Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Let Me Explain... Part 1

     I feel like I should explain myself... and by explain myself, I should tell you my story. if you're going to read anything I write, then you should know who I am. One thing I have learned to appreciate while in college is the importance of someone's story. We all have them, and too often I have found myself caught up in the heat of a discussion or casting judgments far too quickly without first pausing to discover just why someone holds that particular opinion. We are shaped by our circumstances and rarely ever do our ideals just spring out of thin air.
    
But enough rambling. This is my story:

     I was born to two of the most wonderful human beings on the planet. Some people genuinely believe their parents are good people. Fact: Mine are saints. My childhood was as pretty close to perfect as you can get. I took ballet classes, played dress up, and with three younger sisters and lots of cousins, I never found myself with a shortage of playmates. I was a princess, adored by the king and queen of my home (mom and dad) as well as my loyal subjects (dogs, cats, stuffed animals). Life was a fairytale in which my sisters and I fought to slay dragons, rescue our people from invaders, and planned our future careers as pop stars.
     Yes, childhood was good, and I have nothing I can blame my mother for one day. But that is not my complete story. As I said before, I was born into a family of saints. In fact, I was born on a Wednesday, and I was in church the following Sunday. A people pleaser at heart, I have always been a good kid with this strong urge to make sure everyone is proud of me. As a result, I was always in children's choir, the very best at Bible drills, knew every Sunday School answer, and can even remember most of the VBS theme songs from the past 15 years. I knew everything about God and the Bible. And from an early age, I was very good at having everyone fooled into thinking I had life figured out.
     But I was very wrong. Something was missing. I was ten years old when I allowed God to break into my heart. You see, it wasn't enough for me to be a good person, or to have this massive wealth of Biblical knowledge. I have to know Him.  It's like my relationship with my favorite basketball player, Joakim Noah. I could tell you all of his stats, or where he played in high school, or his point total in last Monday's game. But I have never met him personally, and if I were to see him today, he would not recognize me as anything more than just another body in a room.
      You see, I have to know him personally.The only way I could ever meet Joakim Noah is if someone introduces me to him. I am not important enough that he would ever see me upon my request. In the same way, I need to be introduced to God in order to have a relationship with Him. There is nothing I could ever do on my own to be good enough to be with Him on my own.
      And that's where Jesus comes in. In order for me to have a relationship with the God of the universe, He came to earth in the form of a man, lived a perfect life, died a horrible death on a cross, and then defeated death by resurrecting from the dead three days later. He is my mediator. Yet more than that... I learned that I do not follow a God who is unjust or unloving, but a God who sees my flaws and loves me anyways. Not only does He love me... He wants me, and He cares about the details. He sees me.
      I have never been the same since I made the decision to allow God to be my Savior and to surrender my life to Him... trusting His will over mine. He has made all the difference.
      

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