From Broken to Blessed

Song of the week : Joy by Tori Harper

“Your joy is greater than a thousand sorrows”

Hey everyone! Welcome to Broken and Blessed! If you know me personally then you know that my faith is something that is super important to me. Being a Christian Ministries major and a Writing minor, I want to use this platform to be able to teach, inspire, learn, and more as my journey continues! The goal for my weekly posts is to write pretty much whatever God calls me to touch whether it be something I’m learning spiritually or something that I am called to teach others about! That being said, I think the best way to kick off this journey is to tell my personal testimony. This is a pretty lengthy post and I do not plan on making my posts after this quite as long, but that being said, I encourage you to keep reading :)

Growing up in a Christian household, I had learned about God from a young age but while I had known about Jesus when I was small, I hadn’t truly started knowing Jesus until I was 13. Ah, the preteen years. The time when you learn how mean girls can be, when the outfits you pick out are going to make future you cringe, and the time when you truly start learning about yourself. Well when I was thirteen, the most unexpected thing I could imagine happened to me. My parents announced their divorce. I had gone to class with kids with divorced parents, I had heard the stories, but I never imagined it would happen to me. What was even more shocking than that was that I was calm. When my parents asked me how I felt, I remember the only thing I said was, “God has a plan.” At that time, I knew of God but I had never put something so huge into his hands. From then on, my life has been a rollercoaster. My dad moved to Keizer, OR and soon enough I was adjusting to having a new family part time. My dad fell in love with a new woman and my sister and I gained three new siblings. At thirteen, emotions are definitely amplified so while my father was happy, I thought this was the worst thing ever. While I grew to love my new siblings, I was less than thrilled to have a ‘new mom’. I threw myself into angst. Locking my bedroom door, painting like crazy, and then slowly my anxiety grew. At the time I had no idea what I was feeling and I had no idea that my anxiety would be one of the biggest obstacles of my life. But more on that later.

While I had seen the worst in everything around me, I actually was given a lot of blessings. My oldest step sister introduced me to a camp for kids with special needs called Camp Attitude. Funnily enough, my best friend had been going there for years with her family for her little brother with muscular dystrophy. With the help of my step sister, my best friend and I spent a week volunteering at Camp Attitude.

My Best Friend and I :)

There, I was paired with a little boy who would turn my world upside down. He was considered a ‘runner’. We would be sitting, doing one thing, and the next moment he was up, and well, running. Not only did I have to learn stamina but that week I had to learn how to not care about my own needs but care for the needs of someone else. From then on, I had spent a week for the next four summers at Camp Attitude, being paired with another kid, and learned another lesson. Camp Attitude wasn’t just a place where I learned about myself but I had learned so much more about God. His presence was so strong there that it was overwhelming. I had seen kids who were instead of being down about their disabilities but they were overjoyed to be praising God. My first year I had met a girl who had spent her whole life suffering from a brain tumor which had caused her to be blind and wheelchair bound because she couldn’t walk. Years later I watch her get up out of her wheelchair, and with a little help walk across a stage. Is that not God or what?

When I wasn’t spending time at Camp Attitude, I was learning more about my faith while at church. My dad’s relationship had gotten rocky and so we began to attend church at New Hope Foursquare in Salem. My first time there, I felt God’s same presence, if not more, as I did at Camp Attitude. Attending church became my favorite thing to do and it was even more special as my relationship between me and my dad grew. When I had finally accepted the way my life was, I was thrown another curveball. My dad got divorced again and I lost my siblings and my home in Keizer. We persevered through and my dad and I continued to attend church at New Hope as we learned to adjust to our new normal. My dad had moved in with my grandparents and I was with my mom full time but I looked forward to every Sunday where I could be with my dad and God. In May 2019 I had learned about the opportunity through my church to go on a mission to Guatemala. Immediately, I could feel God tell me, “Go.” So in October, I was packing my bag and traveling over 24 hours to a village in the high mountains of Guatemala called Xeo (shay-oh).

There, I learned so much about myself, the village, and most importantly, about God. To see these people who have pretty much nothing, have more joy than I had ever seen, it blew me away. Watching these kids who I couldn’t even speak to, play with me and laugh with me, I thought God has no barrier he could break down. This is the place where I felt my call to ministry. On a mountain with no connection to the outside world, I learned that this is the place where I was called.

Coming home, I had a new outlook on life but this is where I had to learn a lot more. The relationship that I was not even close to perfect and there were multiple trials and tribulations. In March 2020, I was alone again and I fell off the deep end to say the least. Being broken up with a week before COVID shut everything in my life down, I couldn’t fathom how I had everything one week and the next, it was all gone. My anxiety kicked in again and it became so severe that I had to take one day at a time, if even an hour at a time. But through this, I learned that the only thing I needed was God. Each day I would study the Word, listen to sermons, podcasts, and read any material related. While I improved, I still struggled. In May 2020, I got the news that my cousin had committed suicide. The emotions that I felt were a whirlwind. I felt sad, angry and hurt. While I hadn’t known him well, I had related to his hurt and pain. One night, I wanted to just give in. I wanted to go with him. But not only could I bring myself to the thought, I could feel God telling me to stop. God saved my life. Through this, I was able to gather with family I had usually seen once a year and built so many relationships with. I got a job and my mental health improved immensely. Starting school in August, I had built myself and I was still building. I joined a small group where I could surround myself with Godly women, and at home I was able to continue to be surrounded by family. Come late September, I was great mentally. I had a thriving relationship with God and I was content with myself. Early October, God gave me the opportunity to be in a new relationship that is loving and good.

The past month or so, my anxiety has risen and fallen and it is still an obstacle that I am facing. But this past week I have learned that not only is God taking care of me but so are the people around me. The song that has stuck with me this week with my situation is Joy by Tori Harper. While we may go through trials and tribulations, God is still there working for us and the joy that we will feel will be so much greater than the sorrows that we feel at times.