Why I believe in Jesus - Personal Anecdote
12/15/22
Hello everyone! :)
I am working very hard to fill myself back up so that I can really get rolling on these again. Thank you for being patient with me during the process. <3
I have had this title on my heart for a week or two now but to be completely honest, I had no idea how to go about it. Why do I believe in Jesus? How can I even begin to put it into words? It feels pretty impossible to me, but I am going to do my very best to explain why I have chosen the faith that I have. And if as you read this you feel like it’s for you, it just might be. God, in His gentle and kind ways, has been absolutely nagging me to write this. Hahahah. So I am glad you found your way here. :)
This is part one, going to hit this question from a few different angles in the coming weeks.. Let’s get rolling!
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In most Christian circles, we share what we call our testimony. That word always made me uncomfortable and I always felt like my story wasn’t impactful for a very long time. In fact, I couldn’t even pinpoint the moment that God entered my heart and changed my life forever. I just knew that he was always there. Turns out, He was waiting to reveal that one to me too. Lol.
However, in the years since I moved out and off to Nashville, God has not only reframed my entire life beforehand, but changed my future trajectory quite drastically.
To speak more on the moment I came to faith: I have written in blogs before about how I used to walk around my house as a very young girl just talking to God constantly. I used to tell people that I’d known God since my first cognitive moments, and that wasn’t a lie- but that wasn’t the moment He became mine.
I don’t remember my exact age, but I believe it was somewhere between 3-5. I learned for the first time of a man in the Bible who lived a very sinful life and came to faith/was saved in his last living moments. This knowledge then compiled with other thoughts that had been swarming around in my little head, so I posed this question to God: “If I could live my whole life the way I want to live it, doing whatever I want to do and still get saved, why would I follow you the whole time?” And I will never, ever forget hearing God’s voice respond. It was the first time I’d ever experienced a direct answer from Him… And so He said, “Because a life lived with me will be much better than a life lived without me.” And I was absolutely floored. 😂 I remember feeling so confused but also like I’d never been more sure of anything else in my life. I understood with an overwhelming sense of clarity that God’s ways were better than my ways. And that was all I needed to know. I have been growing up with God right by my side ever since.
What I didn’t realize before is that in every conversation I had with God prior to that moment, I was just getting to know Him. And I think sometimes we forget that that’s a part of coming to faith. Anyone can talk to God without allowing Him to come into their hearts, and I sure did just that for a while before it all clicked for me. Imagine walking up the aisle and marrying someone that you've never seen, never heard their voice, whose name you don’t even know and saying “I do…” That is not what a relationship with God looks like. We get to hang out with Him first, go on some long walks, talk to friends about Him, think and decide for our own selves whether or not He is our forever. Anyone can pray, anyone can talk to Him. And He can answer. But accepting Him? That is a different kind of moment to experience.
In the time since I said yes to Jesus, I have had QUITE the journey, lol. I’ve had an incredibly beautiful life but also a hard one just like everyone else. While I am not comfortable going into full details in this space, just know I was a child who struggled. I never fit in with or understood groups of an exclusive nature. I remember hating my body and my face and my name. I didn’t understand why I struggled so much more than my classmates from pre-k to pretty much every grade ever lol. I would cry, I would be overwhelmed, my parents would have to come get me from school early on countless occasions. I still to this day can barely read a standard clock. I never figured out my left from my right (ever lol). I got everything backwards all of the time. I couldn’t finish my homework as quickly as everyone else. I couldn’t seem to concentrate or compute things like other kids. I couldn’t ride anything at the state fair without getting sick. In fact, I could barely handle a car ride without vomiting on the side of the road for many years. And when I was in first grade, I had a panic attack nearly every day for that entire year. I constantly felt like I was dying and I had no idea why. I just seemed to be more effected by general life than the other kids my age and it felt very isolating. I didn’t understand why my emotions either didn’t exist or sat on my sleeve ready to pour out at the drop of a dime with not much in between. I never really got an answer as to why other than that’s just how I was.
I say all of this to paint the picture a bit more and to support this point: I constantly felt like I had to rely on God ALLLLL of the time just to get through the day. And as I continued to get older, I could see myself changing because of it.
I placed my identity in Christ because I was perpetually reminded that I couldn’t make it alone. Because of this, I call my sensitivities blessings. They taught me reliance, my worth, my value, and what battles weren’t mine to handle. I have gained unexplainable joy and fulfillment because of God’s presence in my every step. God’s constant work gives me consistent hope. He gives me the strength to walk away when I need to, to stay when I need to, to avoid things that will harm me and pursue what will fill me. He has answered many prayers in bold ways and in soft ways. He has made His presence known in times of spiritual warfare as well… But I’ll get into that another day lol. God has also constantly challenged the way I see everything around me:
“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” - C.S. Lewis.
