"The other day I was thinking back to when we were kids. I was remembering family fun nights, playing football before royal rangers (missionettes for you), puppet practice, playing basketball in the kids center (we poned Tom and Austin), running to the kids center to jump in the spacewalk after wednesday nights, coming over to your house on ellerbe, playing airsoft... I remember the first time we played music... Get Down! hahahaha! that was great... not really... it was really terrible, but thats ok, we thought we were the stuff! I remembered human video and then the first night you came to youth and Kurt pulled that stand-up-in-the-middle-of-
And on... and on.
It was so good. Reading the above, (written not by me, but a friend), proves just how good my life was. It was perfect, as life on earth gets, really. I loved life. I once asked my mom, as she was tucking me in one night, if Jesus would be mad at me because I didn't want Him to come back. I wanted to go on living the "perfect" life that i had. Granted, I was only 12-14 yrs old at the time the above stated was accumulating, but nonetheless i had developed what had seemed on the outside as the epitome of what a young, Christian, Pastor's daughter could want.
I did love life. And that love, however innocent it began, was slowly beginning to take me to a place of comfort and complacency the likes of which I confessed, weekly to hate. But I didn't recognize it, and there was nothing to call me to recognize it as the putrid sin that it was. No, I wasn't rebelling against God... yes, I was still a Christian, but I wasn't living the life God me to.
A year and a half ago, God called me to be greater. It wasn't in the typical, go-down-to-the-alter-and-get-a-word-and-everything's-fine-and-dandy-again, type of way. In fact that would have been very much preferable. But since the devil was doing junk all around anyway, God decided to take that chance and do something a million times greater.
But back to the story. A year and a half ago, I was minding my own business, being 14, chilling with my buddies, playing the keyboard and singing in church, living the life...when my whole world changed. It was all of the sudden for me, but what was stirring and growing in the hearts of some people had been implanted years and years before, but simply decided to manifest at the light of vision. It seems quick now, but in the midst of the trial it seemed that it would never end. Two or so months of the hardest thing I had ever faced - ever - in my life. But it was a spirit, and it grew, and spread, and influenced many people. That being probably the hardest part. So many people I loved, getting twisted and confused because of the sins of a small group. Although it could never be called that.
My whole perception had changed. Not only could the devil be allowed by people, only ALLOWED, to enter into people's lives, but he had, and continued to. It effected not only my life, but hundreds. They were hurt, ridiculed, angered, stabbed, rejected, forgotten, hated, and devastated, to just name a few. But, "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us." Romans 8:18
But God wasn't done. Of course He hadn't caused any of those wretched accounts to take place, but He knew what to do through everything He already knew the future, therefor He could have stopped it, but He allowed it to take place for one reason. That was because what He had planned for Shreveport/Bossier and Northwest Louisiana could not be done where we were. He had to take something horrible and tragic, and turn it into the best thing that has ever happened to me and countless others. Sure it was a long and difficult process. It was hard and it seemed we never would get through it. But God knew. And God did. Because, "We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who[i] have been called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28
Through that, God taught me to lean on His strength, His power, and His wisdom for sustenance. I no longer could live a comfortable or complacent life. I was riddled to the core of my being, only to be straightened back out by almighty God. I look to Him for guidance in every situation. There is no place for "easy", now, because the road of the righteous is narrow, and it is difficult. But by God's grace we continue in the work God has called us to, living in His power and mercy for us that sustains and gives life that we so much don't deserve.
