Expertise:vintage t-shirts, Gilmore Girls, curly hair, babysitting eleven year old girls, Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake, angel food cake with chocolate icing, the art of making ramen noodles, making my bed, Raylatta and the Pink Monkeys!!!! Occupation:Student
I needed to write this for the missions board at church, here it is:
When I was five years old, I was in the car with my mom and I asked her how I could become a Christian. I do not remember why I wanted to know this, but something in my little heart knew it was the right thing to do. My mom pulled the car over into the Anderson Park parking lot (then it was Ash Park) and she led me through a prayer that gave my heart to God.
Growing up I had a huge amount of positive input, from Sunday school to every day Bible lessons at the Christian school I attended. I grew up with a clear sense of right and wrong, even to the point of getting frustrated at my Great-Aunt for telling my cousin that Santa was real. “She’s an adult! She’s supposed to tell the TRUTH!”
At the same time, I grew up with a nagging sense of doubt about my faith. I couldn’t remember life before Christ, I couldn’t remember “all the sin I’d done before I knew Jesus” and so I doubted that I ever was saved. No one ever talked about doubt, so I didn’t either. I remember one night riding home on the bus next to my cheerleading coach, wanting to ask her about this thing that I felt, but not wanting her to tell me that I wasn’t a Christian, because I didn’t know what else I could do to become one! I even shared about this doubt at youth group, but it wasn’t resolved in high school. Still, I went forward for more altar calls than I can remember at youth group, and I spent time with God and He did give me wisdom to make clear decisions and love my friends and family.
College found me at Greenville College, a small liberal-arts college in southern Illinois. I loved it. I started going to a girls Bible Study on Thursday nights called “E-café” and I thought it was great. During the fall, we had a retreat to a little cabin out in the country. It was during this retreat that everything changed for me. I was under the stairs in a little closet doing my devotions, reading my Bible. I found a verse that said something along the lines of Jesus dying for our sins. It hit me, of course that was what it was all about! It was so simple! There was not some mystic thing I had to do to “really become a Christian.” It was about me being forgiven for my sins! And by that time, I could think of what my sins were, I knew sins I had done and I saw my need for forgiveness better then than ever before. I prayed and asked Jesus to forgive me from my sins and that I wanted to follow Him. It was so strange, I felt a literal pinch release in my heart. Just then, my friend Theresa came andcalled me to come outside with her. I went out and looked up at the dark country sky, filled with stars. It was as if a channel had opened up between me and God, and I knew that God was there and I knew He was listening to me and cared.
The next morning I shared this experience with the other girls at the retreat and was shocked to find that they too had struggled with doubt, that I hadn’t been alone in my struggle after all. What a thrill to find that my struggles and what God was doing in me could help others too! I haven’t stopped sharing what God is doing since, and I have never ceased to be amazed at what God can do through it.
Another really cool thing that God did for me in college was put me in a Bible Study led by some of my professors, one of whom was my mentor. We gathered in their home on Sunday night, worshiped together and then waited on God to see what He would have us do. Sometimes He gave Dr. Filby, our professor, a word to share with us, other times He had us pray for a certain group or person in the group. It was SO exciting to me and it became the most exciting part of my week, like water in a desert. I never missed a Sunday night, because it was so exciting to actually get to be a part of what God was doing right THEN. I remember one night, we were worshiping God and all I could think in my head was “Go pray for Mishawna, Go pray for Mishawna” which is the name of a girl in the group, a friend of mine. I looked up and everyone was around Mishawna praying for her and she was crying. I had no idea, but God had been speaking to me about what was going on right then. It was incredible. We all prayed for her and the Lord worked in her life in an amazing way that night.
After college, I joined YWAM, unsure of where the path would lead. I committed to a 5 month Discipleship Training School(DTS) in Kona, HI with an outreach that ended up being in Colombia. During this time God taught me things and drew me near to Him in a way that I had never experienced before. What a joy to be able to spend evenings in the prayer room, just spending time with God, and in community with other believers constantly, hearing from God encouragement to give them and receiving encouragement in return. It was a taste of community and heaven and I am so thankful for having experienced it. My relationship with God grew, as did my vision for the future. I already knew I had a heart for Asia, and it only grew there. We had one speaker that has worked with street kids in Colombia for many years, and I loved learning about how to work with children in this way. We ended up working with this man when we were in Colombia and I learned more from him about working with children at risk. God began to speak things to my heart concerning my heart for Asia and for children at risk and bringing these together.
After DTS, the Lord gently led me to Taiwan where I did a School of Biblical Studies (SBS). This was a 9 month school and it was the most influential time of my life, ever. I saw God for who He really is more than I’d ever seen Him before. I saw Him create the world and I got to study and understand why. I got to ask Him questions as I read through the epistles and seethe apostles build the church. I was devastated when we studied the gospels and I saw Jesus and what our role really is in the world, and then went up to the street to go to a local shop to get a drink and saw the masses of people around me who did not know the hope of Jesus. Suddenly the only thing that mattered was sharing Jesus with them as best as I could.
