faith journey: on being "enough"

I had been wanting to post my testimony here for quite a while - since I started this whole project back in April or May. Then it was an assignment in one of my classes to write a "Faith Journey" paper or testimony. I have completed it and now share it with those who are interested in reading it.
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I was born into a "Christian" home and we were part of the Nazarene denomination. We went to church every Sunday morning, every Sunday evening, and every Wednesday evening. My parents made me go and I really had no choice in the matter. When I was in about the 4th grade, my and I watched "The Thief in the Night." After the movie was over I accepted Christ into my heart because I essentially felt scared into it. Although he's a completely different person now and we have had much healing in our relationship, my dad claimed to be a Christian but was very abusive verbally, emotionally, and physically when I was a child. I was afraid of my earthly father and, because I was told God is my heavenly father, I was afraid of him too. But I knew all the right answers to say and the right things to do in order to "pass" as a Christian all through elementary and junior high school and part of high school.

I think it was right around my senior year of high school my parents started giving me the option of whether or not I went to church. I was the youngest and therefore the last one at home. I made the choice not to continue going to church for many reasons. One, I saw a lot of hypocrisy in the church. Most of the people in my age bracket didn't seem to have very high levels of integrity; on Sundays they said they were one thing but the rest of the week were completely the opposite. Two, given my view of God because of how I viewed my earthly father, I was afraid of him. I saw him as this punisher and felt that at any given moment he could pour out his wrath on me. I spent most of my younger years walking on eggshells around my dad and that transferred over into my relationship with God. I felt I had to be perfect all the time and never make mistakes or I would feel his judgment in my life. Three, because my dad claimed to be a Christian and yet inflicted so much pain on me emotionally I wanted nothing to do with Christianity. I didn't have a healthy view of it. Four, I felt scared into becoming a Christian that first time and didn't know why I believed what I believed or if I even truly believed anything. I was told that I was being saved from hell and sin but what was I being saved to? I had no idea.

My senior year of high school I really started rebelling. I had just found out that, because of an illness my mom had during her pregnancy with me, she now was terminally ill and was dying. Emotions were very hard for me that year, up and down. I didn't want to sit around and watch my mom, whom I loved dearly and whom was my best friend, die so I spent most of my time outside the house. I was angry with God, I guess, and still very confused about all of it. I went to church only when it was required, basically Christmas, Easter, and other familial occasions. When I did go, it was to socialize.

The rebellion in me continued and its roots deepened in my heart choking out almost every good seed that I had remaining in me. I was lost. Growing up, most of the attention that I got from my dad was negative attention. He always told me that I wasn't good enough, that I was stupid or slow, that I was ugly or fat, I couldn't do anything right. What I internalized most was the message, "I am never enough." That message ate at my heart and soul like a poison. I lost my self-identity and self-worth by always looking to him for affirmation. Everything I did, I did to please him, to have him affirm me in some way. I was always reaching and striving for his approval. When I realized I wasn't getting what I needed from my dad I finally decided to get approval elsewhere.

I flirted with danger on several levels. I started drinking. I started smoking marijuana. I became a "chameleon"; I would become what everyone else wanted me to be. Since I had no idea who I was myself I let other people tell me who I was. At one point, two people in my core group of friends were being watched carefully by the FBI. The FBI then started questioning me about this group of friends. That's kind of when a light bulb went on in my head that I was in a dangerous place in my life. I stopped seeing them as regularly as I had been but they still paid to take me on vacations with them and bought me extravagant gifts for birthdays and Christmas and I was as much a part of their family as their own flesh and blood. So I kept seeing them only every once in a while. My craving for attention continued and I grew more and more hungry. I sought out affection and love and affirmation from men. It worked for a while and then I would feel empty again and I would go to the next one and the next one. I left a little piece of myself with each of them until there was nothing left and I was just an empty shell letting them use me. I had a few serious relationships over the years but most of my interactions with men were a series of desperate and futile attempts to be accepted and loved for who I was, even though I had no idea who that was. As situations within my core group got graver and graver and scarier and scarier, that light bulb in my head was getting brighter and brighter. I saw those friends less and less.

My mom died 30 March 2005 after suffering for a week and a half in a hospital bed. My dad and I were the only two with her when she went to meet God. Looking back I am so glad I had those moments with her but at the time anger, grief, and bitterness ruled my life. I was still living at home and felt heavily a responsibility to make sure my father was okay, that he would make it. I felt I had to be strong for him. I squelched a lot of emotions during that time. I felt guilty on some levels because it was when she was pregnant with me that she initially got sick that led to her getting the terminal illness while I was in high school. No one ever said that it was my fault. I kind of just developed those thoughts on my own and internalized them.

