The meet-cute. Girl and boy meet eyes across the Bunson
burner in a high school chemistry
lab, instantly sparking not just the correct chemical reaction but a flame
within their hearts through the exchange of hidden smiles and nervous laughter.
Or hurriedly, girl flies around the corner, steaming coffee in hand, once again
late for work when she literally crashes into boy, experiencing heat, not just
from the coffee spilled on her blouse but as the once busy moment screeches to
a halt. He offers his scarf to clean up the mess and it is love at first sight.
It seems so easy in the movies. I’ve concocted many similar scenes with myself
as the leading lady and yet to be named lucky mystery man sweeping me off my
feet in a variety of random, romantic backdrops and circumstances. While Hollywood wants me to
believe these fantasies as the end all and be all when defining love and
romance, I’ve discovered that God has something much more real and imaginative
when it comes to the story of my life. He continually shows me, the best is yet
to come.
I
grew up in an amazing Christian home and was taught about Jesus and the power
of prayer from a very young age. I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior at
Pioneer Girls when I was 6 years old and if I’m being honest, nothing really
changed. I still prayed before I went to sleep, or when I was afraid, or when
things weren’t going my way, just as I was taught. I never experienced a major
transformation moment.
When
I was in junior high, I discovered the power of God’s word as living and active.
I’d read the Bible before then and even earned lots of merit badges for
memorizing Scripture, but junior high was the first time I felt that God was
speaking directly to me. I had gotten into a disagreement with some friends at
school and I remember coming home discouraged and upset, opening my Bible to
some random page, and reading a passage that spoke exactly to what had happened
that day. I was so excited, I wrote the verse on a note card and shared it with
one of my friends the next day. From then on, I was hooked. I tried to read my
Bible every day and then apply what I was reading to how I lived my everyday
life. I grew in my faith and made it through my high school years, full of ups
and downs, excited about who God was and how he was moving in and through me.
I
was blessed with an amazing support system through my family, friends, youth
group, and church family. However, when graduation came, I decided I wanted to explore the country and felt God calling me to attend a school away
from home. The school I attended had a soccer team willing to let me play and
was a Christian school so I was pumped about playing with other Christ
followers. Because it was a Christian school, I had a picture in my mind of it
being kind of like church camp but four years long and a little bit more
homework. I knew that God had called me to this school for a purpose and I was
excited to see what that purpose was: would I meet my husband? Would I be the
leading scorer and earn a starting spot so I could give all the glory to Him?
Would I wow everyone in my honors classes with my God-given wisdom and lead
them to a better understanding of who God is? I had great dreams for all I
would accomplish for the glory of God’s kingdom and my own personal success. I
thought I knew the good God wanted for me, so I obediently left home for the
great unknown.
God’s
good for me turned out to be a lot different than what I expected. I
experienced some difficult things while at school and in fact almost
transferred back home after a particular incident with my teammates. I became a
version of myself I didn’t recognize. I was quiet, reserved, and unsure of who
I was. I longed for the comfortable setting of my high school hallways where I
knew most everyone, I was a consistent starter and productive member of a
soccer team, and things came more or less easily to me. I had to continually
fight for playing time on the soccer field, daily felt inadequate
intellectually during discussions in my honors classrooms, and socially became
awkward and unsure of how to relate to the people around me. I knew in my heart
of hearts that God had lead me to this school so I did my best to cover up my
insecurities and put on a brave face for my friends and family back home and at
school. I had this idea that God wanted me to be happy and positive in hard
situations, so I pretended I was happy and tried to stay positive instead of
revealing how out of place and miserable I felt a lot of the time. I thought I
was being obedient in God calling me to this school and didn’t want the people
around me to think God was wrong to make me feel miserable, or I heard him
wrong, heaven-forbid, so I did my best to portray the version of myself I
thought would please the most people and put myself and God in the best light.
When
it was time to go to grad school and pursue my dream of being a physical
therapist, I felt God calling me back to MN. Slowly, but surely, he began to
rebuild the self-confidence I lacked in college with a little bit of humility
woven through. I thrived in my new surroundings, easily making friends,
succeeding in the classroom, and even finding success on the soccer field
through our class’s intramural team. God continued to call me to obedience in
other areas, leading me to an amazing 3-week internship in Niger Africa where I
learned how physical therapy and international missions may have a place
together in my life. He lead me to a church where I moved from a fringe
observer to an active member and participant in ministry. He brought men and
women into my life that strengthen and encourage me in my daily walk with Christ. They accept me as I am, but love me
enough not to leave me that way, challenging me toward total surrender and
dependence on God as we do life together.
The
pain I experienced and the shattered dream of college being the “best days of
your life” stayed with me long after graduation even as I began to heal in
other ways. I limped along thinking there was something wrong with me or I had
misunderstood God or if only I had been stronger I could have really made a
difference in the lives of the people I met there. I frequently agonized over
the missed opportunities to stand up for what I believed during a class
discussion or share insight into what God was teaching me with someone I had a
hard time relating to. Until recently, I looked back thinking I had failed my
college experience and wasted the ministry God called me to there. Even the
amazing experiences and people I met who positively influenced my faith
journey, were viewed through a dirty lens of the overall sense of failure
surrounding that time in my life.
One
of the verses God has laid on my heart recently is Romans 12:1-2. It says:
“Therefore, I urge you brother, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as
living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God-this is your spiritual act of
worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be
transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and
approve what God’s will is-His good, pleasing and perfect will.” (NIV)
Together, God and I have begun the process of renewing my mind and much of that
process has involved my time spent at school. He has laid me on the hearts of
others to reach out and share how much I influenced their life during that time
or laid others on my heart to reconnect and demonstrate why the relationships I
made during that time are important today. He has shown me that I didn’t make a
mistake in the school that I chose but was being obedient as he called me to
be, even when things were difficult. He also showed me that I don’t have to
have my life together in order to glorify his kingdom. He took my brokenness,
the version of myself I didn’t like and used it in ways I never expected. I may
have missed opportunities, but I have been forgiven and he offers second, third
and seventy-third chances to try again as I earnestly offer myself as a living
sacrifice. I am a work in progress and he continues to craft a beautiful story
out of what I perceived as ugliness or failure in my life.
In
the past, I’ve hesitated to share my faith story or testimony because my story
doesn’t have the all-important Jesus meet cute I've heard in other people's story. There is
no defining transformation moment between the pre-Christ me and the
after-Christ me. But as I reflect on real life love stories: my parents, my
aunts and uncles, my friends and cousins, it’s less about how they met and more
about the journey to here and now. They’ve experienced the ups and downs of
life together: there have been triumphs and failures, heartache and joy,
conflicts and resolutions. They started as two separate people with dreams and
agendas and goals of their own that merge into one as they journey in love
together. The world wants us to think the only stories worth telling are fairy
tales with interesting beginnings and happy endings. But the story God wants us
to share is one that is real and in progress. Our stories are woven together
with care for good, even if that good is realized much later. He calls us to
recognize the importance of the story he has written in our lives, the good,
the bad, and the ugly, and share it with the world. In our weakness, he is
strong, and in our brokenness we are made whole by the beauty of his love. And
that is the story he has written for my life, so far. I'm excited to see what comes next...
"But he [Jesus] said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me."
~2 Corinthians 12:9
What story has God written for you? Are you ready to share it? Take a step of faith and share the story of love God has written on your heart. You'll be so glad that you did! Have a wonderful day!