My testimony is far from over, and will stretch until the day that I die, moments where God has come through, moments where He has unveiled truth, moments that I have been in deep sin and He has forgiven me. This is part of my story so far, and I believe that the best is yet to come.
How can one be so stirred by a story that she has never lived? Such is the romance of hope, the stirring of possibility, the religion of the soul. God promised to write his law on human hearts, and I believe that he stirs the souls of those he creates when a story comes that so closely traces the story that we were all meant to be a part of, not just to watch, but to live.
I’ve known for a long time, or have grown more conscious as I have aged, that there is a story larger than I at play in this place. I find it interesting that so often I forget this larger story in favor of my daily routine, minute battles and temporary sorrows and losses. I imagine this is what happens in every story. There was a moment during the final film of Lord of the Rings where Pippen was at a loss of what to do. The rightful prince was about to be burned alive by his own father, and in that moment, the little hobbit was without resource that he knew of, save Gandalf. I thought, in my movie watching mind, that surely he must have known all the possible other entrances into that room in which the burning was going to take place. Or surely he knew of a way to solve his problem. But the reality for that small hobbit on that day was that in fact, all he could see was the sea of soldiers before him, all he could feel was the pounding of his blood through his veins, and all he could think was “find Gandalf.” It was his last hope.
There are many moments of “last hope” peppered throughout the movies, moments where all seems lost and there is certainly no way of escape. And yet, somehow, five minutes ago I watched the end of the movie, and all the main characters were still alive, with full lives, restored and happy. So, there must in fact have been hope, because whether or not the characters in the story could see it at the moment, there was in fact, a happy ending.
Perhaps this is how their story aligns with mine. I am, as I have said, engaged in a battle that I often forget I am fighting. I can see nothing but the soldiers in front of me, I can feel nothing but the blood pounding through my veins, and I can think even less clearly than the little hobbit in search of Gandalf. In fact, my thoughts are more often something like “find sleep” or “find food” or “find life”…. Because yes, something in me does stir for something more, something more than the façade of life before me.
To worship with dance before a morning sunrise, to sing and not be ashamed, to live outside the pain of the moment in a world filled with light and color and, dare I say it? Love.
I see fragments of those moments, fragments of the story. But though I cannot see the whole picture, I can see that I am fighting a battle. A battle for my thoughts, a battle for courage to share with others the life that I have found, a battle to be kind, a battle to be wise, a battle to get out of bed in the morning… each a little battle, each a little step, each a little decision to keep going, to keep walking, to fight and not give up.
When Sam got discouraged, he thought of the Shire. When I get discouraged , well, I guess I think of heaven, of worship, of the hope of those I am fighting for being there with me. We’re all there together in the end after all, and it’s that blessed hope that should keep our feet moving forward.
I guess all I’m saying is what Sam said at the end of The Two Towers, as he and Frodo are walking through a wood, with battles behind them but greater ones ahead, and Frodo begins to think that it’ll never be done, that everything he was fighting for was not worth it.
Frodo says - “I can't do this, Sam.”
And then Sam replies, “I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something. Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam? Sam: That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo... and it's worth fighting for.
And we, the Believers in Jesus Christ, we know that there’s some good in the world. We know the feeling of returning to the Lord after running from him in sin, and having him welcome us back, that beautiful moment when he says he still loves us even when we really don’t deserve it this time. We know the peace that comes from clinging in faith to that which is true when the world seems a fog and a haze around us. We know what it’s like to have friendship with others who have fought battles before we met them that have made them into the best friends we’ve ever had. We know what it means to respect a leader because they have character and integrity and the heart of Jesus in them that goes beyond what human flesh can do on its own. We know the pounding of God’s heart within our own when we hear of injustice and how our spirit stirs to right what has been wrong. We have seen comrades and friends next to us choose to do what was right under pain of death, the death of pride or fear within them, and live to tell about it, and we’ve also seen friends bend under the pressures of that which is falsely called “life” and fall prey to the darkness that seeks to steal, kill and destroy, and crumble into death beside us. Those of us who have felt these things have an obligation, no the honor of choosing to defend them. To fight off the darkness that threatens our own souls and wage war on the sin that tries to capture our hearts, in the interest of those who have not yet felt the dark fingers of death, and for the rescue of those who have their hearts frozen in the very grip of hell.
There are lost people around us, there are people who are fighting to hold on, and there are people who have been saved and are living marvelous lives, fighting for themselves, their families, their churches and their lands.
