I’m
going to share with you some of the wonderful acts that God has done recently in
my life. I grew up in a Christian home
in the South, where I was exposed to the gospel from the very beginning. I asked Jesus to save me at a fairly young
age, but I didn’t truly have a relationship with Him until I was in
college. And this came after I had
rebelled and was sucked into a life of sin.
But God showed me my brokenness and I came to true repentance – my life
was changed and I knew it. Before I left
college, I met and married my husband Jeromy.
He is also a Christian, and he had a huge impact on my walk with the
Lord while we were dating. When I
graduated from college, we took a leap of faith and moved to Colorado, away from our families, to help
plant a church in Larkspur -- and so that Jeromy could go to seminary.
When
we first moved there, everything was perfect.
It was one of those mountain-top experiences. I felt so close to God, and He was answering
all my prayers with a big YES! We first lived
in Monument with some friends. And
within a week God provided us both with jobs and a townhome to rent. My job was at Focus on the Family, so I was
excited about working at a ministry. On
top of all that, the church plant we were helping with was flourishing. We were working, working, working for the
Lord and so happy doing it.
This
is where the story starts to take a turn, although I didn’t realize it at the
time. But I was beginning to get
comfortable. So comfortable in fact,
that I stopped having a real relationship with God. There I was serving in church, teaching the
kids, doing drama, singing with the praise team, and even working full-time at
a Christian ministry. Of course, there’s
nothing wrong with what I was doing. All
the things I was doing were good things.
But I was quickly deceived into believing that I didn’t need to spend
any extra time with the Lord, because of all the other stuff I was doing. I stopped talking to God. Sure, I prayed in church when I was asked or
at work during our daily devotionals… but there was no meaning in my
words. Because my intimate relationship
with Jesus was no longer existent. I was
just going through the motions.
Then
the trials came. First, Jeromy’s father
passed away only a year after we had moved to Colorado.
He was only 52. It was very
sudden and my husband took it pretty hard.
I think I handled it okay, but only because it wasn’t my own
father. I felt some distance from the
pain, because I hadn’t known him for very long.
But then, the trials became a lot more personal to me.
On
December 8, 2002, I found out that I was pregnant. Four days later, I began to miscarry. But at the time the doctors told me that it might
be too early to tell if I was going to lose the baby. The ultrasound showed something, but they
couldn’t find a heartbeat yet. I was
totally devastated. And so scared. I sought help from a Christian friend, who
gave me a lot of verses to claim and pray over the baby. I spent several weeks pleading with God to
save my baby. And I mean pleading. It was a good thing that this trial put me on
my knees praying, talking to God -- but the baby was all I prayed about. I thought about nothing else. Finally, when it seemed to be over, I went
back for another ultrasound and the doctor confirmed that the baby was
lost. In that moment I felt so alone,
and I even felt rejected by God. I
couldn’t understand why God would say no to my prayers for that baby. I felt like God had let me down. Then I started thinking that maybe it was my
own fault, since I had fallen away from my relationship with God. I went back and forth between blaming myself
and being mad at God, seeing Him as unloving, unforgiving, and without mercy. And so I returned to my former habits of not really
talking to God.
A
few months later we found out I was pregnant again. I was excited, but very scared because of
what had happened with the first pregnancy.
Then my fear turned to terror when I started to bleed. This happened off and on for nearly 2
months. I can’t put into words how
terrified I was. I literally operated
under a mode of fear for every single day of that entire pregnancy. The only prayers I could muster again were
pleas to God for Him to save the baby. I
am so thankful to say that I delivered my daughter at full-term, and everything
went perfectly. And although it is sad
and almost unbelievable to say, my relationship with God didn’t change much
even after that great blessing, because I was still wounded from the loss of my
first pregnancy.
Then,
I got pregnant again much sooner than we had anticipated. Our son was due only 17 months after our
daughter was born. And this pregnancy
wasn’t much different than the previous one, as I had some early days where it
looked like I was going to lose the baby.
But then my body seemed to settle down and several months went by with
no problems. And because of that, I
wasn’t as fearful with this pregnancy.
