My Story... God's Glory

Growing up I was fully aware of who God was and that I was in need of a savior.  We were in church every time the doors were opened, but I was always terrified of walking down the aisle and making a commitment in front of everyone.  I was afraid of failure and hypocrisy.  As I grew up, I would have said I was a Christian, I would have told people that I loved Jesus and that he had saved me from the sin in my life, but there was a reoccurring theme that ran throughout my teenage, and early adult life that said that my heart believed differently.  My heart believed that I needed Jesus…. And something else.

In high school, I needed Jesus and a reputation of being the good girl.  My identity was found in being good, never having drank, or done drugs, or had sex.  I prided myself on these things, not because i was being obedient to the Lord but i liked the way it made people think of me.  It was a heart issue of pride.  I carried around my beautiful “goodness” so carefully and I guarded it, but in reality I was nothing but a dirty, empty cup.  The Thoughts in my mind were horrible, filled with jealousy, lies, hurtful thoughts, and men spirited gossip and slander.

In College, I needed Jesus and a boyfriend.  I pined after Young men of God who I so respected.  I tried to clean myself up by being around Christian people, being apart of a descipleship group and even going to church.  I thought i was doing all the right things, but i was doing them with the wrong motives.  I wanted one of those young men to love me… I hoped and dreamed and prayed and waited.  Well actually I didn’t wait.  I shoved myself right in the middle of whatever they were doing in hopes that they would see me.  I tried to be the girls girl and the boys girl all wrapped up in to one.  Even to the point one night that I was standing out in the driveway between two houses where our Campus Ministry Staff lived throwing the football in a skirt and heels.  I realize now how desperate and foolish I must have looked, but the sad thing is I looked even more desperate and foolish to the Lord, when I was going to church just to be near these guys.  My heart was in the right place, I think, to desire a godly relationship.  I saw them around me and realized how the guys  cared for and led the girls, but my heart wasn’t right with the Lord and so the time wasnt right for a relationship.  He wanted my reliance on him and my faith and trust in him and not in boys.
When I realized that the Christian guys were not interested in me, I began to doubt myself.  All this time still trying to fool everyone and myself that I was a Christian.  I knew deep down in my heart that I was not living for the Lord.   I was even “ministering” to a group of ladies in my sorority and on my hall where I was an RA.  I even lead someone to the Lord not even being sure looking back if I really knew the Lord.  I was going through the motions but my heart was not in line.
I decided in the spring of my junior year that enough was enough.  I was tired of waiting on these guys in the ministry I was a part of and that I wanted a boyfriend.  Everyone around me was in relationships and I wanted to experience that too.  So here I was 20 years old and had not had my first kiss.  I began to think what is wrong with me.   I questioned my weight, my personality, my looks, my intellegance, I didn’t understand why God would make me watch all the people around me be in love and I couldn’t be.
A friend set me up with a guy, and I knew from the moment I met him that he was not the kind of guy I needed to date.  He was the quenticential bad boy.  He smoked, he drank, he was in a fraternity, and I loved the attention he gave me.  Within a month we were dating.  We spent every waking moment together, and I was falling in love so fast.  All of my friends tried to stop me, but I didn’t care.  A boy was paying me attention and I LIKED it!!!  He told me he Loved me, and that I was beautiful, and that I was the only one he needed, and I soaked it up like a sponge.    He bought me flowers, and took me on dates, and won my heart.  He kissed me sweetly and told me he would wait for me as long as I needed him to, that he understood my feelings about sex before marriage and that he would respect that.   And then one night he went out with friends and got really drunk.  One thing lead to another and we had a huge fight on the phone for hours.  He screamed and yelled and called me every name under the sun.  He told me I was a tease and that I didn’t deserve a relationship, and that waiting for marriage was dumb and that I would never find anyone to love me if I didn’t have sex with them.  And then he started to sober up, the yelling stopped, and he began getting sweet again, but the message didn’t change.  I was going to be nothing or no one if I didn’t have sex with a man.  I couldn’t leave my room until the next morning  because I was on duty in the building so I tried to get a little sleep, but after 5 hours of crying and being yelled at by a guy who was acting like a drunk blubbering idiot,  sleep didn’t happen much. The next morning, instead of being mad for letting someone talk to me like that I felt weaker.  I felt like no one else would want me so I felt like I needed him more.  I had walked away from my Christian friends, church, and my bible during this time still thinking I was a Christian and that I had my convictions about no sex before marriage and that was enough.    I went to his dorm room to talk to him and he kept telling me if you love me you’ll prove it.  He had my mind so warped.  So finally with tears running down my cheeks I gave in, I didn’t want to loose him. I knew it was not what I wanted and I had told him that but I felt like there was no stopping it from happening.  It was not what it should have been.  There was no concern for my feelings, how I felt physically, or anything.   I closed my eyes and  In just a couple of moments it was over.  I ran to the bathroom crying, having no idea what the after effects of the first time were.  I dealt with all of that alone, while he rolled over and went back to sleep.

