Heart.of.Flesh

 I was born into a Christian home, with two preachers in the family. They taught me godly lessons and I often attended Church. I practically lived at the church. My childhood was spent in West Monroe, Louisiana. I grew up knowing my parents loved each other dearly but at age 7, I noticed some flaws. This scared me because they were always supposed to be perfect, right? At least in a child’s mind. But in real life, no one is. One day, they sat my siblings and I down and told us dad was not going to live with us for a while. They were honest and did not stray from the truth. They didn’t tell us all of the details but they told us what we needed to know. It was devastating. I love my dad, so it was rough. For months my mom and the kids would always pray together, having “family meetings.” She always told us that God knows what He is doing, we might not always. At this time I realized I wanted the strength my mom, brother and older sister had. At age 7, I prayed with my mom and chose to follow Christ. A few months later my dad moved back in. For years, I continued to attend church, and had many talks with my family about God. Starting 4th grade we moved to Columbia, Missouri. During this time, not much was going on. All I focused on was friends and being a kid. I fought with my younger sister constantly and was ALWAYS in a terrible mood. When I came home from friends’ houses, my mood would just turn off. We never really found a church that we would go to consistently, so God was kind of a blur. At the end of 5th grade we moved back to Louisiana, to New Iberia. The first year, my dad was in Baton Rouge because of his job, so I had to get used to not seeing him much again. I was still never fully in a pleasant mood; still coming home grouchy. In the 7th grade my dad moved back, I joined the youth group at church, and I began to understand how differently people lived than me through mission trips to New york and New Orleans. I went to Brazil one summer and God opened my eyes to the poverty and suffering happening around me that I failed to notice before. Up to this point, I saw the reality of the world but I had never seen the reality in my own life and self. I had great friends, a great family, and what I though was a relationship with God, but I was missing something. A TRUE experience with God. You can believe in God but never truly experience Him. In the year of 2010, I finally experienced God. At a youth event, called D-Now, during worship, I moved to the side of the room away from the crowd. I sat down and laid my hands and face on my knees. I began crying for what I thought was for no reason. The words of a song came on and those were “If His grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking.” I began praying to God, I told Him, “God, I’m crying and I don’t know why. I know you are speaking to me but I don’t know what. But God, I trust you. I want you. I give my life completely to you.” I sat there for a moment and I could feel the presence of God come into the room. The feeling of knowing that something is pulling you to do something with your life. I knew that God was my everything and no matter what mistakes I made or continue to make, God takes them away, forgiving them, and He still loves me. He doesn’t forget them but he no longer holds them to me. That is when I chose to fully give my life to God. Ever since then, my life has not at ALL been perfect. I still cried myself to sleep because of personal doubts, heart breaks and insecurity, but God always brought me back to His love. I know that because He sent His son, Jesus, to be beaten, scorned, and have His life taken away, my pain was over. Jesus experienced the worst pain of all, for me and for you. But the cool thing is, He rose from the grave and overcame it! He now sits at the right hand of God in Heaven. I know I will be there for eternity now, because God saved my life. He opened my eyes to absolute truth. These past few months have actually been rough for me. I have, and continue to struggle with some personal doubt and I sort of  dug myself into a hole that is hard to get out of. Sometimes it’s hard to see what God is doing with this, sometimes my vision is foggy, and sometimes it’s hard to hear God’s voice, but He has told me, that even though I cannot see Him, He is always there. I open the Bible and God always shows me the things I need to hear. I am holding on to Him and I will NEVER let go because while society will only satisfy you for a moment and fail you, God’s love never fails.