Being born and raised in a Christian family, I met Jesus as my Lord and Savior at a young age. I was the typical goody-two-shoes Christian girl actively serving in church. But, there came a point when I sought control over my life because I thought I knew what was best for me.
During college, I dated a man; thinking that God was calling me to save him from the bondage of worldliness. It didn’t take long before the relationship became unhealthy and displeasing to God. While enjoying worldly pleasures, I served in church and discipled other women. I lived a double life and the longer I stayed, the more I neglected Jesus. I did unimaginable things – things I told myself I would never do.
I was falling deep in sin, but the Holy Spirit constantly nudged me. Until one night, He put me on my knees and made me see how much I had changed – for the worse. God made it clear that it wasn’t my job to save him. God told me to end the relationship, and by His grace, I did.
Breaking up with him didn’t change the fact that I had already fallen. I fell in a deep pit of condemnation. All of the bad decisions I made, they haunted me every day. I hated myself. I felt like trash – dirty and unwanted. For two years, I believed that I was no longer worthy of love. After all of the terrible things that I’ve done, I thought no decent man would ever accept me and love me. The trauma, guilt, and shame brought by my sins consumed my heart. The worst part was that I kept it all to myself.
I hid all of the pain beneath my big smiles and loud laughs, but God saw me. He saw me in my rebellion. He saw me in my failures. He saw me in my brokenness. But even after He saw me, He loved me – just as He had always loved me. God’s love healed my heart.
This is why I write. I want the whole world to know of God’s unconditional love. There is a love that keeps no record of wrongs. There is a love that heals every bit of pain. There is a love that gives hope, joy and peace. And this love comes only from God. The world deserves to know that there is a God who loves them more than they could ever imagine. I want them to experience the overwhelming saving grace that God’s love gave me.
2 Corinthians 5:14-15 says, “For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.”
Jesus’ death on the cross is the reason for the life I live today. I no longer live to pursue my own will and desires, but to pursue His will and desires for my life. It is His love that compels me to write.
For more than a year now, I’ve been writing about God’s story in my life. I write about my successes and my mistakes along with the lessons that accompany them. I gladly share these to others in hopes that they would be inspired by God’s faithfulness and learn from my mistakes as well.
I’ve published almost 20 blogs now, but one thing remains – writing is not easy. The more I write, the more my mistakes, weaknesses and failures are revealed – all the more I become vulnerable for the world to see. But all of this vulnerability becomes worth it whenever God uses me as a channel of blessing to others.
Words cannot express how much joy I feel when I witness God use a simple story to change the heart of a person. People from different walks of life, with different struggles of their own, most of them are people I’ve never met; they talk to me and tell me about how God spoke to them through my story. They speak about how they were blessed seeing Jesus’ strength through my weaknesses. They tell me about how my story inspired them to truly love, trust and obey God more. It’s truly amazing.
God gave me a burden to boast of my weaknesses, my hardships, and my persecutions, for His glory. And it is a burden that I dearly cherish – a burden that has now touched about 50,000 people around the world. And I know for sure that it is not my own doing, but His.
Before I faithfully followed God, I had to fail miserably at first. But, the truth is, you don’t need to fail before you follow.
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