But at the same time, I still wasn’t really having a relationship with
God. I was relying on the prayers of
others to get me through, and I wasn’t seeking God out for myself. Then suddenly, when I was only 30 weeks
along, my son decided to be born. It was
a very traumatic event. At home one
night my water broke and I was bleeding heavily. We had to call 911 and I was driven to the
hospital in an ambulance. When we got to
the hospital and they found my son’s heartbeat, I was so relieved. After a few hours they determined that they
had to go ahead and deliver him. He was
only 3 pounds. They had to take him to a
different hospital pretty quickly, because they didn’t have the equipment to
take care of him there. And since I had
a C-section and had lost so much blood, I had to spend some time recovering
before I could even get up. My son ended
up spending 5 weeks in the hospital's neonatal intensive care unit before he
came home on oxygen. Those days of
visiting him in the hospital were the hardest days. I can remember wanting so badly to pray -– to
talk to God like I knew I was supposed to be able to do -- and to find that
comfort and peace that only He can give.
But I just couldn’t find it in me to do it. I don’t even know how I functioned from day
to day. I guess I was just numb. It still felt like there was a wall between
me and God, and that His back had turned on me.
I
became incredibly depressed soon after that.
After all I had been through, even despite the miraculous things God had
done and the blessings He had given me, I felt so far away from Him. Here I was, with 2 beautiful children who
were true miracles, and I was able to stay at home with them instead of going
back to work… yet I felt so alone. I
felt like all the troubles I had experienced were my own fault because I had
neglected my relationship with God, and that God would never be able to get
over His disappointment in me. And that
was all that I could focus on. Those
thoughts of self-hatred and seeing God as my punisher consumed me. It took me a while to realize that I was
depressed, but once I did, I sought help.
I talked to several different people, including my pastor and a licensed
Christian counselor, but nothing helped.
Even the encouragement my husband tried to give wasn’t getting
through. So I racked my brain trying to
think who in the world could help me.
Finally, I asked a dear friend if she knew of anyone, and she referred
me to a Christian couple that she thought could counsel me.
I
praise God that He worked through this couple to reach me. They talked and prayed me through some of the
experiences I had gone through. And they
reassured me that Jesus Christ had literally been with me during all of those
experiences. It was like a revelation to
me – to actually picture Jesus there with me in the most horrible, traumatic
moments of my life, and to listen to what He was saying to me during those times. That is part of what it means to have a
relationship with Christ – it is real.
And every time I pictured Jesus there, all I saw was love -- not the
rejection I had been feeling. I could
see Him sitting with me, holding my hand, holding the precious baby I had lost…
He never left my side, and He never spoke a word of condemnation. When I listened closely, I could even hear
Him speaking to me. All of the lies that
I had believed about God for so long were suddenly brought into the light and
exposed for what they really were.
These
words of David in Psalm 77:7-14
really sum up my thought process: “Will the Lord reject forever? Will he never show his favor again? Has his unfailing love vanished forever? Has his promise failed for all time? Has God forgotten to be merciful? Has he in anger withheld his compassion? Then I thought, ‘To this I will appeal: the
years of the right hand of the Most High.’
I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your
miracles of long ago. I will meditate on
all your works and consider all your mighty deeds. Your ways, O God, are holy. What god is so great as our God? You are the God who performs miracles; you
display your power among the peoples.”
Since
that time of spiritual and emotional healing for me, it has been a day to day
battle. I still have days (or weeks)
when I struggle with that depression wanting to come back. Every once in a while I still hear the lies
of the enemy ringing in my ears… that I am a failure. And I still struggle sometimes with talking
to God because of that. But overall, I
know that things are getting better for me.
I am getting stronger. Jesus is
so much more real to me now. I am
learning new truths every day. I am
getting to know who God is through my personal relationship with Him. And slowly but surely, despite all my
weaknesses and the reality of sin, I am learning who I am now because of
Christ.
Psalm 71:20 says, “Though you have
made me see troubles, many and bitter, you will restore my life again; from the
depths of the earth you will again bring me up.”
If
I leave you with anything from this story, it would be this: find out who God
really is, and who you really are in Him.
Seek the truth about God and do not give up, because the truth will set you
free.
