This is Redemption

I am sending an application in this week to go live in Africa for two years. Only one thing is left blank: Write briefly how you became a Christian, and trace how you have grown spiritually since then. There follow only about seven lines, not even the width of college-ruled paper. This is only a preliminary application; I know there will be numerous occasions in the future for me to explain the depth and breadth of this conversion, of this amazing love story. In the meantime, I am gripped by fear that I will botch it, that I will somehow say the wrong thing and screw this whole thing up.

Please let me be clear here, friends: That thought is sin. It is blasphemy because it presumes that I could somehow do something to ruin God's plans. It presumes that I have more power in this situation than He, and that is simply not true. I have repented of it, and will probably continue to do so daily until it finally sinks in that He has this all under control. There is a difference between knowing something academically, and knowing it in your heart. In my experience, the second is very slow in coming, but so beautiful and freeing when it does.

I became a Christian at age 11 at a youth conference. There was no big altar call (Methodists aren't really into that), just discussion at a break-out session on whether you thought, if you died today, you'd go to heaven or hell. My heart stopped. I wasn't sure. I apparently was the only one in my group that was so convicted, and I felt like even more of a fraud. I cried. I said that rote prayer that every kid across the nation says at a youth conference and "asked Jesus into my heart."

What did that even mean? I didn't know. I just did what I thought I was supposed to do: sang in the choir, watched the kiddies in the nursery, memorized Bible verses, and jumped at opportunities to go on missions trips. Those things make you Christian, right? Never mind the sin in my life, the fact that I didn't know how to pray anything beyond the "Our Father," the fact that my Bible laid on my shelf collecting dust.

As the years continued, I struggled desperately to reconcile my faith with the life I was leading. I was hurting terribly, my heart broken for something I couldn't explain and that I was sure I could never find. There were numerous occasions where I decided I did not want to carry on, and my body and soul will bear those scars until the day I die.

Even in these darkest of times, I was at church. I was there every Sunday for service and youth group, every Thursday night for choir, and on Wednesday night to help in the nursery. I hoped, I think, that if I just kept coming, He would meet me there.

It took me years to understand that He couldn't, or at least not in the way I wanted. I placed too many restrictions on Him. I was raised in a church where God was in a box, easily summed up in three bullet points on Sunday mornings. Jesus was a nice guy who also happened to be the Messiah. And the Holy Spirit did this crazy thing one day in the early church with tongues of fire, but hasn't really been heard from since.

That all changed for me one weekend in June. I was in town for a friend's wedding and she had this really great friend (who I'd never really met before) who hosted her bachelorette party. We all stayed the night at Meghan's house and the next day, I was invited to come along with all the wedding party to get our nails done. I sat and talked to Meghan at the wedding rehearsal, in the car between rehearsals and nails, in the apartment when we had the chance to relax for a few moments.

I had never felt so loved. This woman simply exuded the love of Christ. And I got it. I understood that THIS was what it was supposed to be about. It wasn't about formulas and bullet points, it was about love. It was about loving Him and loving others and letting ourselves be so vulnerable as to be loved. Meghan invited me to church the Sunday after the wedding and I eagerly accepted. And He met me there - He broke my heart and continues to do so that I might be fully His.

He has poured His Spirit on me, given me words and hope and peace where the world offers nothing. He teaches me everyday what He intended for life to be and how to live in community and love others beyond anything I can comprehend. It is a beautiful thing. He has laid it on my heart that I am supposed to be sharing this message of love with others. It is a call I am unworthy of, though one I accept wholeheartedly.

Now, if I could just whittle that down to 150 words before tomorrow morning, we'd be golden.

Good night, beautiful ones. I love you.