This is one of my favorite quotes. I find that I have been able to live a beautiful life because of how God paints the world around me. I once compared this to a time I was wearing sunglasses on my Dad’s boat- They were dark, the lenses blurry from some spray sunscreen. I grew frustrated and took them off because I wanted to see more clearly. At first, the brightness was overwhelming. But when my eyes adjusted, I realized just how much I was missing before.
Do you still have on your sunglasses? Are you avoiding taking them off because of the initial discomfort? I understand that. And if I am being honest with myself, the brightness is always a bit uncomfortable. I’ve put my sunglasses back on, completely closed my eyes at other times. I think that is just a part of the journey; it isn’t completely linear. And humanity is messy.
It’s really hard to explain to others why I believe in Jesus and in the gospel that the Christian faith proclaims. I feel like the best way I can say it is that even in my suffering, He has been there. He has loved me. He has made masterpieces from millions of broken parts. He never leaves me where He finds me.
I don’t want to paint the kind of faith story that focuses on suffering because I have had a plethora of incredible moments as well… but a lot of times, people want to know that you’ve walked through some trenches and been tested before they can trust what you say. And I think that is completely fair. But again, it’s no game of comparison. I think your faith is just as valid as mine or anyone else’s regardless of your life experiences. This is uniquely my story. So I will take you through my recent life events/some impactful moments for me and we will move on. Lol.
My car accident senior year of HS. (I wrote an article about this a while ago on Thought Catalog) I learned how the spirit of love and the spirit of religion could clash in very harmful, non-Christ-like ways.
Spending the summer before moving to Nashville mostly bed-ridden and in so much pain. I lost a lot of weight. I couldn’t even tolerate chicken broth lol. All I could do was twist and turn on my bed with a heating pad full blast and eat saltines. I discovered Motrin was the only thing that numbed my pain for a while and I had no idea why… Shouldn’t that make a sick stomach more sick? Not in my case. Lol. Little did I know.
All of my grandparents passed away before I graduated college.
In the moment that my Nana passed away, I held her hand because she was the first person who ever held me. That was a very specific prayer God answered in my life.
I watched both her and my Ema actively dying for days. Something about that changes you forever; It makes life a lot more precious as well as makes life after death seem a lot less intimidating. I have never felt God’s hope so closely as in the spaces of my grief.
When my Ema was passing away a few years after my Nana, I was also a few days out from a very terrible break up. She passed the 29th and I was dumped over a text one hour after the new year. (You guessed it- I was heading into 2020 lol. Started off the year very strong!)
That relationship in general was not great for me. Lots of my friends didn’t understand what was going on. It was a really, really lonely time. And I wouldn’t put all of the pieces together until much later on.
During all of this stuff, I was in the midst of building up and breaking down the duo I was in with my sister. To say that none of my family members agreed with my decision to split is an understatement… 😂 It took a while for those wounds to heal. We were on the verge of being in a line up with Lady A and a good handful of very successful artists when I pulled the plug. That event got canceled and I knew if I didn’t get out then, that more opportunities would come and it would be too late.
My whole family got baptized together during the weekend that I ✨✨left the duo✨.
A few months after all of that went down, I was sent home for quarantine. I was in that first round of graduation kids who didn’t get a ceremony. (May 2020) And it was very disorienting to lose all of the momentum we built in our college careers. I had to start over in a lot of ways and so did many of my peers. On top of the general effects that the pandemic had on everyone lol.
About a year into quarantine, the crippling, horrifying, deathly pain that almost kept me from moving to Nashville for college came back with a vengeance. I had no idea how much worse it had gotten because my birth control numbed the pain during college. And this time, my gallbladder was removed to try and resolve it… Low and behold, endometriosis was the primary culprit, not that. I had an entire organ removed and the problems only got worse afterwards lol. It was then that I went to a new doctor months later and they were like… Girly… Lol. How did you not ✨ know? ✨✨
Not only was I experiencing endometriosis on full swing at this point, but I was also dealing with undiagnosed POTS. I greatly struggled to get off of my couch and stand up for almost half a year. I was sick every single day. Debilitating nausea from the moment I’d wake up. I could barely shower by myself and get into my bed at night. I couldn’t even bend down to grab a fork out of my dishwasher some days without my heart pounding and eyes getting fuzzy and ears ringing. I’d have to lay down for an hour just to recover... from bending over to grab a utensil… Needless to say, my living conditions deteriorated. I couldn’t do much. Dishes and trash were overflowing. I’d never been in such a low place of functioning before… being a very type A, organized/clean person, I carried a lot of shame for that. And then after some flooding, my unit became roach and mold infested. Which greatly exacerbated my health issues lol. Unfortunately, I didn’t know it was mold at first. I figured it out months in.
