How I Got Here

***This is very long and rather personal. I did not write it to entertain you, I wrote it because I felt like I needed to. I didn't include all the juicy details, just the basics of how my life went from crap to pretty darn good over the last 28 years.

No I am not talking about the birds and bees, I am talking about becoming the person I am today....
I was born into an amazing family. We were not perfect by any stretch, there are always issues in every family, but for the most part there is really nothing to huge to complain about. I have two Christian parents who set good examples for me from a very early age. I am not really sure when I became a Christian, I kind of just always was it seems. I have been told that I very sincerely asked Jesus into my heart before I was even in kindergarten and I very sincerely chose to get baptized not too long after that. I wish I could remember those events, but I just can't. The only thing I remember about being baptized is not being able to touch in the baptistery and the congregation laughing at something that the preacher said. So here I am a baptized Christian scooting through life in my little bubble Christian family and all is well- until around my freshman year in high school. We had moved to another small town in Texas before my eighth grade year and let's just say there wasn't the strongest faith base in this new community. My parents found a great church for us in a neighboring town, but somehow I just wasn't that into it. I liked being social and being accepted and that seemed to happen more in my little small town. I began to feel more and more like I was living my parents faith, not my own. Being a Christian was just a title and it was cool on Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings for awhile but later that would even not hold my interest.

At our church I felt like nothing more than a girl that hung out in her sister's shadow a girl that had the right last name and that was the only reason I was included in the youth group. ***let me just say that my sister was and is an amazing and sincere Christian woman and she lives what she believes and I think that was the biggest reason I didn't want to be around the church...I was a hypocrite and she was the real deal ( I didn't put this all together until years later though)*** The breaking point for me with church came when I was actually at a crossroads, I could either choose a life devoted to Christ or I could choose a life devoted to the world, I talked with a leader in our youth group about some personal issues in what I thought was total confidence and the next week a total stranger came up to me and said she was praying for me, but her voice held a little too much judgment for my liking. I was devastated that someone would break my trust and go talk about me with others behind my back. I was done with the whole church thing. I would go to church on Sundays because my parents made me, but that was it. I would put all my effort into fitting in at school.

So here I am starting my freshman year in high school and pretty much all my focus was being put into boys and fitting in with the cool kids. I slowly started making poor decisions one right after another. By the end of my freshman year I had made the cheerleading squad, was a starter on the varsity basketball team, had a few boys interested in me (I would go straight from one boyfriend to the next, that is where I truly found my self worth)- I had arrived I was cool. The summer before my sophomore year began I found yet another stimulant for fun...alcohol. Our cool group of friends would go over to one of the girl's house where her parents would buy us wine coolers and we would have sleepovers and play drinking games. My parent's had no idea, I was getting better and better at deception everyday. I had cemented my place in the inner circle at school and all was well. The cycle of boys, drinking, and lying to my family continued all the way through high school. I somehow was able to justify everything I was doing because I was also trapped in the cycle of comparison. I mean I had friends who were doing much worse things than me and on occasion I would hang out with a couple of church people and I could say all the right things to sound somewhat spiritual as well. i had the double life thing down pat as long as my parents insisted on me going to church.

After high school I was able to start being totally in charge of me. I went to college for the first year and almost flunked out because my need for fun and acceptance by the cool people far outweighed the need for education. I decided to take a break from school the next year. I began drinking a lot more. I lived for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. I would go to friends houses and drink and then go to the bar and dance until one in the morning. Then I would head off to pass out somewhere usually at a friends house. This crazy cycle continued until there was a divine intervention.

My sister who I mentioned earlier had continued to live a true life of devotion to Christ and she had been asked to go with a team of missionaries to Germany to keep their kids while they went through language training. There were six little boys under the age of five and she was going to need help. She asked me to go. I went and interviewed with the group and pulled out all the tricks in my bag to make them feel like I was the best girl for the job, they knew NOTHING about the real me. I was accepted to go. One of the hardest things I had to do was raise support I had to send out a letter that made me sound like a holy roller and ask people to support me financially (basically pay for me to go on the trip) and pray for me while I was overseas. Who would I send the letters to? The guy I was dating at the time had been my boyfriend for a few years and his family knew the party girl me and right before I left his sister in law told me she thought I was full of **** and that I was a hypocrite.....and there it was plain as day, the true definition of me. Well, I went ahead and went on that trip and my life was forever changed.

The trip to Germany was great, I slowly felt my heart becoming whole again. There was no need for alcohol or boys. I was bonding like never before with my sister who was showing me (without knowing it) that being a real Christian is in the little things, the daily life. I slowly started opening up to her and I told her the truth about who I was and shockingly she didn't alienate me, she softly cried and did something I never expected, she loved me unconditionally. Our friendship began to grow deeper and deeper. She has no idea how much I was changed and learned just by spending those few months watching her. She has no idea how much her acceptance of me, even with all the trash in my life meant to me. The biggest moment on that trip came at the mouth of the river in Gimmelwald, Switzerland. We had taken a weekend trip and went on a hike that led us to the most majestic place I have ever been. I actually felt God there. The treeline broke and there was a holy silence. The wind was blowing and I had some moments alone where I truly felt something in my heart melt, the walls that I had spent the last six years building were beginning to crumble. I knew that just like my sister accepted me Jesus accepted me even with all the trash that I had filled my life with.

I would love to say that from this moment on my life was perfect, but that was not the case. I had to come back to the states, smack back into the crappy life I had created for myself and it took a few more years to get out of the crazy cycle. I would still drink on occasion, I still had to have a boyfriend to feel totally accepted; but now I had a refuge in my sister someone who knew that I wanted to be better someone who would gently encourage me to be better. I began to go to church again, not because my parents were forcing me, but because there was something there that I needed, something there that I wanted. The trash was slowly getting out of my life and being taken to the dump where it belonged.

2002 was the year that it all came together (almost four years after the Germany trip). I got out of my last destructive guy relationship and got involved in a small group from church. I was being held accountable by my sister and another friend. I was shocked that there were a handful of people out there who would truly care about me enough to ask me the hard questions and get to the core of my issues. People who would actually take time to pray for me daily. People who got me, who allowed me to be real and accepted me. The definition of the real me had changed so much. I was someone who began to want a relationship with Jesus and with good people. I wanted to be seen as someone more than a cool person, I wanted people to look at me and say that I was sincere, full of compassion, deeper than a surface Christian.

I do not dare say that I am the person I dream of being. There is so much work that still needs to be done in my life. I still have trust issues, I still have comparison issues, I still need to be more committed to reading my Bible and praying daily, I still need to become more bold in telling others about Jesus. But I have come so far from needing alcohol to fit in or finding all my self worth in a man. I actually have friends that have said that they can tell that there is something different in my life (which by the way is one of the greatest compliments). I have no desire to be a Sunday Christian. I do have the desire to be real, not holier than thou. I know that having Godly friends is a must, but I also want to invest in the lives of those that are searching just like I was. I want to be a practical witness, not super preachy. I want to be balanced.