What was life like before you met Jesus?
From an early age, I was introduced to who God is. My childhood was unstable, but one consistent thing was that we went to church every Sunday morning and Wednesday night. Growing up, reading between the lines, part of me felt as if it was a facade. Going to church, living one thing, but coming home to another. I never truly made the decision for myself to come to Christ. I went along with what I was told and was baptized at twelve because I knew it was the right thing to do. Fast forward years down the road, things were still bumpy in my personal life, and I began to look for distractions. God started to become a very distant part of my life. Instead of seeking out the holy joy He had to offer, I ran to things that looked good. Worldly things that would put a bandaid on my cracks. As time passed, I spiraled deeper and deeper into this hole. Putting on a front for my family that I was happy, but going back to my apartment with the feeling of emptiness screaming so loudly in my ears - I felt so misplaced, so lost. My substance abuse grew stronger. I knew I needed something. I started to fixate my attention on finding love, not on finding God. Once again, I put my attention on the wrong thing, trying to fill that void in my heart.
How did you meet Jesus?
During this time, I had stopped working and was just going to school full-time. I was running out of money while paying for college and bills, so I went back to serving. I returned to the company I was initially working at, just at a different location. Almost immediately, there was a feeling deep in me, and I knew that this was not where I was meant to be. I didn’t realize it was God at the time, but I listened to this feeling and asked my former boss in Cedar Rapids if I could come back and work there. At the time, I was living in Iowa City. So from Iowa City to Cedar Rapids, back to Iowa City, I commuted. Go to school, go to work, go out, and try to drown out my pain in substances. Christmas break rolled around, so I buried myself in work to distract myself from the consuming sadness.
One prayer I had prayed since I was a kid was that I find my husband. I think I prayed that so deeply because I never saw what a Christ-centered marriage looked like. I never saw the joy that marriage is supposed to bring, and I couldn’t wait to experience it. During what felt like my darkest time, I didn’t realize God was setting me in a place to meet my husband. At first, he was just a friend, a coworker. But then something flipped in me that I couldn’t ignore. I was a very closed-off person, people only saw what I wanted them to see, not the pain I was carrying in my heart. But with him, it was different. I knew I could trust him, so I told him everything. I never saw an end with him, and that is when I knew God had answered my biggest prayer. I knew this man in front of me was going to be my husband.
He gave me a choice between a future with him or to keep up my current lifestyle and lose him. I married my husband, Andy, on January 15, 2021. I knew He never left me - God was always right there in my corner, WAITING for me to come back home. I know that I do not need to look to other people but set my eyes solely upon him. That everything that happens comes from God, and God alone. That I need to seek the Lord and actively pursue him.
I don’t know what my life would have looked like or turned out if God had a different plan in mind. If I were speaking from my past self, the self that was stuck in that darkness, I would have told you that I felt forgotten. From an early age, I clung to Psalms 23:4, “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” Though I may have felt forgotten at that time, deep down, I knew God would rescue me. I knew He was comforting me, that He was in control. Looking back, I see that he was actively protecting me from physical harm. I was and am his child, and he is my protector.
Speaking now, from what I didn’t know then, I would tell anyone who felt as if they are in a similar spot that you are never forgotten. That God will leave the ninety-nine to find you, and when He is reunited with you he will throw a party out of gladness. That He loves you more than you can fathom. That no one here on Earth will give you unconditional love but Him. God will never turn his back on you, everything that happens is all within his beautiful timing - it is either yes or not yet.
After meeting my husband, I wish I could say from that point on, that I was on fire for God, but it took a few more years. The years in between were not easy, but hope never left me. Something I’ve always clung to is hope. Hope was one of the only things I held onto in my childhood. I knew God had great plans for my life and that this dark patch was not His final plan for me. I carried that same hope with me throughout those years and still to this day. Hope alone plays such a significant part in my faith. It took me blindly trusting in God for Him to work behind the scenes and create the life for me I now have - I know he is just getting started in his work for me.
During my and Andy’s engagement, I became pregnant with our firstborn. My father had invited me to church every Sunday, but I would make excuses. At this point in time, God was still not a priority in my life (even though I knew he should be), and I was too comfortable making excuses for why I didn’t have time for him. I didn’t realize this at the time, but I was idolizing so many other things over God. It wasn’t until I held our baby boy in my arms for the first time that I knew God had entrusted us with his soul for a reason. That we were meant to raise our little boy knowing and loving Jesus. This made me realize that my life is not about me at all but about God’s divine plan. That I am a mere vessel placed here during this time for God. At this specific time, it was to raise. love, and disciple our son. A few months into motherhood I had realized that I had the order all wrong. My priority was our child first, then my husband, and lastly, God. I was completely backward and pouring from an empty cup. I was running to a dried-up well and trying to pour into my family from that instead of running to our Father to fill my cup. This is something I am currently practicing that my relationship with God is first and foremost, from God, my cup will flow into my husband, and from my husband, my cup will flow into our children. “But women will be saved through childbearing--if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.” - 1 Timothy 2:15. It has taken me a long time and a lot of mistakes, but praise the Lord that He is so forgiving. Six years of being together with my husband, God has blessed us with two beautiful boys. Two boys I pray so deeply we disciple and raise to know and love our Lord.
Before returning back home to Jesus, I tried everything I could imagine to fill that void in my heart. I sought worldly things from people, from substances, from myself. I tried to learn more about yoga, chakras, and energy healing, thinking this was it! This was my way out of my darkness. All of these led to dead ends, most left me worse off than before. It’s crazy looking back to that time, all I want to do is let my past self know that God is there. That He is holding you in his arms and how much He loves you.
I’m so grateful I found God again, my life would be nothing without Him. All these blessings I have in our life are because of Him. I give God all the glory. He found me in dirty rags, dead in my sin, and breathed life into me again. I don’t want to be a lukewarm Christian anymore, but on fire for God!
After being saved by Jesus, what is your life like now?
I grew up knowing who God was… the idea of what he represented. What others wanted and expected of me. But now, at age 25, I am deciding for myself that it is time to come home permanently. To live out this beautiful life God has gifted me with through Him - for I am only here because of Him. To know His word, to be God’s hands and feet on this earth. To try and show people a glimmer of how strong His love, kindness, and grace is. God could have forgotten me at the darkest of my times, He could have easily turned his back on me the way I did Him. But He never left me. He never stopped protecting me, He never stopped working for me. "What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. “ (Matt. 18:12-13).
I have decided to be baptized because I want to give everything in me to Him, I want to fully surrender. Yes, I am human, so I will stumble along the way, but by the grace of Jesus, my eyes are finally opened. “These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason, they are before the thrones of God; and they service Him day and night in His temple; and He who sits on the throne will spread His tabernacle over them.” (Rev. 7:14-15)