This is a love story.
The story of how I fell in love with God. And this summer, it has also been a story of transformation. What some people might call "a testimony".
Transformation - to change in condition, nature, or character. Before looking at the finished product, what was the original material? Who was I?
Sometime at the end of Middle School and beginning of High School, I started going to church and became a Christian. Youth group became a big part of my life - most of my closest friends were there, church was #1. I faced difficulties - unrequited crushes, interesting family dynamics (it was hard for me when my folks started going to a different church) - but overall things were good. I started college at SVSU in 2007, had the privilege of studying abroad in Belgium and traveling Europe, meeting Jesse, traveling to Nicaragua for missions training, being an RA and Writing Center Mentor and completing an Honors Thesis, interning in New Zealand, being a part of the Roberts Fellowship and spending a whirlwind 2 weeks in Asia. I graduated Summa Cum Laude...and didn't know where to go from there.
As I write that out, it looks like a perfectly wrapped little package. And I did grow spiritually and encounter God in many different ways, but there was never a transformation. My pastor always says that when you encounter Jesus, you change. There were adjustments along the way, and character refinements, but it was hard for me to think of a true blue, before and after testimony.
Yet once I left where I was so safe and comfortable - academia - and entered the "real world" (a term I used to scoff at regularly), I felt naked. Vulnerable. Humbled.
See, I had been a good person. I had done good things, enjoyed some successes, said kind things and had friends that could be brought home to mum and dad. I hadn't become a partier at school. And these are good things! I'm not saying that at all. But I was only controlling the outside (very Pharisee-ish) -- the inside needed an encounter with fire.
There's an up-north activity here in Michigan - tubing. Very leisurely activity. You are in your bathing suit, grab an inner tube, and float down a river. I think that in some ways my life has been like this. I had been in a stream (elementary, middle, and high school) that had a direction to it, a flow to it. I just had to avoid rocks or getting stuck in trees. The stream dumped into a river (university). Bit bigger, but again, avoid rocks and getting stuck in downed trees and things were okay. School hasn't been difficult for me. Work, yes, but not difficult like it is for many people. I'm thankful for what God has given me, to be sure. But then the river emptied out into the ocean. There was no longer a set direction, a set flow and destination.
I turned to God. Really turned to God. Not casually, but purposefully. Desperately. I submitted to Him, stepped out in faith that He would show me where to go, what to do. I devoured the Word. And wouldn't you know it - He was there. He walked with me.
Humility is the central focus of life right now. And being a part of the local church.
I don't know what else to say, other than I am learning how to focus more sharply on God, and to be less about myself and more about Him and His purposes. It's been a magnificent summer encountering God.
