Because in my family, that’s what people did ...

Reflections of an MCC Youth

This is a love story, but it starts out like your typical "I grew up in a Christian home" testimony. For as long as I can remember I have been going to MCC with my family. I prayed to ask Jesus to live in my heart when I was about four because I saw my older sister doing it and I wanted to be like her, but I’m sure at the time I had no idea what it meant. For years after that, every time I heard someone leading some version of the infamous "salvation prayer" to invite people to start a new life with God, I would pray along silently, just in case. In the meantime I went to Sunday School and learned a lot about the Bible, but it was all just because in my family, that’s what people did.

In junior high I heard a guest speaker talk about God turning his life around, and it occurred to me that I wasn’t really living as an example to anyone. Sure, maybe I looked religious, but it was a big goody-two-shoes façade. How much did I really care about my friends? I behaved and got good grades, but seriously, where does that get you? It was a big goody-two-shoes façade.I don’t think they stop you at the gate in heaven to check your report card. Worse, what were the odds of anyone seeing my life and then wanting to get to know the God I thought I represented? Pretty low, I realized.

So I recommitted my life to God and told him that this time, I wanted to really give it to him, and I wanted him to use me to help other people. Also probably around that time, I kept hearing the phrase "personal relationship with God" and I remember wondering what that meant. I knew it was something I’d probably need at some point, but I had no idea where to begin to find it.

I guess I was growing, but it was almost on the wrong foundation- I was still just trying to do what my family did and what I had seen people at church do. In high school three things happened that woke me up to reality. One of my atheist friends asked me why I believed in God, and the only thing I could think of to say on the fly was "because my parents do!" I realized there was something way wrong with that.

Another time, a friend brought up the point that maybe people just believe what they’re born into - if I had been brought up in the East reading the Qur’an, wouldn’t I be Muslim? He had a good point - what else was I missing out there because of what I wrote off as untrue?

Then Steve sent a Christmas letter home from his Christian college saying that he was through with God and he didn’t really believe anything anymore. That was a big shocker- I had learned so much from him. Was it all even true? I thought, if it’s not good enough for Steve, maybe it’s not good enough for me. And then, just realizing that I thought something like that brought a new wave of uncertainty- was I just basing my faith on other people? It definitely wasn’t my own thing.

I completely threw out everything I believed about God or religionI’m not the kind of person who likes to sit around with things in limbo. So I completely threw out everything I believed about God or religion and started back at square one- what do I believe, and why? I think it only took me a long weekend to get my thoughts all sorted out, which doesn’t sound like much, but I remember that was the most depressing period of my life. I think before that I was just getting to the point where I honestly viewed God as a caring friend or father figure in my life, and I remember the emptiness and pointlessness I felt without him there.

One of the things that helped me during that time was a book called Show Me God, talking about the vastness of the universe, and even so, the slim chances that life would come about on its own. I remember thinking for a long time about a line in the book, something like,

"six monkeys typing on keyboards for a million years will not even produce one line of Shakespeare."

There had to be something bigger out there.

A few days later I was driving on Route 50, still praying that God would show me just a little piece of himself, and I came around a curve and up on a cliff on the roadside was a huge buck, looking out over the road. There were a few similar things that happened, and I started to keep a list in the back of my journal of my "only God moments-" things that happened that I knew had to be set up by God.

Some of them could have been just amazing coincidences, but the list grew and grew, and got more and more personal. There were so many things that I could see God doing in my life - specifically answered prayers, help I needed but hadn’t yet asked for, little choreographed pieces of beauty like the buck. I think that year was when I started to fall in love with God- I could see that he was going out of his way (if that’s possible) to get my attention and to help me. (But notice how many times I’ve said "I" and "me-" it was still all about me, and what God was doing in my life. He still had a lot of work to do before I would have the relief of knowing that life’s a whole lot bigger than me.)

In the fall of sophomore year, one Thursday I was listening to a presentation by some cadets who took a year off to do a mission trip, and I felt like God was asking me to leave and go to that same country. It was just a thought in my head, but it was out of nowhere and crystal clear. I wondered how I would know if it were real - I wasn’t about to just throw away my life for some silly idea.

I couldn’t shake the thought, so that weekend I fasted and prayed that God would make it really clear to me -- like, tangibly -- if he really wanted me to go. Actually I was kind of a brat about the "fast," I was being impatient (remember, nothing in limbo) and so I pretty much told God that I was going to starve myself until he gave me a sign.

I wasn’t asking for something specific; just keeping my eyes open for something clear. But the things I daydreamed that I might be watching for included something big and red that said the name of the country on it, or a letter or call from my mom who had no idea I was thinking about this. Another thought was about a mouse in our dorm room mousetrap because we had just come to the end of an infestation, and the trap had been sitting baited and open for several weeks, so I thought they were all dead.

I waited and waited.

Finally on Monday night I was returning to my dorm room after being out for just a couple hours. A guy walked past me in my hallway wearing a red sweatshirt that said, in big letters, the country's name across the front. My eyes must have bugged out. I still wasn’t satisfied, though.

I opened the door to my room and casually glanced down at the mousetrap. Sure enough! There was a fresh dead mouse there.

I agreed to drop everything and go to this distant land.  After that all the pieces just fell into place for the trip.

One of the other significant parts for me was about a week later on a retreat in the Rockies where my friend Zach had been praying about coming with me. It was the last night of the retreat and we were all singing in the chapel at the retreat center.  I suddenly felt like God was telling me to go outside. My initial reaction was "are you kidding? It’s like 30 degrees out there and I’m in a t-shirt! No, thanks." But I sensed it again, so I slipped out of the service and sat down in the dark field outside the chapel. The stars were all out and they were gorgeous. I felt like God was saying, "I love you." So I said, "Thanks. Can I have a shooting star?" and right then, where I was looking in the sky, there was one. Then God told me that Zach was going to go with me to that country.

I went back inside the chapel and everyone was still singing. Zach stood up, looked at me and said, "Guess what? I’m coming with you." He looked confused when I squealed, "I KNOW!"

God kept doing little things like that for me. There are too many stories to tell, but the main idea is that I was falling deeper in love with him, and I was learning to trust him to take care of all the pieces in my life if I would just follow wherever I knew he was leading.

I’m typing this right now from my dorm in that country, looking out my window toward the mountains in the south. I have no idea what’s next in my life, but that’s ok - I know bad days will come, and good ones, but God’s going to be here through all of it, and someday I’ll get to go be with him. I only hope that he’ll use my life to help a few other people fall in love with him too.

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The writer of the article shares her life with others in her new country. Personally identifying information has been intentionally excluded to protect the identity of the author.