"God wants to use not just some of your past for His good- but ALL of it. He will not waste anything"- Annie Lobert
In high school I was a cheerleader, I loved the social life. My mom took my sister & I to a Catholic church when we were younger but she left the choice to go up to us when we reached a certain age. Of course I opted not to go since I thought it was painful to get through that 1 hour on Sunday morning....I was more concerned with what I was missing socially by being at church. My high school years were spent trying to impress the boys, drinking & smoking cigarettes when I drank. I held my parents & others at a high place & didn't want to disappoint anyone so I had decent grades & did everything I thought would make them proud & was really good at hiding what I was doing when they weren't around.
Thankfully, in college, I loved academics. I found what I really loved to do, Organizational Communications, & excelled. While my partying reduced, it didn't stop & I still had the same people/friends in my life that were hardcore partying so the influences were still there. I continued to make bad choices with men, I couldn't understand why it wasn't working, why did I feel so alone but yet surrounded by so many people. Even though I was excelling academically, I didn't feel good, I felt empty. Then my husband, Jason, & I started dating. He was my best friend's at the time, brother. We had known each other for a long time but had never made a connection....until then. (as I recall my 'timeline' of my journey to Christ, I can see how God was with me every step of the way, had his hand in every situation, I just didn't pay attention to Him.) Jason came into my life at just the right time. We partied together, we had fun but we also were making plans for our future & that involved marriage & children. We have always been on the same page about where our life was headed, what we wanted, how we wanted to parent our children. Our marriage was definitely arranged by God. We were making plans to purchase a home, we discussed getting engaged & when we would have children. We decided that we wanted our future children to grow up in church, to know God (which always cracks me up when I think back on that because we didn't KNOW God but wanted it for our children:) My uncle was a pastor at Lancaster Community Church so we decided to give it a try...besides my sister & her husband went there so it must be pretty good & LCC served donuts that you could eat in the santuary!! Growing up Catholic, this was totally crazy & awesome to me! This was the beginning of the fire God lit inside of us.
Now I don't want that to sound like 'we got it' after that one visit..... cuz' we didn't. My journey to Christ took many years. Jason & I would go on Sundays but sometimes we would be too tired & wouldn't go, sometimes we had too much to do that day, sometimes we partied too late the night before. We didn't study the bible at home, we weren't in a Connect Group, we didn't have any friends inside the church...we still had the same life, the same friends...which wasn't changing anything. We didn't want the 'fun' to stop, we didn't want to ditch our friends.... what we didn't know is that we didn't have to do that. We didn't know that the 'fun', destructive things we were doing were ultimately keeping us from having a relationship with Christ & were negatively effecting many other areas of our lives.
Jason & I were married in 2008. We had our daughter Ava in September of 2009. As you know from Part 1, Vera was born in September as well. The girls were 11 days apart...my sister & I were due the same day... my sister & I did everything together, we are best friends. In high school we had the same friends (still do), she was homecoming queen-I was attendant at the same time, we married men that look similar:), we got married in the same church, had our receptions at the same venue, & then we were having a baby at the same time! While pregnant with Ava my life began to change. My mothering instincts started kicking in. Of course the partying stopped completely for me, I started making plans for her future.... I wanted stability for her, brightness, comfort. When Ava was born, mine & Jason's life changed, forever. Some relationships in our lives started deteriorating due to our hearts knowing what we needed to do for Ava & what God wanted for her & others wanted to continue the way it was before Ava. I had post paratum depression..... not the 'put your baby in an oven' kind but constantly worried something was going to happen to her, she wasn't going to get enough to eat, that I wasn't sufficient enough to care for her. Jason went to work one day & I found myself on the floor on my knees sobbing & praying. That was huge. I got up from the floor, with total peace & for the first time could just enjoy Ava for a few moments without worry. My post paratum didn't end that day but it was a pivotal moment where God changed something in me...He made me begin to understand how important I was as a mother in Ava's life....I was more than enough for her because He created me to be.
Wow, it's amazing to me how He worked in my life as I reflect on the past! For reasons I didn't understand at the time, God led my heart to spend more time at LCC....more time with people from there. I joined a women's bible study which completely changed my life. The women in that group are now some of my closest, dearest friends. I began to understand what a Christ-hearted woman is suppose to look like....what a REAL friend is suppose to look like....what REAL support feels like. I could see all those things in those women....I just didn't know how to transform my life to get there too.... I wanted to be that friend, mentor, encouragement to someone else too.... I wanted to be filled with joy no matter what circumstances my life had in it......everything began to change. My marriage began improving, how I treated & interacted with my husband. What was difficult is that I was so excited about this change & Jason is my best friend so I wanted him to be completely on board with me .... but he wasn't at first. He loved going to church but he wasn't ready to 'surrender' anything which kinda made me go back & forth a lot because I wanted my husband to be on the journey with me.... all in.
Ok so my promise of not getting too winded has kinda been broken hehe:) I'll post a part 3 hopefully in the next couple of days!
Love you all!
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