I Am Not The Same. My Story.

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.

I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.” Jeremiah 29:11-14

I have to admit, I am a sinner just like anyone else. We all are sinners, that is a fact of life, that it all started back in the garden of Eden when the first man and woman Adam and Eve, Adam and Eve were deceived by the serpent and chose to disobey God. He had given them everything else in the Garden to eat, He had said to them to eat of everything except from the tree of good and evil, if they did they would die!

So because of Adam and Eve sin entered into the hearts of humans. I believe this is true, it is not just an ancient story or just a metaphor. If you want to read it you can find it in Genesis 3 in the Bible, look for the ESV or NKJV translations.

What am I trying to get at? I realized I am a sinner, I know big discovery! But if we don’t realize this fact that you and I are sinners we cannot be ready to receive the gift of God through Jesus Christ!

So let me tell you, I grew up in a happy, loving Christian family, my parents came to know Christ when they where in their 20’s and decided to follow Jesus with all of their lives separately as single man and woman. Therefore I am very blessed to be born into such a family. My Dad and Mom would pray with us my siblings and I at night. But one night My Dad stayed talking with me and told me about how we are all sinners in need of a Saviour. And how God sent his only Son Jesus Christ to die on the cross for our sins and defeated death by rising from the dead on the third day according to the Scriptures. I wanted to be saved, I prayed to God and told him I needed Him. I was very young I can’t pin down the age because I don’t know how old I was, maybe around the ages of 5-7.

Fast forward to 2007 I was 17, and was in a Christian school and felt so down about myself, I was depressed and didn’t know it. I prayed to God to forgive me of my sins. In Thanksgiving weekend of that year I became catatonic and was taken to the hospital and then was (baker acted) and taken without reason to a psychiatric hospital for children in my city. I was there for 8 days, and I could barely eat, I didn’t speak was completely down, but was always kind to others, was the report the kids there gave of me and the nurses too. When I was allowed to go home, I had been giving more effort to eat all my food even when I didn’t like it and to stay awake during the day. Two nurses gave me gifts of farewell. One of the gifts was a lamb, she said I had been like a baby lamb of Jesus. I went home and was told to continue taking the medications they had given to me there and to look for a psychiatrist, and to spend time with my family and friends. So my parents took me home and we spent time together all five of us. Church friends reached out and came to visit me. That Christmas we spent it in my home country where my grandparents and cousins and aunts and uncles live. In the states we had no other family members living nearby. I had grown up in a very close knit family we always visited with each other for birthdays and holidays. We stayed there for about 2 months for my recuperation.

The following years I struggled with depression and anxiety, but I always remembered the verse in Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” I held on to it. During my 20’s I worked tirelessly in my occupation and gave my all and my best with what I knew. After the pandemic I had a bit of a burnout. and then switched my doctors. I also had struggled to get fit and change my eating habits.

Once I took reigns of my own life, I first decided to change all my doctors, to other doctors. I began to make efforts to eat differently and began walking daily and doing strength training. But I have to admit this was not just a physical overhaul it was also emotional and spiritual. And I’m not saying I have yet achieved my goal yet! I began seeing a Christian therapist and began working on my emotional health I believe this really helped me in various ways. In my Spiritual life I began praying daily and diligently looked for God through prayer and Bible reading and journaling.

Thankfully to God I feel different. I am changed, redeemed, renewed. The Lord has done the work within me and is doing his will in and through me! As I come to the conclusion of this, I guess that like most of my blog posts are they are a bit discovery journeys for myself and serve as mirrors to you the reader I hope. What is the purpose of this, to give an update God is still working in me but I am not the same person I was even 1 year ago, or even 10 years ago or 1 month ago! If we strive to live for Him and choose to choose the narrow way the hard way, He promises to be with us through all of it! The fire, the roadblocks, the tests all of it! I can say that has been the case in the life of other Heroes of the faith and other believers in Christ who have decided whole heartedly and with their whole lives to follow Jesus our Lord. And I have seen so far in my lfe the faithfulness and steadfast love, grace and mercy of God. He is faithful to carry us through it we just have to trust Him and obey no matter what the cost. Like Elisabeth Elliot said, “It is a matter of the will.”

So dear friend reader I am calling you out now I guess passing the torch in some sort of humble way will you choose the narrow way, leave your past behind and follow Jesus Christ with all of your might, heart, soul and strength?! Remember it is not about our own strength or capacity or experience…No! God only wants a willing heart. A humble heart who surrenders their will to His, knowing that He Has plans of welfare and not of harm, to give you a future and hope.

He died to give you life here in this life and eternal life in the future in Eternity. There is Heaven and there is a Hell, these are a reality. Period. The work has been done. Jesus Has Done It on the Cross and through His Resurrection from the dead. Being seen by more than 500 witnesses. People who spent time with Him after His crucifixion. Read it in the Holy Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Read the Holy Bible, not the gnostic or of other places…No. Go to the source! Find the truth for yourself. Experience Him yourself! He will make you a new Creation. If you haven’t received the gift of salvation from your sins and from spiritual death Jesus says in the Gospels that you are still a child of the devil. Your father is the devil, lying thief and murderer. He doesn’t want you to come to see the Light the Way the Truth and the Life! Open your heart to Jesus! He Loves you so much no matter what you may have done in the past, call to Him, He will make Himself known to you! He has in my life and in the life of many other believers! All Glory be to God and Jesus Christ my Savior. The work in us is not over until the day of His return.

With Friendship Love,

Sara.