My Refuge & Strength

This summer, I (along with a team of five others) will be going to the Czech Republic with Josiah Venture. Consequentially, I’ve developed a nasty habit of pronouncing it Cha-zeck, just because I do that with all words that have odd silent letters (like diaphragm and Illinois). It’s bad. Anyway, our team’s assignment for this week was to prepare our testimonies to share at “any given moment” - whatever that entails - so I thought I’d prepare it here, just in case anyone else would like to know my story as well. I’ll come back to the trip itself in the near future.

Let’s see if I can keep this short…

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Having grown up with Christian parents who dragged me [kicking and screaming] to church every Sunday, it was easy to be a believer. Words like “sin” and “resurrection” were normal. Singing songs to God was a regular occurrence. Taking grape juice and a tiny cracker, calling in Christ’s blood and body was something everyone did. So it wasn’t until I got to be about 10 that I started to look at this whole Christianity business differently.

I was baptized at 11, after having relied on God heavily during a year with the worst teacher known to man. That next summer at Hume Lake, I finally got that being a believer wasn’t about being good, getting to heaven, or even avoiding hell. It was about a personal relationship with the Creator.

Once junior high began, the friends I knew in elementary school became different people. I was a different person, too. And I knew that if I continued to spend all my time with them, they would mold me into someone I didn’t want to be. So freshman year, I started to hang out with the people who shared my beliefs; people I’m still close friends with now.

The next year, I went through a “self-discovery” phase, as I like to call it. Like most fifteen-year-olds, I had no idea who I was. And also like most fifteen-year-olds, I thought I was the only one. I became a vegetarian because maybe that’s who I was. I started swearing a lot because maybe that’s who I was. I began copying what other people were doing because maybe I was supposed to be like them. Needless to say, I wasn’t any of the things I tried. All it did for me was lead me down a road of depression.

The funny thing about that road is you start driving with the top down, trying to enjoy the view that’s flying past you. You think that this is the right road to be on - surely it’ll lead you to where you need to go. But before you know it, there’s a steep downward slope - and the car is going too fast - you can’t stop falling. And even if you’d like to, it doesn’t even occur to you to try the breaks.

Even when I was ten, I struggled with inexplicable sadness. But then, I always found some way out. This time, it only kept getting worse and worse. Suicide was beginning to feel like the better option. The problem with that was I couldn’t do that. I knew in my heart that it was purely selfish and cowardly. So my next best option was cutting myself. When that didn’t make things any better, I knew I couldn’t go on living like I was. It was either kill myself or tell others. And I didn’t want to tell anyone. I really didn’t want to tell anyone. But I couldn’t kill myself. At least, not yet. I now know it’s a genetic thing I get from my dad’s side of the family. But at the time, again, I thought I was the only one; no one could understand, nor did I want anyone to understand.

But the Lord begged to differ. Through a series of circumstances that must have been divine intervention, I admitted my struggles to my Bible study leader, who just so happened to go through the same thing when she was my age, too. God is good, isn’t He?

After my first confession, I told my family, then my friends. I started seeing doctors and therapists, taking anti-depressants and trying different methods to keep my serotonin level up. Although I became significantly better, I didn’t feel the dramatic change that I had hoped for. Life wasn’t all daisies and sunshine, giggles and love (but I don’t think that’s the way life is for anyone). The point is, I was discouraged.

That summer, I went to Wildwood, a discipleship camp at Hume. There, I really saw God and began to understand why I went through what I went through. For the first time, I realized that God allowed for me to go through the rut of depression to bring me up from the ashes and make me stronger.

Junior year, I was distracted by a boy. The faith that I grew significantly over the summer took a backseat and thus, my depression started to creep up on me again. When things didn’t work out between us, I was pretty darn upset. It’s a stupid thing to worry about and keep my entire focus on, but everything is stupid compared to a deep, intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. Through this, God taught me to not waste my time wanting something that He doesn’t want for me (and that I’m not ready for anything romantic quite yet). God has blessed me this year by guarding my heart in that respect.

However, this year hasn’t been perfect. (Is there such a thing as a perfect year?) One of my friends and I struggled through some issues that lead to a bitter separation. I grew to be so angry at her because I felt like I’d been stabbed in the back. A friend told me she loved me and then suddenly changed her mind for [what seemed to me as] no good reason. In February, I went to Hume again for their winter camp. The speaker (Josh Riebock, who is awesome) said something that really shook me: every time we don’t love God with our whole heart, we aren’t loving Him at all. It’s an all or nothing deal. And every time we sin and put something above Him - every time we don’t make Him the center of our lives - it’s like we’re slapping Him across the face. I do the same thing to God all the time that my friend did to me once.

More recently I applied to Joshua, a program up at Hume (Hume’s in here a lot, isn’t it?) that I’ve been interested in since seventh grade. I really, really wanted this and honestly didn’t see why I couldn’t get it. But I didn’t get in and didn’t understand why God didn’t want me there. If anyone would want me there, I’d think God would! But I guess not. Right now, I’m learning to deal with God’s plan and how even if life doesn’t go according to my plan, it doesn’t mean it’s over. Probably quite the opposite.

But out of all the things I’ve learned in eighteen years of life, the most important thing that I keep coming back to is: faith is hard, but all good things in life require hard work. God really deserves to be the #1 priority in life and although it may seem boring, not fun, and not a good way to spend life (as opposed to live hard and have fun), it’s really the only thing that successfully makes me happy.

Wow. That wasn’t short at all.

God is our refuge and strength, and ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountain quake with their surging… Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall; he lifts his voice, the earth melts. The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. Come and see the works of the Lord, the desolations He has brought on the earth. He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth; He breaks the bow and shatters the spear, He burns the shields with fire. “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.

Psalm 46