Friday, November 5, 2010

A Testimony of a Hume-Kid, the "Older Son," from Luke 15:25

Hey there!
Thursday was an awesome day. Every class was canceled. There was no internet. All we did was pray. All day. Pray and reflect. Worship. Hang out with roommates, share our testimonies. It was such a relaxing, revitalizing, rejuvinating, wonderful day just spent hanging out with Jesus, and I absolutely loved it. I was asked to share my testimony in front of the entire school last night by my family dad after I gave it during family groups the previous morning. I really didn't want to but Trevor really makes it so you can't say no. So I did. Geez was I nervous! I was shaking and kept feeling like I was about to start crying and all that, but afterwords everyone said I looked the least nervous! And that I was a great public speaker! Ummm...What!? Haha. God apparently worked through me because I know that I myself, was a mess, but everyone else obviously didn't see that. I realized though that many of you probably don't know my testimony, my mom doesn't even know it, so I figured I'd share it via blogy-blog for you. Granted, it's much more exciting to hear someone talking than just reading but you can just leave it up to your imagination instead. So- here we go:

My story is not exciting. It's not some crazy story about how I was totally broken on the ground and God miraculously showed up and pulled me out of impending doom. I've never drank, never smoked, never done drugs, never partied, in fact, I've never even cussed out loud before (In my head, plenty of times (hahah), but the words have never come out of my mouth). But that doesn't mean I haven't messed up. However, if you are looking for a story about the Prodigal son, this isn't it. My story is more of the other son, the one who stayed home and did good.
I was raised in a Christian family where I was taught about the love of Jesus from a young age and always went to church. One night when I was 5, after Sunday School, I asked my mom to pray with me and ask Jesus to come into my heart, since during Sunday School the teacher had asked who wanted to go to heaven where there was singing and dancing and flying and lots of good food, or go to Hell where there's lots of fire (insert laughter here), so of course I chose heaven. From that point on I became the good christian girl. It was never really a "real" relationship though, just going through the motions. When I was 7, my dad went to a fisherman's conference at a place in the mountains called Hume Lake Christian Camps. This place would not only change his life, but mine as well. By the time I had been 8 for a month, I was moved up to this crazy little mountain town, where the people there absolutely loved Jesus. I remember knowing this place was different, because the people who were professing their love for Christ actually lived it everyday, not just Sunday's like I was used to. However, I kept going through the motions, and expecting the faith of my camp and others to get me through life and keep my christian faith strong, even though I wasn't working at it. So I was still the good christian kid, never doing anything wrong, but the Devil used one thing to really distract me from a true relationship with Jesus, and that is through Body-Image.

I remember being at a friends house and as we were hanging out, they told me that they were hanging out with a bunch of people the other day talking about other people. So, I asked them what they said about me. They kind of pushed it away, saying, "ahh, nothin' much...." but I persisted, and they finally told me what they had said. "Well, they called you fat." Silence. "What?" I asked in a shakey voice. "Who said that?" I listened as they named off every single one of my friends and added their names to the list, and then professed they didn't really mean it. I remember walking out of that room and being so hurt.

Ever since that day the image I had of myself was distorted. I would wear big jackets so I could cover my body. I wouldn't smile with my teeth because I hated the gap I had in the middle. I hated looking in the mirror, and would frequently just look at myself and cry, cursing out to God asking why he had made me like this. Everything I saw when I looked in a mirror was exactly opposite of what the world was telling me was beautiful, and because I couldn't understand why God hadn't made me look like THAT, my relationship with God faltered. I couldn't understand why I looked like the way I did, couldn't understand why God hadn't made me skinnier, or with a clean face, or taller. I hated who I was. But one day, as I was reading my bible like a good christian girl does, I read a verse that I had read a thousand times, but this time, God really spoke to me through it and just burned me. "I praise you for I am FEARFULLY and WONDERFULLY made, Your works are WONDERFUL, I know that FULL WELL." And I remember sitting there crying and realizing the stupidity of all the years of hating my body was. I realized that everytime I complained about my body I was slapping God in the face, saying that he didn't know what he was doing, that I could of done SO much better, that he had NO right to make me this way. But like Romans 9:20 says, "But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?'" Only once I accepted that God was God, and I was not, that was when I really began to see the beauty and creativeness of my Savior. I could finally see me through God's eyes, and not through the world's. I had a complete sense of wholeness and fufillment in Christ, and that I was his beloved daughter, who was enthralled by my beauty. I realized that there was no one in the world just like me, and nor would there ever be. I was a precious daughter of the Most High God, and I should stop hiding myself from the world. Once I accepted who I was and who I was to Jesus, that was when my relationship with him could really begin to grow.

It's still a constant struggle. The world is continually telling me that what I am is not it. But whenever I have those feelings, I remember those verses, and I remember my heritage, and that I am daughter to the King of Kings, and he is enthralled by my beauty, and no one can EVER take that away from me. So that's my story, I hope you can find pieces of yourself in it, and that if you've never felt like you are beautiful, I promise you, that to the Glorious King of Kings and Wonderful Maker, You are MORE PRECIOUS than diamonds, more wonderful than rubies, and he is absolutely enthralled by your exquisite, creative, different, unique beauty.
So that's it. The testimony of a Hume kid. The story of a girl who may not have sinned in big struggles, but sinned in being distracted by things of this world.

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