Faith Story

There is no denying it: I am a storyteller.

But there is one story that I don't care to share very often - the story of God's redemptive work in my life.

I joined a small group recently and we spent our first night of Quaker fellowship (split guys and gals) sharing our faith stories. It was a burdensome night for me and I left feeling conflicted and frustrated. I don't like the script I've been given. I want to play a different role in God's story line.

I want a different story to tell.

I shared those thoughts with a dear friend of mine and she graciously reminded me that ultimately, mine is a story of REDEMPTION and, therefore, is beautiful in its recounting despite its occasionally jagged plot line.

A friend of a friend recently wrote out his testimony for a seminary class and posted it on his blog. It reminded me that I was given a similar assignment in my evangelism class this past spring, so I tracked down my paper. As I read my own story, I found myself focusing less on what I have been saved from and more on what I have been saved to. That shift in focus filled me with peace and my understanding of God's grace in my life fell upon me in a fresh way.

So, dear friends, please allow me to tell you my story.

It is one of my new favorites.

FAITH STORY

I grew up in a strong Baptist household and like every good Baptist, I have a conversion story.

I must have been 4 or 5 years old because I remember the sea of blue that surrounded me as I learned about heaven and hell in my AWANA Cubbies group. I snuggled in close to my sister that night as our parents tucked us in to our queen-sized bed. I asked her if she thought I was going to heaven and in true sisterly honesty she told me no. With fear gripping my heart, I asked if she was going to heaven and she confidently stated that she was. The thought of eternity apart from Hannah left me panic-stricken so I asked her what I could do to go to heaven with her. After leading me in a 7-year-old’s version of the sinner’s prayer, she informed me that I needed to sing Jesus Loves Me and then calmly reassured me that I would be with her forever. Oh yeah, by the way, Jesus would be there, too.

I had no idea what I had gotten myself into.

I was a very well-behaved, moral child which made it difficult to be a Christian. It is hard to be saved when there is nothing you feel you need to be saved from. I lived comfortably in the church’s culture and felt well-settled into my life of safety and security. One day in 5^th grade, I got in trouble for using my entire allowance to buy a shoe-box full of candy, but other than that I made it through my childhood with a pretty clean record. Or so I thought.

For as cunning as Satan can be, he sure does screw up sometimes. If he would have left me alone, I would have been perfectly content leaving Jesus on the flannel graph and measuring people’s level of Christian maturity by the quality of their tater tot hotdish. Instead, I found myself entangled in a life of secret sin that left me desperate for a savior. I headed off to a Christian college (because that is what Christians do, of course) hoping to find freedom, but instead I threw myself even deeper into the masquerade of Christian perfection and found myself paralyzed by fear in a sub-culture that appeared to offer even less grace than the world, much less Christ.

The summer after my sophomore year, I headed to the East Coast to live with my aunt and uncle while I worked at a hospital in Pennsylvania. Jesus was there, waiting for me beside a backyard pool in Downingtown. I was concerned with getting a tan; he was concerned with transforming my heart. So I met him there every morning, searching the Scriptures while soaking up the sun. He taught me about himself, and I learned about myself in the process. He taught me about my identity in him, about freedom and victory and joy and grace. He taught me to pray - not just to be ritualistically thankful for my food - but to actually commune with him, to pour out my heart and then listen to his response. I came to him bitter, angry, defeated, ashamed, hopeless and insecure. I left grounded, softened, humbled, broken, complete and satisfied.

We spent that entire summer together there in Downingtown and I fell deeply in love with my Savior who was quickly becoming my Lord. I begged him to come back to school with me and he did, although I found it more difficult to hear his voice when it wasn’t being carried on the summer breeze. I went back to Downingtown the following summer, ready for an emotional pool-side reunion only to discover that he was no longer waiting for me there. He had relocated to a place much deeper within me, waiting to be discovered through spiritual disciplines and to be drawn out in community.

He has been there with me ever since, patient in my wanderings, faithful in my failures, and responsible for my victories. I have an ever-increasing burden for spreading the glory of his name among the nations and it seems that he has been preparing me to take part in his work by helping to meet the physical and spiritual needs of a broken world through medical ministry.

There is still a lot of work to be done in my heart and mind. My flesh rears its ugly head more often than I care to admit and my spiritual heels get sore as I dig them in and demand my own way. But God (two of the sweetest words I know) remains faithful and continues to show me the all-surpassing wisdom of his ways.

I am learning to love the Church again, not with a cynical, self-righteous love (yes, I did actually act like there was such a thing at one point in time), but with a humble, sacrificial love that longs to see the Bride of Christ pursuing him with an undivided heart. I am learning to repent of the religion that I so often choose to value over my relationship with my Savior. I am learning to obey because I am accepted, not to feel accepted because I obey. And I am learning to rest daily in his atoning work on the cross which covers me in his righteousness – a very beautiful truth considering that I still can’t make a tater tot hotdish that’s fit to feed a dog.