During this point in time, I was mentally doing very very poorly (thanks, mold). I got myself a job at First Watch across the street so I could walk there (genuinely couldn’t drive myself around safely for a long time. Still struggle to do that to this day sometimes.) I saved up every penny for 3 months and broke my lease to get out of that apartment. The physical toll it took on me was worth it because the more time I spent outside of my apartment, the more I realized that being there made me more sick… That was when I put two and two together.
I had my third abdominal surgery in that same year- the first in 2015 (fluid tumor removal from behind my left ovary and excision without the Endo diagnosis… big fail there lol) and the other two both in 2021 (gallbladder removal and endometrial ablation). On top of other minimally invasive procedures that still took a toll on me. I had to make several trips to the ER after gallbladder surgery before I got either of my diagnoses. And my Aunt Terri passed away from a 5 year battle with pancreatic cancer on the day of one of those procedures.
I got hired and burned out of several customer service/serving jobs before I realized that there was something else going on besides the endometriosis… While I’d gone to a heart doctor a year prior with lots of symptoms, nothing was conclusive. So I googled my way to a diagnosis and battled them for more testing and got my answers. So, in other words, I only got my POTS diagnosis within the last month or so. But I’ve had symptoms since I was a young girl. Lol. I’ll do another blog digging into what these health issues mean and what the symptoms and such are, but I won’t do that today.
I realized my mental health was still ick, even after moving and changing a lot of things about my life. So I took my therapists advice and went to a psychiatrist. I am on my second medication now and so far, it is going well! Cymbalta almost landed me in the ER again… 😂 But now I am trying Wellbutrin! I am learning that there is no shame in seeking treatment for your brain.
Phewww okay. I realize that this summary does a brief cover of some heavy things. And I am also leaving out a lot of experiences and details that I am not comfortable talking about publicly. AND I know that I am far from the only human being that has suffered. Lol. This is just my experience in my 24 years thus far. I know many people who have gone through much more painful things than I have. This is also a list that doesn’t touch on the amazing moments in my life. I have waaaaayyyy more of those than the bad ones. But the culmination of everything is what makes me who I am.
I only share any of this to say that Jesus is the only reason I am living and breathing today. I can’t make a statement like that without context and so that is why I provided it. I struggle to explain the depths of what it feels like to perceive myself as a burden, a failure, a mistake. And how at the same time as I feel those things, I also fully believe that I am worth the mess that comes with me. That, in fact, my character is much stronger and more thorough because of it. That the depths I am capable of loving people to are only so deep because I know pain and loss. I have so much more to give now because of the perspective I have gained. I believe God has centered my identity throughout everything and given me a plethora of tools to navigate life with. I’ve seen many fruits from that. He gives me more growth and wisdom in every season.
I would like to believe that through everything I’ve encountered, Jesus has been an active and comforting voice in my life. As I struggled with any and everything, He guided me so gently and kindly. He spoke life into me. He led me to the right people and specific scriptures and institutions to shape and mold me. And He has blessed me with many experiences to test my mental strength and character. I wouldn't be half the person I am today without every single step of my journey and I wouldn’t take anything back.
To wrap up, I am not here to convince anyone what they should or shouldn’t believe. All I can do is share from my own life how I have come to the conclusions that I’ve come to. And for me, there is nothing quite like God’s beauty... He has taught me to walk slower through the park and sit presently in seemingly simple moments. He has been a friend to talk to when I am on solo dates with myself or on long drives. He has given me people to love with everything I have in me and he has shown me that love is very hard, but very worth it. He has shown me that I have intrinsic, immeasurable value. That He has great plans for me. That He will never abandon me.
I am always a friend if you’d like to talk about this more or ask me questions. I am very much an open book about all things faith and life! I have had many doubting moments and periods of time where I dissociated from everything and just coasted lol. As I mentioned previously, we ebb and flow as followers of Christ. And He knows our pain and discomforts. He loved us enough to walk in our shoes after all.
I love you. Thank you for letting me be very vulnerable here today. I wish you all so much joy and blessings and peace in this holiday season as we wrap up yet another year. See ya next time. :)
-Lexi
