I returned about three weeks ago from the most amazing adventure of a lifetime. It was the most incredible experience my life has seen thus far. I do hope I'll have another adventure like it some day. Since this adventure was so incredible I thought it would be nice to start a blog about these last six months. You may read it or choose not to read it. I cannot promise it wont be wordy, and I cannot promise my grammar will be perfect. Everything I say here is truly form my heart. I'm an open book. I do wish that as you read you get something out of these words. I hope this blog refreshes you and I hope that somehow God uses this blog to touch your heart in new ways. This adventure changed me. and I cannot deny that. It changed the way I think, the way I act, the way I view God and the way I view myself.
You see, before all of this I was alone, or at least I felt like I was. I had been hurt by the world and by people so I shut off my heart to all feelings, to all people and to God. I was numb. Not the kind of numb that makes you glad you can no longer feel the pain and the hurt. No, it wasn't that kind. It was the kind of numb that makes you lay awake crying, weeping, wishing you could feel something, anything just for the sake of being able to feel at all. Every night I lay there in my bed thinking about the day. Thinking about how meaningless it had been. About how God probably didn't even care about me anymore because I was such a far cry away from what I thought a Christian should look like. I was sure He had given up on me a long time ago. So there I lay, night after night. Some nights I cried so long tears would no longer run from my eyes and the sound of my deep sobs filled the quiet void of the night. Others I would sit there wishing I had never been born.
I was going through all of this but I never told anyone, not even my family. From the outside looking in you would see a young girl, probably guess she had many friends, was confident in herself and had a purpose driven life. But none of that was true. I was striving for the approval of everyone around me. I was looking for love in all the wrong places and no matter how hard I looked or tried to find Him, I always failed.
One day, I remembered YWAM (Youth With A Mission). I had wanted to attend a DTS (Discipleship Training School) with YWAM for a quite some time and in June of 2012 I finally decided to apply. Soon after I applied I got accepted and began to raise the funds. Although I wasn't one-hundred percent sure that God loved me, I knew I had to go somewhere to find Him and that seemed like the perfect place. I had somehow adopted this weird view of God. I knew He was real and believed in Jesus but I was beginning to believe that He was distant and not involved in every day life. Applying to the school was my last effort in finding out if God was really who He said he was.
I knew I couldn't feel God but I couldn't deny that some people had an intimate relationship with Him. I would look at other Christians and just stand in awe at how happy they were, how they spoke about God and how they lived their lives honoring and worshiping Him. I wanted so badly the joy and happiness they had but no matter how hard I tried I couldn't get to their level. I could not feel God. I could not be happy. I saw who these people were. I saw who I was. I knew who I wanted to be but no matter how hard I tried I could not become it so I lived life in hopelessness and depression, striving but never achieving.
Finally January came and my bags were packed. I said teary-eyed goodbyes to my family and I walked through security, not looking back. I was done with myself. I saw where I had gotten me and was ready to fully surrender to God, if He was real, if He would have me, I was ready to be changed.
You see, before all of this I was alone, or at least I felt like I was. I had been hurt by the world and by people so I shut off my heart to all feelings, to all people and to God. I was numb. Not the kind of numb that makes you glad you can no longer feel the pain and the hurt. No, it wasn't that kind. It was the kind of numb that makes you lay awake crying, weeping, wishing you could feel something, anything just for the sake of being able to feel at all. Every night I lay there in my bed thinking about the day. Thinking about how meaningless it had been. About how God probably didn't even care about me anymore because I was such a far cry away from what I thought a Christian should look like. I was sure He had given up on me a long time ago. So there I lay, night after night. Some nights I cried so long tears would no longer run from my eyes and the sound of my deep sobs filled the quiet void of the night. Others I would sit there wishing I had never been born.
I was going through all of this but I never told anyone, not even my family. From the outside looking in you would see a young girl, probably guess she had many friends, was confident in herself and had a purpose driven life. But none of that was true. I was striving for the approval of everyone around me. I was looking for love in all the wrong places and no matter how hard I looked or tried to find Him, I always failed.
One day, I remembered YWAM (Youth With A Mission). I had wanted to attend a DTS (Discipleship Training School) with YWAM for a quite some time and in June of 2012 I finally decided to apply. Soon after I applied I got accepted and began to raise the funds. Although I wasn't one-hundred percent sure that God loved me, I knew I had to go somewhere to find Him and that seemed like the perfect place. I had somehow adopted this weird view of God. I knew He was real and believed in Jesus but I was beginning to believe that He was distant and not involved in every day life. Applying to the school was my last effort in finding out if God was really who He said he was.
I knew I couldn't feel God but I couldn't deny that some people had an intimate relationship with Him. I would look at other Christians and just stand in awe at how happy they were, how they spoke about God and how they lived their lives honoring and worshiping Him. I wanted so badly the joy and happiness they had but no matter how hard I tried I couldn't get to their level. I could not feel God. I could not be happy. I saw who these people were. I saw who I was. I knew who I wanted to be but no matter how hard I tried I could not become it so I lived life in hopelessness and depression, striving but never achieving.
Finally January came and my bags were packed. I said teary-eyed goodbyes to my family and I walked through security, not looking back. I was done with myself. I saw where I had gotten me and was ready to fully surrender to God, if He was real, if He would have me, I was ready to be changed.
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