While I was praying the other night, thinking about my walk with the Lord, God placed it on my heart like this:
My life before I knew Jesus was like a broken bone.
The brokenness of my bone was the sin in my life. I was living completely in the world: feeding off my fleshly desires; I was prideful, I was partying way too much, I had a short temper and patience for little things--things I should be finding joy in. You name it, I seemed to be knee deep in it. I could try to cover it up, walk it off--like "no big deal, I got this". But when all was said and done, my bone was still
broken, I had an obvious limp and it hurt more than imaginable.
I wasn't fooling anyone that I had my life together, and eventually I could not even fool myself any longer. I call my low point when I started struggling with my performance on the track. The interesting thing is once I turned to God for comfort through that, He started showing me all the other areas of my life that were just as broken. I felt like God was saying, "Okay so now that I have your attention, let's look at this, and oh yeah this isn't so hot either, and yup yup that too" These areas included my lack of confidence in myself and more importantly the Lord and His plans for me and also relying on people's opinions for assurance and satisfaction.
It hurt beyond belief to look at all my sin and to continue to try and use my broken bone in daily life. It wasn't and couldn't work how it was suppose to.
God came along as my doctor. He started shining His light in all the broken areas of my life, which caused me to cringe to look at and feel the emotion that went along with realizing how unsatisfying of a lifestyle I was living. I knew I needed God to flip my life around. I had tried and failed many times on my own. I found myself asking, "Will it hurt God?" God answered, "Yes daughter. You're bone is horribly broken and I can't promise it won't hurt to fix. But I can promise you I will never leave your side and it will be worth it. This is the only way it can heal." Jeremiah 30:17 says, "For I will bring you health and will heal you of your wounds". And Jeremiah 33:6 says, "Behold, I will bring you health and cure, and I will cure you, and will reveal unto you the abundance of
peace and
truth." Those two words: peace and truth. I wanted that, I
needed that. "Okay", I said, "I trust You."
So I clung tight to God as He revealed my brokenness and snapped that broken bone back into place. He knew I would need to cling to Him in order to overcome this, which is why He allowed it to break in the first place. Through His selfless sacrifice, my bone was brought back to where it belongs, to begin to mend the brokenness of my life.
You know how people say with broken bones, the realigning of the bone back into place is the worst part and after that it doesn't nearly hurt as much? Because it is finally where it should be?
That's exactly how my life felt. I no longer carried around hurt daily and the pain stopped and I was able to begin to heal and move forward. My bone, or life, was finally able to work how it was intended to--to shine the light of Christ. I started getting involved in Athletes in Action weekly and absolutely craved the knowledge I was receiving from the Word through God Himself and through wonderful mentors as well. I was so hungry to learn and wanted to make myself useful in Jesus' mission; however, I was not fully ready and God knew this.
God knew I needed a cast on my broken bone to keep it in line and help it to heal. The cast God provided was the Ultimate Training Camp, which I have mentioned in some other blog postings. In my vulnerable brokenness I was able to be open and totally trusting with what God was teaching me and allowed Him into
all parts of my heart to heal.
Since then, God has shown me life outside of sport. He has shown me the true meaning and reason for life here on earth. Sharing His good news. He has blessed me with the avenue of being an athlete as a platform to reach other athletes. I have learned to grow in that area of my life through UTC.
Ultimately, my reliance and assurance in God's plan is what came of my trip to UTC. It didn't make me instantly fast and breaking records but it allowed me to step back and see a bigger picture, a bigger life, and a bigger calling outside of the sport of track and field. Recently, I have also learned to not give up! Just because I hit a road block does not mean I should settle and just assume this is what God has for me. But His assurance does allow me peace regardless. Overcoming my low self-confidence is something I continue to learn new things about each day. Praise the Lord for taking the brunt of it away in a way I cannot describe other than a Godly intervention. I still have my moments, but now I am able to combat and fight those doubts with truth from the Lord and I can fully absorb and understand the unique and fabulous way that God sees me: a loved daughter in His image.
Today, I would still say I am not completely healed. And I hope I never think that because I want to keep striving after Christ until the day I can finally be with Him in heaven. I would say now that I am more of a stress fracture than a big, clean break. Stress fractures come from overuse, or wear and tear over a period of time. I had 19 years of wear and tear on my life before I found the Lord. That is a lot of healing to do.
But you know the saying that a broken bone is weak at first but grows back twice as strong? There is also spiritual truth that ties into that, that I will hold onto. "Blessed is the one whom God corrects; so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty. For He wounds, but He also binds up; He injures, but His hands also heal." -Job 5:17-18
Jesus broke me down so I can be built up stronger in His image and fulfill
His plan for my life. He has me as a track and field athlete, at USF, involved in AIA for a reason and I want to honor that reason and glorify Him through the process.
