Miss Arizona Sunshine

The learning curve in this life is huge. I mean you don't get up, after reading a great book or hearing a wonderful sermon or even after talking to an inspirational Christian, and never make a mistake again. That would be wonderful, but it doesn't happen that way.

Having lost my car and having no money I was almost sure I would never find a job. Phoenix is a large city and I lived at the very north end, at the end of the highway! Having no car meant no way to get to job interviews and having no money meant...I had no money. Needing to change that, I walked to the tiny strip mall at the end of the road to beg for a job, any job.

My mind was blank. I think at this point I was finally empty; no longer full of my own ideas and grandios plans.

I wandered into a little UPS store (or something similar) to mail a letter and again my life changed. By chance, or rather by God's planning, I met Jessica Sunshine. On my second visit we discoved we were both Christians that had felt led to Phoenix by the Lord. I believe that Jessica was there, in that moment, to soften my heart. She offered her truck to me to use for job interviews; knowing I had no money for gas. What? Who does that?

Jessica took me to church, introduced me to people and invested in me. As my heart began to soften, I started a dialog with the Lord again. I began to understand that I hadn't arrived in Arizona to teach but to be taught. I had spent so much of my life running and refusing to slow down; I believe the Lord allowed me to be backed into a corner so he could finally get my attention. God wanted to start fresh with me and begin a relationship, not the hand me down one I had.

That summer I started to realize that I could no longer go through the motions with the Lord. I was a woman of value who had been devaluing her life and running from a Creator who wanted to mold her into whatever he wanted; because he made me and knows best.

That's a tough pill to swallow and I get that.

No one wants to hear, "Your life is not about you".

Our life is to about service to a King that shaped and formed the universe, everything in it, then us. After doing that he sent his Son to die for us; to be beaten to death for the very people beating him. Willingly.

Thank you Jessica Sunshine for showing me Christ's love and for helping me, through your example of sacrificial love, re-establish the most important relationship I have ever or will ever have.

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 11:1, "Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ".

There is no Arizona

I was living in Ann Arbor, Michigan when my life started to change. It was 2001. I had been attending a very small Spanish church, working a dead end job, and was newly single. I was a mess. I was hurt and angry and unhappy.

After having left a very unhealthy relationship my past started to rear its ugly head and for the first time in my life I actually wanted to deal with it. I started to admit that I had made some poor choices and started to admit that I felt worthless.

As a child I had been molested. This allowed me to view myself as worthless and treat myself as such. The more I admitted, the more the pain went away and suddenly I was feeling again. I was starting to read my Bible and go to church regularly. I started to pray as well and at some point in my prayers, I felt the Lord urge me toward Arizona.

I would be able to live there with friends and honestly felt like maybe God wanted me to work with the hispanic population, teaching them about the wonders of God! Keep in mind, I was just starting to work on my relationship with God and was in NO place to be teaching or shepherding others; but I packed up my things and I left.

I got to Arizona with only $40 and a car that needed some fixing. But, I just figured that after a short weekend, I'd throw my resume out there and watch Jesus bring in droves of people who had been waiting their whole lives to hire me. I figured that super smart people would desperatly want me to talk to, teach, love on all their Mexicans...have you met me?

Needless to say, that did not happen. And after having spent my last $40 dollars to hire a guy to fix my car "under the table", it was stolen the next morning.

"Hello, 911. What is your emergency?"

"Yes, my car has been stolen, I mean, I went to bed and my roommate noticed it was gone at 6 am!"

"Ok, do you want an officer to come out?"

"Um, yeah, of course, I'll be waiting."

Turns out that cars get stolen a lot in Phoenix, especially Nissans. My car was long gone, in Mexico, and the police wouldn't even be bothering to look for it. What? The Mexicans I was there to love on in Jesus' name stole my Nissan? Really?

As if things couldn't get worse, my friend called to say she was pregnant with her first child! I was so happy for her, until I hung up the phone, when I promptly cried my eyes out. Not only was I not pregnant, but I had no job, no man, and no car! Remember? It was soaking up the sun in Mexico.

After having all my plans, my plans, ruined I sat down and emailed everyone in my family that I was a shell of a woman and didn't even know how I could ever do the whole Jesus thing again. A few days later I actually got up from the second row of the church I was attending and walked out in the middle of the sermon crying. I walked out crying, in front of 1500 other Christians, and not one of them stopped me. I was so angry that for the first time in my life, I had walked out of church; even though that was something that people like me just didn't do.

