[Originally posted on September 21, 2008]
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God. (Ephesians 2:8)
Many Christians talk about having a “life verse” — a verse from the Bible that has had a great impact on their life, that puts words to spiritual battles and growth that no other words can express. For me, that verse is Ephesians 2:8, for which I chose to base this blog on. My journey to Christ has been the proverbial rollercoaster ride. I grew up in a Catholic home, learned all the Catholic “rules,” performed all the Catholic rituals, and received all of the Catholic sacraments. I was the good little Catholic girl … but there was something missing. It was years before I realized what the missing piece was; however, my upbringing and my relationships with my mother and sister, who are both Christians, practicing Catholics, instilled two very key truths in my heart at a young age: 1) That God is real; and 2) That my life is not my own. These two truths, I later learned, were placed in my heart by God through my family in order to bring me back to him as an adult.
As a teenager, I rebeled against my parents and their rules … including, and most specifically, that I had to go to church. I fought against it, and at 16, I left the church and truly entered “the world.” Through the rest of my teen years and early twenties, I searched for fulfillment, for happiness, for completeness in the world. And, of course, I didn’t find it. What I did find were dead ends, heart break, and emptiness. During those years, I now am able to see, God pursued me. He placed instrumental people in my life for a day, for a season to bring questions to the surface. Who was I? What was my purpose? What was the meaning of life? Many times I felt God walking right toward me, but I turned and ran the other way. In my desperation to answer my soul’s yearnings, I almost fell into the clutches of a cult … only to be saved by God. I remember crying out to Him asking “Where are you?? I want to find you. Why won’t you reveal yourself?” But God’s ways are not our ways and He knew when the right time was. He knew that if I had “found” Him at any other time it wouldn’t have been right for me.
So … how did I “find” Him again? Amazingly enough, it was in the form of re-connecting with my best friend whom I had known since the fourth grade. We were 24 and just out of college starting our careers. She was a teacher and I was a PR writer. We were so alike in many ways and so very different in others. But I knew I could ask her anything and that she would answer me honestly. I called her up and basically said, “What gives? Why are you always so content even when things are going bad?” Her answer: “Because of Christ …” And then we had a conversation that changed my life, a conversation that my friend had wanted to have with me for so long but was waiting for God to open the door. Well, the door opened and she entered into the craziness that was my heart. Her honesty and love no matter what I asked or told her of my past and things I had done astounded me. Through her words and her actions, I experienced the light of Christ and started to understand what His forgiveness really meant. Christ wrapped His arms around me through my friend and pulled me into His warm embrace, His safe embrace.
My friend told me about a church that was in my neighborhood. (I lived in the city and she lived in the ‘burbs where we had grown up.) It turns out the church was a church I had passed every day on my way to work and lunch and home but had never noticed … until God knew it was time for me to notice it. That church, Intown Community Church, is my church now. It’s where I’ve gotten to know God, where I’ve reaped the benefits of living in Christian community, and where I’ve introduced others to the saving grace of Jesus Christ. It’s where I found what was missing from my childhood in the Catholic church: a personal relationship with Christ. I’ve been at Intown for six years and can’t imagine worshipping or serving anywhere else.
I’ve named my blog GraceFilled because I am filled by the grace of Christ. Jerry Bridges in his amazing book Transforming Grace defined grace as: ” … God’s free and unmerited favor shown to guilty sinners who deserve only judgment. It is the love of God shown to the unlovely. It is God reaching downward to people who are in rebellion against Him.” Grace is something we, I, don’t deserve but, through Christ’s life and sacrifice, have received. It fills me. It saves me.
I still grapple with the questions of “Who am I?” and “Why am I here?” But as to the question, “What is the meaning of life?”, God has answered this one for me through His word and His amazing hand in my life. The meaning of life is to bring glory to God. And this is what I aim to do every day. I definitely fall short but because I am filled with God’s grace, I am forgiven of my shortcomings and given the opportunity to try again tomorrow.