I have been inspired by those of you who have clung to truth when the odds said to give up, who have chosen to do what is right upon pain of death inside of yourself, and who have fallen down repeatedly only to get back up again. It is an honor to serve the same Lord as you do, and all glory and honor and praise is to Him, forever and ever. Praise His name
Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud? Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud, A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, He passes from life to his rest in the grave.
The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade, Be scattered around, and together be laid; And the young and the old, the low and the high, Shall molder to dust, and together shall lie.
The infant a mother attended and loved; The mother that infant’s affection who proved; The husband, that mother and infant who blessed; Each, all, are away to their dwelling of rest.
The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye, Shone beauty and pleasure—her triumphs are by; And the memory of those who loved her and praised, Are alike from the minds of the living erased.
The hand of the king that the sceptre hath borne, The brow of the priest that the mitre hath worn, The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave, Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave.
The peasant, whose lot was to sow and to reap, The herdsman, who climbed with his goats up the steep, The beggar, who wandered in search of his bread, Have faded away like the grass that we tread.
The saint, who enjoyed the communion of Heaven, The sinner, who dared to remain unforgiven, The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just, Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust.
So the multitude goes—like the flower or the weed That withers away to let others succeed; So the multitude comes—even those we behold, To repeat every tale that has often been told.
For we are the same that our fathers have been; We see the same sights that our fathers have seen; We drink the same stream, we feel the same sun, And run the same course that our fathers have run.
The thoughts we are thinking, our fathers would think; From the death we are shrinking, our fathers would shrink; To the life we are clinging, they also would cling— But it speeds from us all like a bird on the wing.
They loved—but the story we cannot unfold; They scorned—but the heart of the haughty is cold; They grieved—but no wail from their slumber will come; They joyed—but the tongue of their gladness is dumb.
They died—aye, they died—we things that are now, That walk on the turf that lies over their brow, And make in their dwellings a transient abode, Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road.
Yea, hope and despondency, pleasure and pain, Are mingled together in sunshine and rain; And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge, Still follow each other, like surge upon surge.
’Tis the wink of an eye—’tis the draught of a breath— From the blossom of health to the paleness of death, From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
There is a university close to my classroom where I come to study. They have a beautiful library with a basement room with florescent lights and huge big tables filled with Taiwanese students, who study more hours a day than I am awake I think.
Tonight my eyes stopped working clearly, and I felt the Lord prompt me to go outside and sit, so I did. Outside of the library there is a grassy area, smaller than Scott Field, in the middle of the tennis courts, the library and some other buildings. The sun was setting and the air was beautiful and smelled sweet, it felt exactly like Hawaii. I love this climate, especially right now. It's beautiful and breezy and not too hot. I love the fall at home, the fall here is warmer, and so beautiful. I can't compare it to anything at home that would properly describe it, the air here is sweet and cool and damp and warm all at the same time, and I love it.
I was sitting, breathing, and I felt God ask if I wanted to know what I was going to do next. I said yes, and he said go home. I will go home next, and that brought to me an appreciation for the moment I was in like no other. I looked around me, at the beautiful white 8 story library with trees all in front of it, and the tennis courts with an instructor calling out directions over a loudspeaker, and the pink sky turning darker blue over the apartment buildings in the distance, and I was so glad I was there.
I thought of my friends here, I thought of how in a few months my heart would ache to see my Taiwanese friends Joy and Theodore and how these moments that I have to study were so precious. SO much preciousness packed into each day.
I remembered Hong Kong, and training in California beforehand, when God first began to open my heart to Asia. What if I'd never gone? But I don't live in what ifs.
So here I am. The time came for me to enter back into this underground cave, this well-lit hobbit hole where I spend my afternoons and evenings, maybe next year I will be back here, studying Chinese, desperately trying to gain a grasp on the language that will become the key to the rest of my life's relationships, but for now I am here.
This week we are studying Isaiah, and amidst friendships learning to grow and friendships well established and bearing great fruit, here I sit, just me and my laptop, Beth across the table and the Bible beside me. I'm so thankful for this moment, mostly when I stop to remember where I am and how I got here, and how in a short time I'll be gone.
Some beauty is so great that I wish I could capture it forever in my heart, and that people could see the beauty that I have felt and experienced when they looked into my eyes. I want to share it, I don't want to be the only one who feels it, who sees it.
And is it just beauty, just the beauty of the human experience that I felt tonight, or was it the peace and Presence of Someone who is Not Human, but who created the moment that I might give Him glory for it?
To give glory is the reason I live, its the reason that we love each other, its the reason that we are attracted to each other, its the reason that we serve each other, its the reason that we do everything, that he would have glory.
So God, this is for you, thank you for tonight, for the sunset, for the sweet air, for the freedom that you have given me and the freedom that is to come. I love you Lord Amen
