Quarter Life Celebration: A Testimony
Mama Goya
Earlier this year my great-grandmother, Gregoria Trevino (we call her Mama Goya), passed away at the wonderful age of 100 years, 6 months, and 1 day. She was the sassiest little Mexican I ever met, always speaking her mind and strikingly fearless with her words. Though my interactions with her throughout my life were few and far between, I do have some great memories with her. And I’ve heard LOTS of stories of the kind of woman she was. If one could learn anything about the legacy she left, it is that she was a woman who had faith in the God who saved her and that she, a daughter of the most High God, was a true princess of the heavenly kingdom. She was even buried in the tiara she wore for her 100th birthday. And let me tell you, she looked good. A beauty to be seen, even in her casket.
I think it is so cool that Mama Goya lived to be 100.
I like to think that I too, if the Lord allows, could live that much life here on earth. So, the premise of this testimony is the expectation that the Lord might allow me to live that long. :)
I am celebrating my 25th year, which means I am officially a quarter of the way through my life here on this earth!! As I wrote that sentence I physically sighed, exhaling lots of emotions: gladness, anticipation, fear, hope.
Yet I smile, because as I look back over what I can remember from the last 25 years, I think, “wow–thank you, Lord. I see your hand.”
My life thus far could be summed up in this: “God is holy. I am not. Jesus saves. Christ is my life.” [1]
As my 24th year has gone and passed, I wonder: what do I have to share from the life I’ve been given? What has it all meant?
Looking back, here’s what I’ve seen, learned, and meditated on...
GOD IS HOLY: Beholding Beauty…
Meditations:
Genesis 1; Psalm 19; Ecc. 3:1
John 1; Romans 1; Revelation 4
Whenever I choose (or, am made) to take a minute to slow down and look around—man, this world is beautiful. It is amazing—truly! I grew up in a small corn-town, moved to a second corn-town for college, ventured off to suburban city life, and most recently I’m dwelling in the hilly forest of North Carolina. I am of the mind that you can find beauty anywhere when you have eyes to see it. I still marvel at the most familiar sights, like my parent’s backyard; I still daydream about the sunrises over the budding stalks and irrigation systems misting crops in the distance. It is one of my happy places.
I am learning that beauty closely relates to holiness. The beauty of this world is a canvas on which God displays His holiness daily. I find that I can enjoy the richness and depth of beauty anywhere, at any time when I identify the Author of it: the Holy God of the universe who created everything out of nothing.
But, my eyes can only take in so much beauty. Lasting beauty—that is self-producing and sustaining, that never changes—is not a simple something that I can see with my eyes, but someone I behold with my heart. The eternal beauty that manifests itself is the Author, God Himself. None else.
I read passages in the Bible that say
“no man shall see God and live” (Exodus 33; John 1)
and think: “wow – how beautiful must the sight of the one true God be, that to even glimpse upon Holiness Himself would cause my very existence to cease…”
I AM NOT: Walking in darkness…
Meditations:
Romans 1; Galatians 5;
James 1; Genesis 3; Judges
As I attempt to imagine what matchless holiness is like, my mind J-cuts to thoughts of my own inadequacies.
I don’t have any kids right now, but I often hear Christian parents observe the reality in their kids that sin is not taught. It just…happens. And oh, how naturally it came to me as a child. I think back to how instinctive it was for me to do what seemed right in my own eyes. It just…happened. And unfortunately, that path led me to some really dark places. Like, shockingly dark. And out of nowhere, I went from thinking I have control over my sin to realizing it was actually controlling me.
If sin were a weed, I’d say it's fast-growing, utterly destructive to the soul of a human, incredibly evil and vile, and will kill anything it can grow up into. It preys on the innocent and wraps itself around the foolish heart. Like a monstrous malformation, sin ensnares the very bones of a child and, if left long enough, knits a web of destruction around the victim, suffocating it from any true good, worthy, valuable thing. It smells terrible, but it’s a smell that can become familiar to the point where you almost get addicted to it if you’re around it too long.
Another heartbreaking thing I have witnessed is that sin can kill you, yes, but it also deeply, deeply hurts those around you. I have wept and wept and wept over the sins of those close to me, because sin isn’t just personal, it's communal. It affects other people.
It doesn’t take many years of life here on this earth to look around and see all the hurting people who are hurting people. There’s so much destruction, so much grief, so many unsatisfied people, so much pain.
It’s kinda like those TV shows or video games about a fungus that overtakes the world, spreading from the victim’s body to brain until eventually they run around seeking to devour and infect their own kind. I think that’s actually the world we live in… a bunch of zombies running around and they don’t even know it.
JESUS SAVES: Meeting my Savior…
Meditations:
The gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John);
Psalm 23, Ephesians 2:1-10
Many people wonder, “Why Christianity? In a world full of all kinds of ‘religion,’ why do Christians get so exclusive with this Jesus guy?”
