come till many years later.
When I was 15 we moved from everything that I ever knew. From everything that I was every comfortable with. We moved from my best friend. God in his divine wisdom knew I needed something different.
It was all in God's plan.
I was moved from the public school and put into a Christian school. That was a hard adjustment for me. Hard adjustment is putting it lightly I think. I am grateful, so grateful for some of those friends that just loved me through it once I moved up here. Hannah and Sarah and Dayna and Cara and who could forget Beth....no our relationships weren't perfect....bc what teenage relationship is. But they were there.
When I was 17 I went to summer bible camp with our teen group. Thursday night, I knew I needed to be saved. So I walked down that aisle and found a leader and asked Jesus into my heart. I knew that what I was running from all those years was God and that I was making a mess out of everything. I was miserable. I knew I needed to begin to run to someone who could actually make a difference in my life.
And he did. I began to allow God to change me from the inside out.
The hard part was....knowing that I was "different", knowing this change had happened in my heart, but having "people" still treat me the same. I really struggled with what I saw in the Christian circle. The hypocrisy. The lack of love. The judgementalness. I think that's what I was truly running from for all those years. And honestly still am running from.
That next spring, while working my part time job at our local department store, I saw the cutest guy I had ever seen. I remember the 1st time I saw him. He was walking back to his station from the dock. He didn't have a clue who I was and didn't even look at me that day. But I just remember thinking how dreamy he was.
A couple months later, while working in the men's department, we ended up working the same shift. About mid shift, a lady that was working named Jackie, came over to me and asked if I would go on a date with this guy. I told her that he needed to come over to me and ask me himself. I think he finally got the courage and finally came over and talked to me. We found out how much we had in common. And we ended our shifts with a promise that he would call me.
Now all this time, I knew that I was 17. I didn't actually know how old he was at that time. But I knew my parents rules on dating.
And you see I had already broken that rule once and that didn't turn out to well for me. Knowing that I had made this decision for follow Christ also meant be submissive to my parents. So I knew that they would have to be in on this whole relationship from the very beginning. I sort of gave it up to God, right there on the car ride home. I would submit and what would be would be.
Well, that dreamy guy did call me that night. And we talked for EVER.....
I finally found out how old he was. You see he was 22. 5 years older then me. I thought my parents would go bananas over that. And I had a choice once again to be honest or to lie. I remember talking to Jeremy that night. I told him that I didn't think my parents would let me date him bc he was so much older then me. I told him I was going to go talk to them but that might be the last time we could talk. I knew in my heart that I would do whatever they said.
My parents were in their room when I finally found the courage to tell them. I remember walking up the stairs. Terrified about what would happen. But I was honest. And they were to. They said that they would have to pray about it. The next morning they said we could go ahead and be "friends"
I was over the moon.
Jeremy and I had very similar backgrounds. He came from a good Christian family. And he was a professing believer himself. Which were important to my parents.
Friends didn't last long though. LOL No, we were engaged my senior year of high school. I knew I wanted to be his wife. I think people thought I was crazy. No. I am sure they thought I was crazy...not going to college.....settling down so fast.....that will never last.....she's to young!! She doesn't know what love is. These are things I heard. But I knew in my heart....what I wanted to be....was a wife and a mommy.
So the fall after I graduated high school, we were married. We lived in a little duplex in the town he grew up in.
It was an adjustment I think to be married. But we were on cloud 9. Those year happy years together.
I worked at an insurance company and he was going to school to be a plumber.
We would go to church on occasion. We used the excuse that we couldn't find "our Church" but honestly....I don't think it was important to us at that time.
We finally did start going back to church after about 3 years. I know I missed it. I think we felt a pulling to find a church.
We found a little church about 30 min south of us. The best thing to come out of that church was my friend Sherrie. I saw her sitting up at the front playing the piano, blond hair bopping away and I knew we would be friends. And friends we are. She has gotten me through some of the hardest times of my life. I hope I am half the friend to her that she has been to me.
A year after that we had our little Maddie. Talk about an adjustment. That was a tough one for me. Maddie was a dream come true. But I was selfish to the very core.....The thought of not sleeping never occurred to me. That 1st night home from the hospital with this little baby...I thought...ok...it's bedtime. And she was like it's what?? Yes, that was one rough night for me.
4 months later we were pregnant with Nathan.
6 months later we moved into our house
We started faithfully attending Jeremy's uncles church. We went....bc that's what you do. You go to Church on Sundays.
3 months later Nathan was born very sick. Very sick
Thankfully God chose to heal our little Nathan and he came home from the hospital a month later.
Those next years were not great years for me. They were hard years. I was lost in this constant pull of selfishness and having to give my time to these little babies who needed me oh so much.
