My story - Being an overcomer
The Christian walk – being a follower of Jesus – is not an easy journey. I started that journey when I was just 2 years old, although I cannot claim to have really known Jesus then. It has only been in the last 10 years that I can make that claim, and even now I have so much to still discover about him.
I grew up attending a Baptist church, mainly because that was the church that provided a bus that picked my brother and I up for Sunday school. My mother was an Anglican and my father a Presbyterian, although they didn’t attend church every Sunday, just on occasion.
I loved going to Sunday school as a child and later youth group as an early adolescent but as I entered my late teens, I left the church and started experimenting with many other things in the world. Looking back, I wonder if my drift away from God and the church was related to being bullied as a child in primary school. I wasn’t bullied because I went to church as I kept that well-hidden (although church did feel like my safe place when I was there). I was bullied because I was very quiet and shy, and I was taller that everyone else at school, even all the boys. I was a bit “gawky” really and I found it difficult to make friends. I was called “starvation on stilts”, among other names. The name calling didn’t bother me so much. It was the threats and the physical bullying that terrified me.
Because of the bullying, I had a real need to be accepted by my peers, especially as I got older. I wanted to be liked, so hence I started going to clubs, not church, and started smoking and drinking, among other things, thinking this would make me “look cool”. This was a real rebellious time of my life, and it wasn’t until after I was married, and we had our two wonderful boys that I came back to God and church.
I then enjoyed a long period of following God. I helped with “Bible in Schools” in my local community, ran a Christian drama group at the local school and worked as a Children and Families worker at a local church, but that was not to be the end of my journey. Once again, I hit a snag, and I veered off course. I stopped going to church and thought I could just do the “Christian” thing on my own, but that didn’t work.
I have to say, though, that God is amazing. He doesn’t let us go. He pursues us, although it is our choice whether we follow him or not. He does everything he can to bring us back to him and that is what he did for me. I was the one who stepped away from Jesus, not the other way around, yet he never left me. He has promised in his word, the Bible, that he will never leave us nor forsake us.
Several years after I hit my snag and veered off course, I was able to connect with a wonderful Christian woman through my work who was a great mentor for me. She prayed with me, invited me to her church Easter camps and guided me back on the path to Jesus. I connected back in with other Christians, and I discovered so much about the “grace” of God, that I had never before seen. For the first time, I, an undeserved sinner, truly felt that I had received God’s forgiveness and love.
I do want to say, though, that while I now have a much deeper relationship with Jesus than I have ever had before, life is still tough sometimes. Just because I am a Christian doesn’t mean my life is “a bed of roses”. All my life, which I think is a hangover from being bullied, I have suffered from anxiety. Paul in the Blble talks about having a "thorn in his side." Well, this (anxiety) has been the real "thorn" in my side. I worry about the smallest thing, and it escalates into something major very quickly. I experience heart palpitations which are very scary, and I am overcome with breathlessness. I still suffer these symptoms, and some days it is harder than others, but the thing that gets me through is knowing that I can always bring my worries and anxieties to Jesus. I have learned that I need to “trust” in Jesus and not try and work out everything for myself or assume that I know everything. I am God’s “beloved, forgiven child” and he is always with me, strengthening me and giving me courage. I tell myself this on a daily basis, and instead of giving in to the thousand and one scenarios going around in my head I focus on Jesus. It is not easy, but with his help, and only with his help, I know I can do this and be free.
Just this week, actually, I read a wonderful poem by Helen Steiner Rice which I want to share with you. This poem really spoke to the heart of my anxiety and showed me the importance of living in the moment, right here and now, instead of dwelling on the past or trying to work out what will happen in the future. That is in God's hands.
Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow by Helen Steiner Rice
Yesterday’s dead, tomorrow’s unborn,
So, there’s nothing to fear and nothing to mourn,
For all that is past and all that has been
Can never return to be lived once again…
And what lies ahead or the things that will be
Are still in God’s hands, so it’s not up to me
To live in the future that is God’s great unknown,
For the past and the present God claims as his own…
So, all I need do is to live for today
And trust God to show me the truth and the way.
For it’s only the memory of things that have been
And expecting tomorrow to bring trouble again
That fills my today, which God wants to bless,
With uncertain fears and borrowed distress…
For all I need live for is this little minute,
For life’s here and now and eternity’s in it.
If you want to have freedom in Jesus from anxiety and want to be forgiven and loved unconditionally and you don’t know how to do that, you could pray this prayer:
Dear Jesus, please help me now. You have said you will forgive me and love me unconditionally if I just ask, so I ask you now to please free me from my anxiety and forgive me for everything I have done wrong. Help me Jesus to also forgive myself so that I can have freedom in you. Amen.