Amanda Please

I’m trying to accept God and His role in my life, but something’s standing in my way. I want to be able to trust in Him that everything will be alright, but that’s so hard to do when you’re where I am in life. The few friends I have that are truly Christian ask me what the hold up is -- “why haven’t you accepted God in your life?” I think that’s because I haven’t encountered Him the way I’ve needed. Everyone’s got a “testimony.” It seems like everyone has this grand story of how they came to the Cross and bared their souls to God. What about me? Why do I feel like I’m the one sheep out of the 99 that’s wandered?

I really wish people would stop calling it that.

I know how it looks to the outside. Someone like me -- who's gone her entire life hardly ever mentioning the Lord's name unless it was in vain; who's enjoyed promiscuity, excessive drinking, and holding onto old wounds instead of forgiving those who've wronged her. Someone like me -- who's always let anxiety about the future rule her life -- now "giving it to God," as they say. Someone like me -- suddenly going to church every Sunday and trying to join a worship group; now promising friends, coworkers, and even total strangers that she would pray for them (and unbeknownst to them, actually following through on those promises).

The truth is, underneath all of that mess is someone who's desperately needed Jesus. Over the last several years, I've faced a lot of trauma. Trauma not unlike what many people experience throughout young adulthood: sexual abuse, infidelity, lies, betrayal, and boat loads of rejection. I'm definitely not the first person to have experienced these feelings; I'm not even the first to experience them simultaneously. But sometimes the wounds cut so deeply, it feels like the end of the world.

In college, I remember feeling so relieved when my roommate would sleep over at her boyfriend's house, because that meant I could cry myself to sleep for hours. Not the silent kind, either; the kind of uncontrollable sobbing that leaves your eyes just as swollen the next morning -- a painful reminder of the long night before. Now, I'm starting to believe that the terrible, unspeakable moments that caused that pain were supposed to happen. The sobbing was always followed by incoherent, desperate scribbles in my journal and prayers to a God that I wasn't quite sure could hear me. Perhaps I prayed because it was something I was taught to do, or perhaps the Holy Spirit was compelling me to. Either way, I'm starting to think that there was a reason for the crippling pain and doubt all along. These life experiences made me lose my faith in humans. I think God may have been trying to break that faith because it was never supposed to be there in the first place. He broke me in order to bring me closer to Him.

It's so wildly unpleasant when my parents or friends call this my "Jesus kick." That phrase implies that me rediscovering my faith is temporary. It implies that this is a fad, like my roommate who went on a vegan diet for 2 and a half weeks and decided she loved chicken nuggets too much. It implies that I will realize 3 months from now that this lifestyle is unrealistic and ignorant.