"What's your story about His glory?"

My Testimony:

I was saved at the age of four after attending a week of meetings at Camp Iroquoina. The gospel had been clearly presented all week through the use of the wordless book. It was after we came home that I distinctly remember walking to the kitchen and telling my mom that I needed to get saved. I prayed with her, confessing myself to be a sinner and accepting Jesus as my Savior and that began my walk with the Lord.

I do not remember much about my early years as a Christ follower but I was blessed in those years to have a family that was faithfully involved in our local church and parents who were committed to raising their children in a godly way.

When I was about eleven I remember beginning to make my faith my own. It was at that point that I was baptized before my church congregation and while at eleven I don’t know how much I really understood about all the beauty and symbolism of baptism I knew that it was my public declaration of my faith in Christ. I began having my own daily quiet time and started keeping a journal of what God was teaching me, prayers I had prayed, etc.  I also started taking communion and realizing with that how I needed to examine myself before Christ.

When I was in my teen years I struggled with normal teen things; like learning who I am, issues with friends, and talking back to my parents. There were a few particular incidents that stand out from those years as moments that shaped my faith.

When I was fourteen one of my best friends from church tried to commit suicide and praise the Lord, his attempt was unsuccessful. The days that followed that experience were very hard and I remember going to school bearing a heavy weight of grief. As I went throughout my day and I prayed for him and grieved for him I remember the Lord stopping me in my tracks with this word of comfort: “You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.” Isaiah 26:3. I took the Lord at his word and began to meditate on Him as I walked to class, to sing hymns silently to myself as I sat in the lunch room and I experienced the truth of those words. As I meditated on the Lord I experienced that peace that passes all understanding in a very real and supernatural way.

My next crisis of faith came when I was sixteen. The previous summer I had attended the counselor- in -training program at Camp Li-Lo-Li. I had grown up with many of the other trainees and we were all very close. Just shy of a year later I came home one night to learn that my friend Tom had been killed in a car accident. I remember one really important lesson from that time that my mom taught me. After Tom died she looked at me and said “Is God good? And do you trust Him?” Every time since that I have been faced with grief or loss I remember those words and answer  the hard yes.

During my teen years I was blessed to be part of a great youth group with leaders who poured into our lives with all the love of Christ. I was mentored by some marvelous women and men and I thank God for their impact in my life. I hope that in my current role as a youth group leader I am having the kind of impact on the lives of the young people that my leaders had on me.

I also had the joy to be able to serve at two Christian camps: Li-Lo-Li and Iroquoina, as both a counselor and a member of the support staff. I was encouraged and built up by my times at camp and I was thrilled to be able to be a part of the work of the gospel there.

I graduated from high school in 2003 and went to Roberts Wesleyan College for nursing. I had felt from the time I was thirteen that God had called me to nursing and I never wavered from that goal. My college years God used to continue to grow and stretch me.  I participated in a college and career Bible Study on Thursday nights and that group of friends along with my 6 “Townies” (so named our senior year because we lived in a townhouse) were my core group—we loved each other, prayed for each other, wept with each other and loved the Lord together.

After I graduated from college I moved back home and started my first job as a registered nurse on the same floor, in the same hospital where 20 some years earlier my mom had started her first nursing job. Shortly after finishing my orientation I experienced my first panic attack one morning when coming on my shift. I had never had a panic attack before and so with shortness of breath and a heart rate in the 140s I wound up in the emergency room  getting worked up for pulmonary embolism, cardiac abnormalities, and all other such things. In the next few days it became apparent that there was nothing wrong with my heart and that this was “simply” anxiety. One of the hardest things that I ever did was get up the next day and go back into work.  And it did not get better instantly but thanks to my dad who would not come get me when I called him crying that second day but told me that I needed to face this and my mom who got up with me daily at 5 o’clock in the morning and prayed with me before my shift I made it through my first year as a new nurse. I learned about believing prayer and trusting God and what it really means to have the peace that passes all understanding. I am thankful.

In the years since I have changed jobs and I now work at an inner city clinic, which I never would have imagined if someone had told me that I would be there someday. I am much more confident and assertive than I would have ever thought possible. God has given me opportunities to shine His love in some very dark situations and I praise Him for that. He is daily teaching me what it means to love those around me. And I pray that I am daily learning to live in the reality of His grace.

I have wrestled with hard questions and have been learning that God is big enough for my doubts and fears. I have learned the value of Christian community, the importance of vulnerability and the role of  the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ in my daily life. I am not perfect, and I am often a mess, but God is greater than my messes and His love sustains me. Praise Him!