Faith
As a young woman in my mid-twenties, I should have been living out the most amazing years of my life. Instead, because of much heartbreak and hardship, I found myself lonely and lost, and all alone in the big city of Chicago.
I had brought it on myself, of course. A myriad of poor decisions had fated me to that place; that cold city and time in my life. I had moved there from Texas with my college boyfriend despite all the warning signs that the relationship was unhealthy and destined for failure. And predictably, within 9 months of my arriving, we came to our inevitable and dramatic end, leaving me all alone in that windy city. My pride would not let me admit my failure and just come home to Texas, and since I had little/no relationship with friends or family at the time, "home" was a distant concept anyway.
So I stayed. And I coped the best way I knew how, the way I always had. I partied a lot, hung out with "friends" who were nothing more than drinking buddies, and moved from one "relationship" to another, always subconsciously selecting men that would use me or could be used by me, depending on my mood.
I was very successful in my career and out every night in one of the greatest cities on earth, but I was desperately lonely. I begin to notice that ache and wondered how to fill it, but I couldn't think of where to start. I had no real friends, no close family, and no foundation of faith. I had tried a few churches over the years, but had always been fearful of them, finding the people within their walls judgmental and hypocritical (with only a few rare exceptions.)
That all changed in 2002, when my longing for Texas and warmer weather became too much, and I began to plan my exit strategy. I talked to my company and we negotiated an agreement that if I would complete the current development project I was on and hire/train for it, then I could leave at the end with a nice big bonus in hand.
Since warm bodies = bonus/Texas, I began to hire and train like crazy, even rather "non-selectively," bringing on a few folks I didn't particularly love, just to get the job done. One of these people was Celina. She was one of those adorably happy people, which was grating. And she pranced around with a little bit of a holier than thou attitude - all full of sunshine and answers for life - you know the type. It felt like she thought she had it all figured out and might be better than the rest of us.
So one day during the course of the training, we called her out on it and told her she needed to quit walking around with her nose in the air. And I will never forget her surprising response.
She looked at us and said, "Really? Wow - that's terrible. I better go home and think about that."
And she must have, because she came back the next day and surprised me even more in saying, "I went home last night and thought about what you said. I also prayed about it and I talked to my husband. And you are right - I do sometimes have a bad attitude. And I would like to thank you for pointing that out to me because that is not who I want to be. I am going to be working on that."
Um... what?!?!?! That certainly got my attention.
So as luck (or GOD I should say) would have it, Celina and I had to work together a lot after that. Especially on Sundays, several in a row, in fact. And on those Sundays, she would prance into the office in her little cute church dress with her big happy smile and her Bible, and I. Would. Hate. Her. And during the slow periods, she would get that Bible out and read and study and I would sit across the office and glare at her through my hangover.
Then one day she looked up at me and asked me, "How about you, Christine? Do you have a relationship with God?"
And I remember my answer to her - clear as day - I said, "God doesn't want any part of me."
And she said, surprising me once again, "Honey, if He wanted me, He wants you. Trust me on that."
And then she began to share her story. She began to tell me who she was before she found God, in quite vivid and raunchy detail. She described a life of drugs and sex and sin that made me look like a saint (incredibly challenging to do.)
And all the while, I sat astounded. And my heart began to think that maybe, just maybe, God might want me after all. Then she began to share who she had been becoming since she gave her life over to him. And I begin to listen.
See I knew who Jesus was, and I knew He had died on the cross. Someone had even thought to tell me that it was my fault and I was a sinner. But no one told me that He CHOSE to do it. And no one said that He would gladly do it again, even if I were the only person on earth to do it for. No one told me that the whole purpose of it all was so that He could offer me love and forgiveness, should I choose to accept it. And no one told me that faith wasn't all about rules I could never keep or standards I could never live up to. It was about relationship.
So over the next few weeks, Celina and I would chat a little bit and she would give me things to read and I would come back and ask questions and we would go thru the Bible together and answer them. I liked what I was learning, but there was still that deep-seeded fear that I had wandered too far from good & God to ever be invited back; that I had sinned too much and done too little to ever gain acceptance.
Then one day she asked me again, "How about you, Christine? Would you like to have a relationship with God?"
And I told her how I felt: Like God was so far away from where I was - a million sin-miles, so to speak - & that I had been going the wrong direction for so long that there was just too much space in between us. I told her I didn't think I could ever find my way back to goodness or God.
And she said, "Well, let me take the pressure off of you. YOU don't have to find your way back to anything. Christine, He will come to you."
She went on to explain that Jesus wasn't sitting up in some big palace waiting for people to get their crap together and only then allowing them to come to him and grovel at his feet. He went to them, and He did it while they were still broken and messy.
She told me that He was right there with us, right that very second, and that if I wanted to know him, all I had to do was to turn my heart to him and ask. I could just tell him that I loved him and that I believed. I could just admit I was broken and a mess. I could just tell him that I wanted him in my life and needed his forgiveness. And He would give it freely.
So right then and right there, we got down on our knees together. And on the floor of my office in Chicago - that great big cold city where I had found myself so lonely and so lost - I gave my life to Christ.
I have been a Christian for about 12 years now and it has been a bit of a tough journey for me. I have insisted on learning my "Jesus lessons" the same way I learned all my life lessons; the hard way. But when I get to tell my story, I tell it with a grateful heart and as a very different person than I was back then. I am not perfect (by any stretch of the imagination,) but I am whole.
Someone asked me once if I wished I could go back and undo all those decisions and mistakes I made before I came to Christ. The answer to that is no.
Don't get me wrong, I hate some of the things I did "B.C." And I hate how I hurt others, hurt myself, and no doubt grieved the heart of God. But all of that gave me my story. All of that gave me this love for Christ that still, all these years later, keeps me so in AWE of him. And all of that made Romans 8:38-39 a living breathing scripture for me. That "...neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." All we have to do... is ask.
Now, as a Christian writer and speaker, I get to share this amazing redemption story He has given me. I get to speak truth and grace into the hearts of women all over the country and introduce them to a God who loves us, often in spite of ourselves. It is my way of giving back to the God who saved me; it is my offering.
My hope and prayer is that God will position me before more lost and lonely souls, and that when they look at me and say the same thing I said all those years ago - that "God doesn't want any part me," I will be able to look them right in the eye and tell them, "Honey , if He wanted me, He wants you. Trust me on that."
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Hoping I don't come off as "creepy",
Tiffany :)