How I came to know Christ is not something that I share very often or even publicly. I’ve had a lot of bad experiences doing so, and my faith became a quiet thing because of it.
In the past, other Christians have been quick to call me a liar over it. It happened a lot while I was younger and attending a Christian school. After a while of getting so many negative responses over it, I felt like God was telling me to be quiet about it until He told me it was time to share. So that is exactly what I did. There were many times where I wanted to just blurt it out with people, but God was always telling me to wait for His time.
Well, His time is now :-).
Actually, His time started with my friend Alaina. And after my wonderful conversation with her where she was so sweet about it all and so encouraging, God told me it was time to talk about it again.
The next person I shared it with was my husband. Earlier this year he accepted Christ as his Lord and Savior.. Joel telling me that is easily one of the most amazing moments in my life! I actually cried haha :-). And it opened the door to share my testimony with him, because he’s a part of it.. even though I didn’t meet him until eleven years after I was saved.
Wait.. what?? How can my husband be a part of my salvation when I didn’t meet him until eleven years after the fact? Well, that’s easy.. God planned it that way.
I’ve always told everyone that God meant Joel for me, and I was serious about it. Joel was and is the husband I’ve prayed for since I was a little girl. I knew after hearing Joel’s voice for the first time that he was the man God had planned for me. Because I’d seen him before. I’d heard his voice before. I knew him.. I’d known him since I was seven years old.
And here’s where I lose people. How could I have known someone I’d never even met before? It’s not possible, right?
There’s where you’re wrong! Let me explain.
I came to know Christ as my Savior through a dream. I have always felt called to Christ. I don’t remember a time where I haven’t felt His presence or His pull. It’s as natural and ingrained into my life as breathing is. But I wasn’t saved. I didn’t understand what salvation really was.. I was only seven after all :-). But I believed in God. I just needed that final whisper to bring me to Him.
Only God didn’t whisper to me. He shouted in a voice so loud to me that night that it still fills my life to this day. And He shouted through a dream.
I dreamed of heaven. I dreamed of my loved ones and my friends. I dreamed of complete strangers that I’m still meeting. I dreamed of the beauty of walking through heaven’s gates, and I dreamed of the joy and all consuming love that is finally seeing my Savior face to face.. a feeling that still overwhelms me with it’s breathtaking beauty. I dreamed of what it’s like to stand in front of my Savior. I felt what it was like to touch Him. I can still feel what it was like when He took my hands in His scarred ones and welcomed me Home. I can still feel what it was like when He took my pain away. And I can still see my husband there, waiting for me. I can still feel his arms around me as he welcomed me and rejoiced in my being there. I can still see his beautiful eyes glowing. I can still feel my joy in seeing him there. And I can still see my children there. I can still see what Elodie and Eowyn look like as they told me they would come Home one day too, and even though I knew none of their names then.. I can still see my three greatest loves as clearly now as I did that night.
And then I dreamed of what it feels like to have that beauty and joy taken from me as I was taken from God’s presence and tossed into hell. I dreamed of the agony of knowing there is a God without ever being able to feel Him again. And the pain that’s worse than any death because I can’t reach Him. I dreamed of the loneliness of being able to see my loved ones in heaven rejoicing without me while I watch and never touch or speak to them again. I can still feel what it was like to have all of my earthly pains crushing me without God there to help me carry them. I can still feel that difference between heaven and hell.. the difference between a joy that knows no bounds and a pain that burns and drowns you. The difference between light and dark, only you can see the light but never reach it.
It was and is the single most powerful experience of my life. My mother walked me through my salvation as soon as I woke up, and I haven’t doubted my beliefs since then.. not to say I didn’t waiver because I did.
The hardest times of my life where when I was my sickest, especially through high school. I didn’t understand, and I didn’t want to even try to. So while I believed in God the same way I always had.. I was angry. I was very, very angry. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair to be sick when I had never doubted God, when I had never wavered. I struggled with that, and I gave up on God’s promise of Joel. So I dated just a little bit my last few years of school. My heart was never in it though, because my heart was lost to Joel the night he welcomed me Home. I was just too bitter and angry with God to realize it..
Until God smacked me upside the head with my husband one very random day online :-). He brought Joel to me in His perfect time when I was lying broken on the ground. He carried my prayed for husband to me, and then He helped me stand to reach him.
