Lately my pastor has been talking about the importance of telling your story. We all have a story to tell, and when we take the time to really look at our stories, I think we would all find a similar theme: God's undying love working in the lives of humanity. It looks different in the life of every person, but He's there to be found if you search for him.
All that to say, I thought perhaps it might be time to tell my story...
I grew up with two parents who loved each other - as well as my sister and I - very deeply, who were both integrally involved in my upbringing, and who were able to provide for all of my needs during even the tightest and most strained seasons of our lives as a young family. Mom and Dad put Jenny and I through private education at our local church's school where we enjoyed the opportunity to have meaningful relationships with our teachers and with spiritual leaders. I always had someone to turn to, be it for help with my friendships, homework, or relationship with God. With all that going for me, it's not hard to imagine that I grew up as a good kid. One of my earliest memories is the night I accepted Jesus into my heart, and He's been there ever since.
Let me say this now: At the age of three, Jesus didn't save me from my past life of turmoil and sin. He saved me from my sin nature; from who I would be without Him. And from that He saves me daily.
As I grew older and started middle and high school, the beginnings of a lifestyle of fear began to permeate my thoughts and actions. I couldn't even say exactly how it started, but by the end of high school I was literally stagnated by fear - about my identity, my destiny, my dreams. A girl, who at the age of five could tell you exactly how she would change the world in medical missions, had become a seventeen-year-old who wouldn't take Biology 12 in case the dissections made her throw up! The only dream I still managed to cling to was that of overseas missions, but even of that I had dismal forebodings of failure and of somehow disappointing God. My fears had overcome me.
After I graduated from high school, I spent two years in a discipleship/internship program called Master's Commission. It was here that I realized how I had been trying to define myself. I was striving to do and be enough, in and of myself, to match an unreachable standard of perfection in word and thought and deed. In my arrogance, I thought that I could somehow be worthy of God's love and acceptance. I didn't trust Him to save me; instead I feared that I wouldn't be enough. I had let a web of lies and fears wrap its way around my heart and mind, and found myself striving so hard to be saved that I forgot who it is that does the saving.
And then the Bible told me that I could never save myself. Isaiah 64:6 says that all our righteousness is as filthy rags. In other words, the very greatest things I can do for God are dirt compared to His perfection, and every thought that told me how unfit I am for God was true.
Talk about a freeing revelation!
Why? Because right there in that place is where I truly met the love of Jesus. Jesus, the son of God who became a man to live the perfect life that I could never live and die the gruesome death that I deserve. Jesus, who, in that moment of his death, took my fears and insecurities and mistrust upon himself so that His perfect life could be credited to me as righteousness.
Yes, the best I can do is dirt. But I'm not judged based on the best I can do; I'm judged based on what Jesus did because He loves me. And when I stand in that place of acceptance, I have nothing left to fear! My failure is already accounted for.
So what does that mean in my life? It means that I can dream again. It means that I have a hope for my future - a hope of a full, productive, successful life that's motivated by love instead of fear. It means that I can be brave. It means that, instead of avoiding biology, I'm going to be a doctor, and - all five-year-old fantasies aside - I fully intend to change my world.
There's a song called You Make Me Brave that sums up my life in a phrase:
You make me brave. You make me brave.
You called me beyond the shore into the waves.
You make me brave. You make me brave.
No fear can hinder now the promises You've made.
In short, the love of Jesus changed my life. That's my story.
All that to say, I thought perhaps it might be time to tell my story...
I grew up with two parents who loved each other - as well as my sister and I - very deeply, who were both integrally involved in my upbringing, and who were able to provide for all of my needs during even the tightest and most strained seasons of our lives as a young family. Mom and Dad put Jenny and I through private education at our local church's school where we enjoyed the opportunity to have meaningful relationships with our teachers and with spiritual leaders. I always had someone to turn to, be it for help with my friendships, homework, or relationship with God. With all that going for me, it's not hard to imagine that I grew up as a good kid. One of my earliest memories is the night I accepted Jesus into my heart, and He's been there ever since.
Let me say this now: At the age of three, Jesus didn't save me from my past life of turmoil and sin. He saved me from my sin nature; from who I would be without Him. And from that He saves me daily.
As I grew older and started middle and high school, the beginnings of a lifestyle of fear began to permeate my thoughts and actions. I couldn't even say exactly how it started, but by the end of high school I was literally stagnated by fear - about my identity, my destiny, my dreams. A girl, who at the age of five could tell you exactly how she would change the world in medical missions, had become a seventeen-year-old who wouldn't take Biology 12 in case the dissections made her throw up! The only dream I still managed to cling to was that of overseas missions, but even of that I had dismal forebodings of failure and of somehow disappointing God. My fears had overcome me.
After I graduated from high school, I spent two years in a discipleship/internship program called Master's Commission. It was here that I realized how I had been trying to define myself. I was striving to do and be enough, in and of myself, to match an unreachable standard of perfection in word and thought and deed. In my arrogance, I thought that I could somehow be worthy of God's love and acceptance. I didn't trust Him to save me; instead I feared that I wouldn't be enough. I had let a web of lies and fears wrap its way around my heart and mind, and found myself striving so hard to be saved that I forgot who it is that does the saving.
And then the Bible told me that I could never save myself. Isaiah 64:6 says that all our righteousness is as filthy rags. In other words, the very greatest things I can do for God are dirt compared to His perfection, and every thought that told me how unfit I am for God was true.
Talk about a freeing revelation!
Why? Because right there in that place is where I truly met the love of Jesus. Jesus, the son of God who became a man to live the perfect life that I could never live and die the gruesome death that I deserve. Jesus, who, in that moment of his death, took my fears and insecurities and mistrust upon himself so that His perfect life could be credited to me as righteousness.
Yes, the best I can do is dirt. But I'm not judged based on the best I can do; I'm judged based on what Jesus did because He loves me. And when I stand in that place of acceptance, I have nothing left to fear! My failure is already accounted for.
So what does that mean in my life? It means that I can dream again. It means that I have a hope for my future - a hope of a full, productive, successful life that's motivated by love instead of fear. It means that I can be brave. It means that, instead of avoiding biology, I'm going to be a doctor, and - all five-year-old fantasies aside - I fully intend to change my world.
There's a song called You Make Me Brave that sums up my life in a phrase:
You make me brave. You make me brave.
You called me beyond the shore into the waves.
You make me brave. You make me brave.
No fear can hinder now the promises You've made.
In short, the love of Jesus changed my life. That's my story.
thank you for sharing Angie, very well said and true, not our righteousness but His righteousness applied to our account when we repent and trust in His finished work on the cross :) <3 <3 <3 God Bless You!
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