I did not lean on the one who could help. I tried to fight through this time my own way. I always felt the gentle pulling of God speaking to me to get me into his word. And sometimes I would. I would go in waves of reading my bible but never really grasping what it was saying.
Eventually we went to church bc we wanted to be there. It was finally our Church, and we went because we wanted to, not because our parents were making us. We also really enjoyed our group of friends.
I think God was in my head, but hadn't quite made it down to my soul yet. I knew a set of rules and what I should do....but a deep relationship and a desire to know him wasn't quite there.
Those early years with the kids passed so quickly. The days dragged, but the years..... flew.
Soon it was time for the kids to start school.
We had to face the challenge of public verses private schools. Private school won out. I knew we couldn't afford it if I didn't work at the school, so I looked into it, and was offered a job as a teacher's aid.
I am thankful for the years that I worked at school. They were hard years for some reasons and good years for some reasons. I learned a lot about myself and who I did not want to be. I saw a lot, I heard a lot, and I learned a lot.
rabbit trail ~ (Know what I struggled with most?? I struggled with going to work day in and day out and giving myself to my job... I mean all of myself, that I had nothing left to give my family. I think that my kids suffered bc of that. That is something that is still hard for me. I still work a part time job, but it takes everything out of me. At the end of the day, I go home drained and spent. And yet still have the full time job of being a wife and mother and have nothing left to give. I don't regret either working at the school, or working at my current job, bc I KNOW that God has me there, that He placed me there. But how in the world do I juggle both?)
Those years.....made me yearn for something more. Something bigger then what I was seeing. I was taught that God only worked in this little box that we place him in. I dug into my bible. I finally had a burning desire to really KNOW for myself who this God of the universe was. What he wanted from me and where I fit into the picture.
I think the turning point in my relationship with God was when we were in
our car accident. I remember the days following the accident that I didn't know how to handle anything. The only place I knew to turn was to God. And I did. I opened the Bible, and the verses just jumped off the pages. It was like the God of heaven stopped for a moment and I was entered into his very presence.
And from then on, I wanted more of that. I still do.
Morning after morning I would sit in my chair and it would be God and Me and my journal. I would sit and pour my heart out to him. I would give him my questions, my hurts, the things I just couldn't understand. The things I saw that just never added up to what I was reading in the word. It was the 1st time I really knew what it was to have a relationship with MY God. He talked to me and I talked to him. He became so very real in my life.
One of the things that I worked out with God was my desire to have a baby. We had been
trying (not preventing) having a baby. I knew I had this desire, I had this feeling that my family wasn't complete, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out why we couldn't get pregnant. For years we tried. And month after month it got harder for me. After years.....I was finally able to come to the point where I wanted God more then I wanted a baby. And that if it wasn't His will, then I didn't want it. I could not only say that to Him, but mean it. It took a long time and a lot of tears to get to that place.
Then one day, after struggling to lose weight, I found out I was pregnant. 7 years of trying. When I had finally given up the fight. But then God...... and you all have met Emma. :)
I feel like my story.....my journey with God isn't over......it's just beginning....
God has moved us from that comfortable little church to a new church. Jeremy and I have no doubt in our minds that was God's handiwork. God knew our hearts and where we were in our walk with him. God saw fit to move us. I miss our old church family though terribly. We were loved and we loved there.
This past summer has been such a changing summer for me. I feel a mixture between being made new and having been ran through the cleaners.
I am not writing this with the attitude that I have now arrived to some destination. In fact, I feel far from that. God used this past summer to show me some areas of my life where I am seriously lacking and where I need to give some things up. He brought me to my knees and opened my eyes for my deep seated need for him daily in my life. To not settle for a set of rules and a church pew on sunday relationship like so many people settle for.
I asked God once to tip my box upside down of what and who I think He is. He is doing that for me. What a ride it has been.
I read this quote recently in a bible study that I am doing.....
I remind myself often that people don't care to meet Jesus until they meet the reality of Jesus in my life.
It has stuck with me.
I think that there is much truth to this. I think people shut their ears when you start talking about Jesus. But when you start talking about how Jesus is real to you....I think people will listen to that better. Maybe I have it all wrong.
What I do know.....
~ is that my desire in life.....is to be used by God. In whatever He sees fit.
~ that this road may not be easy, that at times it will be so very difficult, that the only thing you will know to do is to drop to your knees.....but it will always be worth it. Always my friend.
~ that
He has called me higher. (if you haven't listened to this song....you should)
~ that God still has many imperfections that He will refine out of me.....and in his time, and his way, he will do it.
~ is that I want to say YeS when he speaks. I want to live in radical obedience.
You know that part about how I ran to the world and tried to learn all that it would teach me?? One of the biggest regrets of my life.
I challenge you to write your story, it's harder then you think, but as you sit back and think, you will see God's handiwork all over your life and it will be worth it. If you do, somehow, please tag me, so I can read your story as well.
