*Last night I was blessed to share my testimony at church during our Wednesday night service called '40 Minutes in Heaven.' I have decided to post it here in an effort to share with more people about the amazing things that God has done in my life.*
When I was asked a few days ago to give my testimony tonight my mind immediately began to race. I was very excited to share about ALL of the amazing things God has done in my life over the last few years…but how in the world would I ever talk about ALL of it? We’d be here for days! So, what I’m going to do is tell you about a couple of ‘valleys’ He has brought me through in the last four years.
‘Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I fear no evil for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff they comfort me.’ Psalm 23:4
In January of 2008, I found myself in a valley. To be more specific I was at my rock bottom. Broken. For months my husband, Michael, and I had wanted to start a family but weren’t having any success. I was frustrated, depressed, and felt like a failure. I went to my doctor to try to get some answers and I was told immediately that I needed to lose at least 20 lbs. I weighed 318! I had tried in the past without success to lose weight. I would lose a little and gain more back, never maintaining a loss. I was a typical yo-yo dieter. But this time was different and something had to be done.
That rainy morning I found myself alone in my car sobbing and crying out to a God who I knew but did not have a personal relationship with. Boy did he ever hear my cries! Looking back it is easy to see his hand in the entire process. I made an appointment that afternoon with a nutritionist and personal trainer. Through diet, exercise and constant prayer the weight began to come off. With the weight loss I also lost the social anxiety it had created. I no longer avoided going places, including church. I had not regularly attended church since high school.
In the spring of 2008 Michael and I began visiting WSBC with his brother Keith and Keith's wife Denilla. It was then that I was introduced to Jerry Parker. Although I had grown up in church no one ever really sat me down and made sure that I understood the plan of salvation. It was as though a light was turned on. For the first time in my life, at 27 years old, my eyes were opened to what Christ had done on the cross for ME. That May I prayed to receive Christ and the following month Michael and I joined the church and were baptized together.
Fast forward to January of 2011. I was still a baby Christian and growing daily in my relationship with Christ. It was then that we had an ‘awakening’ here at church and the guest speaker was Bro. Bob. Bro. Bob spoke about valleys. In the middle of his message the Holy Spirit spoke to me. I had been through a huge valley of my own. 100 lbs later with a new passion for fitness and a rebirth in Christ, I had reached my mountain top and I was ready to shout it to the world!
But there was a tiny problem…I could tell someone about all the amazing things God had done for me, but I didn’t know how to share His Gospel. Did you know God doesn’t have problems like this? He has plans! Around the same time of the ‘awakening’ I received an email from Larry Turner. I knew who Larry was, but I didn’t know Larry. I had no idea what he could be emailing me about. Low and behold, God had placed it on Larry’s heart to recruit me for Evangelism Explosion! I made the commitment to a semester of EE and I was on my way to learning how to share the Gospel. I was both excited and nervous at the same time.
That semester of EE was amazing! I looked forward to every Monday night. I got a rush from sharing the Gospel. Eventually I began to make plans to go on my first mission trip to Peru. God was working in life in mighty ways! I was blessed with new friendships and had the privilege of playing a role in others finding new life in Christ.
And then I came to another big valley. As the semester of EE was coming to a close, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. She and my dad broke the news to my sister and me on Easter Sunday. It was a punch in the gut. It was hard to wrap my mind around. I was (and I remain) firm in my faith that mom will be ok. However, I will be honest, initially I struggled with her diagnosis and the plan of treatment she was prescribed. I couldn’t stand to think of mom going through the physical pain of chemo and radiation and the emotions that come with losing your hair. It made me sad. Again, God had a plan. He laid it on my heart to run a marathon for my mom.
I know the love a parent has for a child is something I can’t quiet comprehend because I don’t have kids of my own. But I do know that it is immeasurable, much like God’s love for us...but obviously not as big as His love for us. This got me to thinking about BIG things. The biggest thing I could think to do for my mom was a marathon. I’d run 4 half marathons at that point and I’d always said I would never run a full unless I got the uncontrollable urge. Well, here was that urge.
I trained for 16 weeks. I logged hundreds of miles, just me, my iPod full of praise music and God. On those runs I would pray without ceasing, mostly for mom, but also for us as a family as we coped with her cancer. On Saturdays I would run with three of the best training partners a girl could ask for. Though my friends weren’t planning on running the marathon with me, they loved me enough to help me train for my goal. Sometimes my runs would be more than 4 hours and by the end we would be physically exhausted, but wide awake spiritually because our runs had become a form of worship. We would discuss our Savior and His love for us, God's beautiful creation that we were blessed to run in, how He was at work in all of our lives and countless other topics.
On November 5th I officially became a marathoner. I crossed the finish line and there stood my mom waiting with arms wide open. Shortly after that mom received the news that she was cancer free. It was then, as I reflected on the previous months of her treatment and my training, that I realized the marathon wasn’t for mom near as much as it was for me. God had a plan, and it was for me to RUN through that valley! Once again, I had arrived at a mountain top…and I give him ALL of the glory!!!
So, I encourage you to embrace your valleys. He doesn’t promise they will be easy. But He does promise to be right there by your side, protecting you and guiding you to the next mountain top.