My grandmother wrote to me and told me to read John. I did it, even though I didn't want to. That night I surrendered what I had been holding back from God; I let it go but asked him to promise to catch me if I "jumped". I did jump and he did catch me and has continued to catch me. Even when I choose to walk away from him, for whatever reason, he's always there.

As I was getting ready to put all these memories down I was thinking again, "Why am I doing this?" However this time I recognized this as fear. I remembered all those Christians that watched me walk out of a church service weeping and decided I would never again walk away from an opportunity to connect with someone and share Christ with them. I am in no way bashing them, please understand, rather the contrary. Where I sit now I recognize that fear, the one that keeps us from sharing, and I'm not willing to do that anymore.

So this is me sharing again about my failures in my quest to become a radical follower of Christ. A person who would walk out of a church service to chase down a crying girl and ask the simple question: "Are you ok?", ready to give an answer for the hope she has.

1 Peter 3:15 (New International Version)

¹⁵But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.

Ahhhhh those tacos...

(The following should be read quickly, in one hurried breath...)

To recap:

I wanted to write a book for 8 years, it never happened but I started a blog; I want to share my journey, the one I've been on over the last eight years, the one that's lead me toward actually becoming a Christ follower.

It's been a week and I've started to stall!

What?

So, while reading God's Word today I started to think about this blog, about the Bible study that I'm going to facilitate in September;

SMACK.

I'm afraid.

I don't feel um...worthy, holy, prepared, ready, good enough. I started thinking today, "Just who do I think I am to share and teach people about this God I have met and love and am in awe of?"

(I'm much calmer now, please choose your breaths accordingly, thank you.)

And then I ate the tacos...ahhh those tacos. Please understand that I don't remember the last time I ate something so stinkin' tasty. I could have cried they were sooo good. I even stopped and told the people taking our seats to order them. Those tacos were so good.

I had to tell people about how good those tacos were because I had experienced those tacos. So on the way home from a lovely weekend with my husband I realized that I had to continue and to share and to encourage and to teach people about Christ because like those tacos, I have experienced Christ. I loved those tacos but I love Christ more. If I can share my love of those tacos with complete strangers, I can share my love for Christ as well. In fact, I can't help but do it.

My next post will be soon and I'm going to pick up 8 years ago; my life had just been turned upside down, yada yada yada...

I'm looking at that now so thankful, so thankful.

If you have time listen to Andy Stanley's sermon series "Go Fish". You can find it by going to http://www.northpoint.org/podcasts and then clicking on "North Point Ministries: Andy Stanley Podcast".

This is all new to me.

I have wanted to write a book for about 8 years now.

I even started once, but sadly never finished.

I would write and write and title chapters, but never keep going. The reason I had started writing was to get out all the junk that had accumulated in my life; the stuff that I had finally let come to the surface. But again I couldn't bring myself to finish. In fact, once I had gotten all the junk out it didn't seem to bother me anymore and I lost the desire to write.

That all changed when in a few short months I went from living a very predictable, safe and stable life in Michigan to: moving out west, having my car stolen, and having my entire life turned upside down. It all started when my friend who had just gotten married six months earlier; called to say she was pregnant.

I asked Jesus into my heart when I was 5 years old and was baptized at 7.

I'm at a loss at this point for what else to say about my spiritual life during those years at home.

My parents love the Lord and taught us well but like many people my faith was notmine. I had been taught things and knew I should believe things, but again, it was all a big hand me down. I saw Jesus as my friend, but didn't really know him as the Creator, the Savior...

In the last 8 years I have grown and changed and wrestled with the idea of faith and Jesus and Christianity and what it all means. I have cried and yelled at the Lord. I have tested God and played the horribly behaved child. And through all of this I have come to understand that no matter how angry or doubtful or scared I was; no matter how badly I behaved; whether I ignored God or thanked him, he never left me and never stopped loving me.

This blog is a story about that.

This is my story.

This is real, and I hope that if you are wondering about God or scared of him or distrustful or angry or "fill in the blank"; that these stories about becoming an actual follower of Christ will resonate within you. Sometimes we aren't honest enough with each other about what following Christ really means and what it feels like. We put on masks that hide how we feel because we are afraid.

Let's be transparent together.

I'll go first.