My mom was always a picture of tremendous faith for me. She was an example for me and I think watching her model true faith played a huge part in my own salvation. I witnessed her steadfastness my whole life: through an abusive marriage, through family dysfunction, through terminal illness, even in her death. Thankfully, because of her example, I had a tiny mustard seed of faith left. This one tiny mustard seed kept trying to poke through the thorns and thistle and the rock there on my path to faith. This one tiny seed ultimately saved my life - spiritually, for sure, and probably physically as well. After my last serious relationship ended in October 2002 I kind of had an epiphany. I realized I had been putting all my identity and self-worth into my relationships with men. All of my identity and all my value was wrapped up in who they were and I was whoever they wanted me to be. I was lost and scared on so many levels. I wanted to go back to church somewhere but knew I didn't want to go to the church I had grown up in. My best friend had just started going to Heartland Community Church with her boyfriend and she thought I would like it. I went once and never even looked anywhere else. I immediately got involved in the church and the "singles" group there was very active with about 200 active people in it. I felt at home and comfortable enough to start exploring my faith on a deeper level. I was never judged or condemned or made to feel like an "outsider." For the first time in my life, I began to experience authentic relationships with real people.

A year and a half ago, I went through an experiential seminar called BreakThrough after seeing the dramatic change it made in my dad's life after he had gone through it. He died and was reborn a completely different person. It was incredibly powerful to witness such a drastic transformation. BreakThrough helps you get past the lies of your past and start building a foundation of truth in your heart and life. They give you a series of tools to use to start living from your heart and discover who God created you to be. This is all done from the Christian perspective. It was an incredible experience and was unbelievably eye-opening. It was definitely a pivotal time in my walk with God. He broke my spirit down and rebuilt me into a child of God. He breathed a powerful word, "enough," into my heart during that life-training and it remains a powerful word in my heart today.

The most significant change for me is that I believe today with conviction that I am enough because he died on the cross for my sins and that my identity and value lies ONLY in HIM! Not only am I enough but he is enough for me as well. There is nothing that I can or cannot do to make him love me any more or any less than he does right now, where I am, in the midst of my sinfulness.

My life had been a series of victimizations (other things have happened that I have not shared here) but it was in BreakThrough that I chose to break free from the bondage of surviving life as a victim. Playing the victim was part of my old crooked identity; I would use it to manipulate people and to gain sympathy from people. My chains were loosed; I was a prisoner but now I am free. I now see those victimizations as blessings. They are very much a part of me and who I am, a part of the character ingrained deep within me. Without those experiences - and without God's amazing and perfect grace - I would not be who I am today.

My life song is "All of You" by Jeremy Camp and it seems to capture flawlessly God's irreplaceable role in my life:

All of you is more than enough for all of me
For every thirst and every need
You satisfy me with your love
And all I have in you is more than enough
You are my supply
My breath of life
Still more awesome than I know
You are my reward
Worth living for
Still more aweesome than I know
And all of you is more than enough for all of me
For every thirst and every need
You satisfy me with your love
And all I have in you is more than enough
You are my supply
My breath of life
Still more awesome than I know
You're my coming King
You're my everything
Still more awesome than I know
And all of you is more than enough for all of me
For every thirst and every need
You satisfy me with your love
And all I have in you is more than enough
More than all I am
More than all I need
You are more than enough for me
More than all I know
More than all I can say
You are more than enough
And all of you is more than enough for all of me
For every thirst and every need
You satisfy me with your love
And all I have in You is more than enough
And all I have in you is more than enough.

As the pastor was making a point in church one day he said this, "Often the most life-altering encounters with God require us to leave the routine, the comfortable, and the familiar." This has been so evident to me throughout my whole life but more so especially within the last 6 weeks as I made the transition from Kansas City to Alaska, from an office manager making significant money to a student of God making almost nothing, from a church that I love and a community of so many friends to knowing no one and having to "rebuild" my life essentially, and from being a "safe" Christian to risking it all and stepping out in faith into unfamiliar territory and learning to be a little reckless for God. Yes, I stepped out of the routine, the comfortable, and the familiar and I am so glad I did.

I am looking forward to growing deeper in my relationship with God this year and to nourishing that one little mustard seed and helping it to grown into a healthy tree. It is the desire of my heart to know intimately the Daddy of love that is described in the story of the Prodigal Son, to relinquish my view of him as a God of discipline and punishment. I wish to let him rain his extravagant grace and love over my life and to bask in his Son. The best I can explain it is that I am a dry, thirsty sponge and he is the fluid that I soak up. He makes me pliable and soft, and he flows out of me when life wrings me out to dry. I know I have just barely had a small taste of all that he will do in me and for me. And it is the desire of my heart to continue to my relationship with an amazing man of God - my earthly Daddy. We have had much healing between us and I can't wait to grow into our relationship together as we each grow in our relationships with God individually. I have been richly blessed far beyond what I deserve. And his grace is beyond sufficient!

2 Timothy 1:6-8 says, "For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love, and of self-discipline." That verse is the motto for BreakThrough and since has become a life verse for me. 2 Corinthians 5:17: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" is also a powerful verse for me. My old ways are gone - he literally erased the old desires of my heart and replaced them with desires that more closely match his. Romans 8:35-39 is also a powerful verse for me and reminds me that nothing can keep me from the love that is in Christ Jesus my Lord. AMEN!