5. Why I Am A Christian: Part Two

5/22/21

Hello!

Here we are at the final blog in this series on faith! I have been learning so much over the last few months and am excited to start sharing those things with you starting next week. :)

I want to preface this blog by putting out a quick disclaimer for those of you who don’t know me on a personal level - last week was a lot. Looking back now, I am a bit annoyed with myself for writing through the lens of my pain but in that same regard, I am just happy I wrote at all. I don’t know why it took immense physical stress to force me back into being vulnerable and showing up every Sunday with a new post, but that is what did it.

If you aren’t close with me, you would not know how much I hide my pain whether someone is asking me about it or existing around me. I never tell people how hard it’s truly been. So if my blog last week seemed more self-focused or dramatic than the subject matter called for, I apologize. There are lots of really painful things going on in the world right now and after some reflection, I decided that now is not the time for me to dig into my personal physical pain.

In coming weeks and months, I will hopefully be able to dig into that from a retrospective standpoint rather than one of being trapped in the midst of it. I know many people suffer silently with chronic illnesses/pain and I don’t want to send a message saying that it is inappropriate to share honestly about it, so please don’t hear that. I just need more time to get through it and process my experience so that when I do share, it is more helpful.

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Okay, now let’s wrap up today’s topic!

“…I don’t remember almost anything about that day. I don’t remember how old I was, just that I was very small and my sister was even smaller. I don’t remember where we were, only that it was in one of the many places our grandma lived while we grew up. “Come here girls, hold my hands and lets sit still.” she said to us. And it was in that circle in a small bedroom somewhere that I will likely never find again that she asked for God to join us. And now, after twenty two years of my brain searching desperately for the moment when Jesus Christ entered my heart, I have pinpointed it back to right then. “Do you feel Him?” she asked us. And I did. I felt this warmth throughout my entire body that I couldn’t identify until very recently - the feeling of love, safety, and peace; the fullness of being truly seen and accepted for all that I was…”

That is a tiny excerpt from a book I recently began writing! And that is not when I felt God for the first time, but it was when I first truly recognized it as Him. I don’t remember a day of my conscious life in which didn’t know and believe in Jesus Christ. I may have not understood all of the logistics immediately or the fullness of the Gospel message, but I always knew that Jesus was my best friend.

I used to walk around and talk to him constantly in my mind, I would handwrite my night time prayers as a child and hide them in various places around my house. Even today as an adult, the internal monologue of my foundational prayer is grammatically incorrect because my understanding of English at the time that I started to pray it was not fully formed. It is like this habit that is engrained within me now and so even when I pray it with proper grammar, my mind still recites its original form at the same time. To give you an example, I would pray:

“…And protect us from deadliness sicknesses and deadliness things.”

My brain still says that as I pray my recited prayers. I don’t think it will ever stop, honestly. 😂

I know that is not everyone’s story, but it is the one I have been given to speak from. I often found that as I grew up and life began to challenge my understanding of Christianity, that there was something special within my childlike faith that continued to anchor me through every question, doubt, and quest for truth that I went on.

I couldn't place Jesus in the same category as characters like Santa or the Tooth Fairy because my faith in God was not a stagnant belief like those things, rather it was a transformative and interactive relationship. I always found that believing in God was not a statement, but a way of living. And that is what set it apart from everything else.

I had God warn me gently about things as a child that I was not mentally prepared to open the door to until this year. He also told me as a very young girl that I would be growing up in a chaotic, divisive, and unprecedented time. But this was back when flip phones were the hottest technology and DVD’s were becoming popular. I questioned God a lot about that statement, but it turns out that He was very correct.

God has given me dreams of the future that came true, revealed death and sickness and birth to me before they came in reality, and He has answered my prayers in more ways than I could ever begin to recount. He has walked with me through years of spiritual warfare and given me eyes to see evil spiritual entities flee before me in His name. I know a lot of this sounds absolutely insane and I can’t blame anyone for not believing me, but I am telling the truth.

I say all of this to say that God is a part of my story in every way, shape, and form. And the only way I can even begin to explain that is with time: It’s like your parent teaching you a vital piece of knowledge as a child that then serves you very well in adulthood. You look back and can pinpoint where it came from and you develop a deep appreciation for the gift that was given to you by the wisdom of someone older than you. That is what my entire existence feels like with Christ.

I look back on everything and see God. I look at my life right now and see God. I get small hints of my future and see God. Everything is drenched in His love, kindness, mercy, and leadership. And every moment of my rebellion is showered in those same qualities. I haven’t perfectly lived my life by any means but the God I know knew that and paid the price for it before I ever came to be.

My relationship with God is the sole reason I have come to believe in Him with all of my heart; I would venture to say that it starts there for all of us. My intimacy with Him has drawn me towards His words in the Bible, towards my identity, towards my purpose, towards His creation. It has given me eyes to see the beauty in everything and to grieve where injustice has been done.

It is not to say that life, relationships, marriage, or anything else can’t be beautiful without identifying yourself as a Christian. But it is to say that when you connect to the creator of the universe, you begin to see the power that goes beyond us while working through us. When we discover that we are not the main characters of our lives, but rather that we are supporting characters to Christ, we are given a freedom to create lasting blessings for not only ourselves, but generations to come.

I could ramble forever. I am going to wrap up this week right here and start working on some more content for coming weeks, but this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how much I love Jesus. I am only one voice and one story, so I would absolutely love to hear about yours. I know I say this a lot, but please message me if you want to talk about this topic or life or anything else. I created my blog as a means of starting conversations and learning from all of you who read it.

Thanks for sticking with me, and get ready for my more usual content starting again next week. :) Love you and have a great Sunday!

-Lexi Cummings