It was my junior year in high school, classes were changing and I was at my locker getting my books.
My locker was right beside “Natalie”. Natalie was the girl who never missed church. She was always very sweet and the only Christian I really knew.
Unbeknownst to her I looked to her as my example of what a Christian looks like. We began talking about our weekend. I was very surprised to hear that Natalie was not the perfect Christian girl I thought she was. She was drinking, sleeping with her boyfriend, and partying just like every other teenager I knew.
If the “church people” do it then it’s okay right?
That was the false idea that sent me down a reckless road during my high school and college days.
With my desire to be accepted coupled with a typical first born people pleaser; it wasn’t long before I was partying and everything else that comes with it. I was popular, I had friends and boyfriends, I was having fun.
I was incomplete.
The parties promised to be “fun” and the guys promised we would be “forever”. The next several years were full of hangovers, hiding, and heartbreak.
My heart had been broken so many times I didn’t know if there was anything left. I felt like I was grabbing onto the pieces that were left and trying to see how (or what) could fix it. I would soon find out there is only one who could make it whole again.
At the age of 22 my friend “Sarah” invited me to a bible study. I still remember clear as day she was sharing with us the story of the woman at the well. She drew a picture of a cistern. Saying the woman was filling up her “cistern” with men and it didn’t truly fulfill her, it was only temporary.
That was so me! I thought finding the right guy, the right party, the perfect outfit would bring me happiness. There were so many things I was filling in my “cistern” that only lasted a short while. Then she talked about how Jesus promised living eternal water so she would never thirst again!
That was all I needed to hear. I remember praying a very un-fancy but totally genuine prayer that went something like this, “obviously my way of doing things isn’t working, I’ll try your way.” I didn’t even know what that meant but God started changing me. He held my hand during the next several fragile weeks. All of a sudden so many things had lost their appeal. The party scene was no longer of interest to me. I stopped wasting money shopping and began loving what I had more and wanting less. My heart was being healed by the great physician. The more I fell in love with my heavenly father the less I needed anything else. I wasn’t longing for something, I had it!
My roommate slipped a note under my door that said, “I just wanted to let you know I see the changes in you and I’m proud of you.”
I started visiting a church that had a really cute youth pastor and for some reason he seemed to like me too. I had huge issues trying to understand why a youth pastor would want anything to do with me. I tried in my mind I think to push him away because even though I knew I was a new creation to God, how could a human look at me that way? But he did. My sins are as far as the east is from the west to him. That Katie died in the baptismal waters the new me is who he was interested in. I finally embraced that and we were married in 2004.
I thought I would find happiness in all the wrong places but when I fell in love with my heavenly Father he blessed me with the most amazing husband I could ever ask for. He models Christ to me on a daily basis. Today we have two precious little girls (that look just like their daddy).
God has used me to break down walls in relating to other women who feel “not good enough” to come to church. I assure women none of us are perfect (hence the title of my blog ). I am daily learning more about what it means to be a child of God. I don’t have it all figured out and never will, but loving the journey He has given us.
Are you filling your “cisterns” with things that are only temporary?
Let me encourage you, Jesus is truly the only thing that can make you whole. He is so in love with the beautiful perfectly imperfect you. He has a well full of eternal water just waiting to be poured on you,
Will you hold out your cup?
