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I was born in the summer of 1990, in Mapleton Minnesota. The youngest of three daughters privileged to be born to those who know and love the Lord. I was raised in a Christian home and taught the principles and truths of God’s Word from a very young age. I came to know the Lord when I was quite young, I don’t know the day or even the year of my conversion. I think this may be one of the reasons that growing up I struggled with a lot of doubt. I struggled with fear, and for the most part it was a silent struggle. Something I kept to myself. I remember praying the “sinner’s prayer” over and over, still not convinced that I was saved. As I look back on it now, I think what I was looking for was a feeling. I thought that if I was saved I needed to feel a certain way. When I was about 14, we started studying through the book of 1 John on Sunday mornings. “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, in order that you may KNOW that you have eternal life.” 1 John 5:13 One of the great themes of this epistle is assurance. Here it was! What I had been waiting for! The confirmation of my faith in Christ. Salvation is not a feeling, it’s not an event or a specific time – It’s a change. It’s a changed relationship to sin and to this world and most of all a changed relationship to Almighty God. I realized that being a Christian is not a complete absence of sin – but a freedom from sin’s control. This was a big turning point in my life. But the Lord was not done – Complacency is a struggle, I think, in every believer’s life. Being a Christian seems easier when you are riding on a spiritual “high”, but what happens when that wears off? What happens when you don’t feel like pursuing the things of the Lord? This can be a dangerous place to be. Complacency is comfortable. I like to be comfortable :) . But comfort, as I would find, was apparently not what I had signed up for. For about 5 years, from my latter teens to early 20s, I was stuck in this whirlpool of complacency. There were times when I would grow, little things here and there that the Lord would use to rekindle the fire of my heart, but they didn’t last. It was this constant vacillating of back and forth and trying to live holy solely based on my own strength. I thought I had everything figured out. My pride and arrogance during this time had grown significantly. I was confident in my own ability and plans that I had built. When I was 21 the Lord tore it all down. All my plans, all my dreams and all my pride. I remember crying in my room, completely broken and at the end of myself, which was exactly where I needed to be. I came before the Lord and laid everything down. I remember the peace that immediately followed, tears of pain turned to tears of joy. The years that followed were some of the sweetest in my Christian life. There was a new closeness with the Lord that had not been there before, a new desire and a new strength that was not my own – It was so much greater. So, when you don’t feel like pursuing the things of God – do it anyway. Christianity is more than a feeling, it’s a fight. “It’s not a spectator sport – it’s a war”. If we are not pursuing the things of God then we are pursuing the things of this world, and those things do not last. As I write this and recall the Lord’s process of sanctification in my life thus far, I feel like I could keep writing for days recounting all that the Lord has taught me about Himself and what it means to be a child of the Most High. Even now as I think of how to “end” my testimony I realize there is no end. The Lord is not done and that’s a blessed thought. “…But the years since have proved to me over and over again, that the heart set to do the Father’s will, need never fear defeat.” – Elizabeth Elliot |
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"If you abide in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine, and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free."
John 8:31-32
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