And then God fulfilled another promise when Joel finally accepted Him. And he used my being sick to do so. Joel struggled with believing in God for a long time because of all of the bad things in this world. And he struggled even more when he realized just how sick I was. How could I love God so much when He was allowing me to be sick? God used my faith in spite of being sick to draw Joel towards Him. It makes every single second of suffering and pain worth it to know that Joel will be standing there waiting for me when I go Home.
I can be sick now and be at peace with it.. even though there are days I struggle with that.. because I know this is temporary. I know that when I go Home, I will never feel these pains again. And in the meantime, God is using it for His purpose and His glory.
And I’m still seeing my Salvation Dream unfold. It’s an amazing thing to see a total stranger and to know that they will be in heaven beside you because you’ve seen them there. You’ve never spoken to them, you don’t even know their name.. but you know them.
There are many people who doubt my testimony, and there are others who call it a flat out lie.
I know different. I’m watching it happen every single day. And each time God lets me revisit that beautiful moment, more is revealed to me. Like when I met Alaina, and I knew instantly that I saw her and her children in heaven standing behind my family. Or when my grandfathers both died, and I watched them go Home those nights and be welcomed into the arms of their Lord. I watched their joy.
God has given me the most amazing spiritual gift. I am so blessed.
It is a truly beautiful thing to behold.. to see your faith still coming like that.
My favorite Bible verse is 1 Corinthians 13:12 for a reason. It’s the verse that my Lord spoke to me as he held my hands:
And He spoke that verse to me after I asked Him why I was never fully healed. This is something that I haven’t told anyone before. And it wasn’t apart of this original salvation story telling, but I feel it’s one of the most important parts of my faith and that God is telling me it’s time to share once again.
I was angry for a long time over being sick. How on earth could I be so unwell when I was so filled with faith? I never doubted, but here I am. I was that kid that believed so much and so strongly, that I had already decided to grow up to be a missionary. Why was I sick?
While I was younger, especially during my teenage years, I was so blind to what God had shown me in my salvation dream. I was praying and praying and praying and praying and praying. But I forgot something very important..
I already knew what it felt like to have your Savior take your hands and wipe away all your pain and sickness.
I knew that kind of beauty, but I was so angry and bitter with God that I just ignored it and kept refusing to take any part of my health seriously.
I was nineteen and pregnant with my first daughter, Elodie Lorelai, before I finally let go of that anger and turned back to God. I couldn’t carry that beautiful God given miracle child inside of me and taint her with my bitterness. The time had come to let it all go and remember what God had been promising me since I was seven years old.
People asked all the time, and still ask now but for different reasons, how on earth I could be that sick and still keep functioning. How could I not be lying about it when the symptoms were and are still that bad. And now they ask how do I find the strength to do it.
I have the strength because I know what’s waiting for me.. because I know what it feels like to have Christ hold your hands and take your pain away.
This sickness, this pain.. it’s temporary. This is not Home. Home is waiting for me, and it’s a Home where pain has no place. It’s a Home where sickness doesn’t exist. It’s a Home where all of my loved ones are joyful and healthy. It’s a Home where Elodie and Eowyn will never know pain. What’s thirty or forty more years of pain when God is carrying me towards eternity?
I can bare this because I KNOW without a shadow of a doubt what it will be like on the day my sickness is taken from me. I can still feel it. I can still feel this burden being lifted from me. I can still hear the sounds of rejoicing from all of my loves. I can still hear the sound of Christ rejoicing because I no longer even remember what pain is.
So to answer everyone who has ever asked or who ever will ask.. No. I do not believe that God will heal me through my prayers. I already know He’s going to.. when I go Home. What a gift that will be! And it’s certainly worth waiting for :-). In the meantime, He’s using my faith and health to draw others to Him. It makes every bit of suffering worth it to know that He’s using me to love others! It’s a beautiful, beautiful thing!
And while I wait to go Home for eternity, God is answering prayers.. in small ways, but He is answering my prayers for relief. And He’s drawing me and my husband closer to Him at the same time. How could I want anything else?
How unbelievably humbling to know that God loves me so much, He promised to heal me before I knew something was even wrong. How can I not be strong? How can I not just handle it? Faith is still coming, and it’s ending with a healing.. and in the meantime God is carrying me along while I can’t walk by myself because He loves me that much. So that’s how I do it.. purely through the love of my God.
..Faith is still coming..
Promise made. Promise kept on August 9th, 2014.
We love you Alaina :)
..Written November 8th, 2013..
happiness grows.. 