In November of my senior year, I packed up my entire life at school and moved 2 hours away to his hometown. I left school, failed all my classes, didn’t tell my roommates, friends, or my family where I was. I moved in with his ex girlfriend, who he had been playing the same mind games with her for years and was still cheating on me with her. Those next two months began to open my eyes about who I had become because of him, and what kind of financial, physical, and emotional shape I was in. One night I woke up from the insanity I knew after drinking two bottles of wine in a night and after passing out and hitting my head, waking up face down in my own vomit with him cheating on me with my roommate on the couch right beside me after that my parents finally were able to break the wall between us and pulled me away from him,

I moved into a better situation, and began focusing on me, but still not returning my focus to the Lord except in a trying time where I would cry out in sheer desperation, but in the next moment I was back to focusing on myself.  I felt black inside.  I felt like what’s the point anymore, I’ve already lost what was precious to me.   I knew what I had experienced but I hid it from everyone because I had kept telling myself that the one or two good days that he and I had were worth dealing with the weeks of horrible days.  I threw myself into work, ignored my family I was living with, scouered the internet for men, went on date after date after date, and my relationships only lasted a short while and even with men who claimed to know the Lord they turned physical quickly because I thought Ive already disappointed the Lord, there is no turning back, so why not.

That summer 6 months after leaving school I returned to school, and reconnected with old friends from the ministry I had used to be apart of.  That summer was pivitol in my life.  I met a friend in Law Enforcement while working for the Police Department, who after hearing my story, told me what it really was.  He explained to me how normal the feelings and actions in my life over the last year were for a rape victim, and how most rapes happen with someone you know and trust.  We had many hours of conversation and he made me realize I deserved so much more than I had been given in relationships.  In the same time I spent time with this group of friends who loved on me even though most did not know the extent to what I had been through.  It would have been very easy for them to judge me but they didn’t.  They showed me the love of Jesus.  So one night that summer I realized I was tired of playing games.  By my bedside I cried out to the Lord.  I didn’t know whether I was a Christian or not .  I knew in my head that Jesus had died on the cross for my sins.  I knew in my head that he loved me and that he wanted what was best for me, but in my heart I wasn’t quite sure.  I was at a point where Jesus was all that I needed.  I was tired of playing Games I needed a savior.  I needed to be saved from my sins, I couldnt be good enough to earn eternity with Him.  So my only hope was complete mercy given by a loving father and my complete surrender and dependence to him.  I admitted to him that I was a sinner and had no hope on my own, I accepted the Lord as my savior, believed that he died for me and that he took the weight of my the sin upon him, and suddenly John 3:16 became so clear. For GOD so loved “Meredith” That he gave his only beggotten son, so that when Meredith Believed that she will have eternal life.  My head had believed for 18+ years but my heart believed fully that night by my bedside.My lifestyle did not turn around over night.  I failed miserably.  I ran after the attention of men who made me feel protected.  The next year and a half was hard.  I was scared.  I had to admit things to people, mend relationships, rebuild trust, and have really hard conversations with people who I respected, but the Lord was grooming me the whole time.  He was taking my beautiful  life that I had destroyed and he was putting  it back together and making it more beautiful than it was before.  Every time I had tried to fix it I would fall on my face, but it was only when I fell on my face before him when I could dig no deeper that the true healing began.

I had to allow him to remove me from the things and people that hindered my life and my growth in him.  It was by no means an overnight change.  There are still things in my life that I struggle with on a daily basis, and people from my past that if given over to my flesh I would run to, but the Lord knows these things, and I think if we are all honest in our hearts there are things in all of our lives that we feel this way about.  But the Lord has redeemed me.  He has saved me.  He has made me clean and whole.

The moment by my bedside that night, I felt like the woman who touched his garment, and her condition was healed.  She was outcast by the world.  Her condition was not something she could help, but she had enough faith to reach out and touch his garment and he healed her.  I’m sure her life didn’t change immediately.  People still probably shunned her, and may have shunned her more because she chose to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, but when the Lord looked at her he saw his beautiful perfect son, just as when he looked at me even though i still failed, he sees Jesus in me.
My life was also like the woman at the well.  Jesus knew her past.  She tried to hide it, but he loved her anyways!

Photo by Sharon Lee Photography

Once the Lord got my attention.  I began serving and wanting to know him more.  I wanted to really know this savior who took my sins as his burden and makes me clean through his sacrifice. Who allowed me a home in Heaven because he experienced the wrath of Hell for me.  I want to know this God that before I was even born created a way for redemption for me, and allowed me the gift of adoption into his royal family.  A family where  I am not a broken and battered, heart -bruised woman, but a family where I am a daughter of the Most High King.  And I realized ALL I NEEDED was JESUS and him alone.  I still struggle with wanting Jesus and…. ( A good marriage, babies, a great career, success in life, ) these are all human desires that in the right context are good … but Jesus is so much better, when putting him first and these things next these things in life can become  AMAZING.
I tell my story not for pity or glory to myself for dealing with something so difficult.  I tell my story allow the Lord to use me to encourage the hearts and lives of other women.  I tell my story in faith that the Lord would use me to impact the lives of women who have walked in these same footsteps, or to help someone see the signs of this type of relationship before it begins.  I truly believe  Romans 8:28 …And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.   By no means what I went through was good, but I believe it was a gift!  The Lord did not do it to me, but he allowed it to happen to get my attention.  He allowed me to live through this pain, so I have 2 choices … I can hold it inside and let Satan use it against me, or I can share it with women and allow the Lord to work wonders in their lives through it.

This is my story… this is my song… praising my savior all the day long.