I know for me, it was hard to wrap my head around the idea that being a follower of Christ means first entering into a relationship with a real person: Jesus of Nazareth. It was hard for me to grasp that Jesus is in fact a real human. He was born, and He died, but then He came back to life. He’s still alive and has been for the last 2,000 years…and even though I can’t see him physically now, I believe that He really is still alive and saving lives. Getting to know Him has changed literally everything about the world as I know it (and even the things I’ll never understand). He changes everything.
But how can I just say a statement like that: He changes everything? How could I factually know that? Well, I can tell you, He changed everything about me. And He did that because even though He is a real human, He isn’t just human…He is also God.
I grew up going to church with my family, but I never really understood what it looked like to have a relationship with God. I understood the concept that there was a Creator who made everything and He wanted to “come into my heart” (a christian-ese term I never understood), but I never really cared to know why. So, I chose to enjoy church for the things I enjoyed: the people, getting to play music, free donuts…
…And then going out with my friends and doing whatever the heck I wanted or what seemed good to me during the week. My impulses were not good ones. Sex, drugs, alcohol, stealing, gossip, slander, bitterness, lust—you name it and I probably did it or thought about it. I was the quintessential nominal Christian pretending I knew who Jesus was when really all I knew was my own desires and how to follow them.
I eventually found myself rather unsatisfied with life. Maybe you’ve been there too. Wrapped up in things you know somewhere deep down are morally not the best, but still just searching, searching, searching for something or someone in your life that can make you feel alive and happy and satisfied.
I hit a breaking point my senior year of high school. I was fed up with virtually all of the relationships in my life, including my relationship with myself. I looked back at how much I had changed over the course of 4 years and I realized I was really ashamed of who I had become. I was in a constant state of feeling judged, hurt, and misunderstood by my friends, boyfriend, family and self. Everyone wanted something from me or had expectations for how I should live and I was failing miserably to meet the expectations of those close to me.
There were a few Sunday mornings where I would think about God and the little I knew of Him. But, I found myself frustrated. I didn’t know what He wanted from me so I projected a lot of my own self-judgment onto Him. I assumed that He was disappointed in how I was living my life and was not really interested in knowing me. I was skeptical of Jesus and the people who claimed He could do anything to actually change life and make it more satisfying because how could He?! I had heard of Him my whole life yet still ended up unsatisfied.
I heard of Jesus, but never met Him.
Until March of 2017.
It was another faithful Sunday, and my pastor was preaching on Matthew 13, the parable of the sower. This image was displayed on the screen behind him.
He walked our congregation through four heart postures that Jesus was teaching the people around Him. Jesus chose a parable to teach, speaking metaphorically about a sower planting seeds in different kinds of dirt. I found myself really resonating with the third of the four heart postures: the seed planted amongst thorny weeds.
Jesus’ explanation was this:
“As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.” (Matt. 13:22 ESV)
I knew that was me. I sat in the front row, as my family always did, looking up at that image of the girl longingly looking above and thought, “oh wow, that is my heart.”
All my life I had heard these “truths” that Jesus loves me and only He can save me and He satisfies my deepest longings. But, I could never figure out why, if that’s true, He always seemed so distant from the moment to moment of my everyday life. Jesus was more of a “nice idea” than a friend to me.
In that moment, the Lord used the Word of God to introduce Himself to me. He helped me realize that the very thing keeping me from knowing and experiencing Jesus was the pursuit of my sin. My pursuit of things that oppose God’s holiness. I was pursuing a relationship with my worldly desires, not Jesus. I was following the temptation of this world and wondering why God felt so far away (though, really, He was there all along – I just didn’t have eyes to behold Him yet).
That day, I understood 2 things for the first time in my life:
I was really sorry for the way I was choosing to live and,
I wanted God to forgive me and save me from all the darkness I was experiencing.
Thankfully, because seeds were in fact already planted in my heart from a lifetime of hearing the name Jesus, I knew the Person to cry out to. I knew who could save me.
And He did.
CHRIST IS MY LIFE: Walking with Jesus…
Meditations:
Matt. 22:37-40; 2 Cor. 3:18;
2 Tim. 4:7-8; Revelation
Upon making this life-altering decision to turn away from a sin-filled life and start walking with Jesus, I didn’t really know where to start. Thankfully, He did. A lot of things changed in that season of my life. My friends changed, the way I spent my time changed, my relationship status changed, my location changed. Not all at once, and certainly not without some heartbreak and mistakes made. I hurt a lot of people. And a lot of people hurt me. It wasn’t easy. But each change in its time was a necessary pruning of so many weeds that had gripped my heart so tightly. And, in a new and peace-filled way, I felt the Lord’s nearness through all of it.
God put people in my life who taught me how to read the Bible, which I have learned is the greatest foundation for my relationship with Him. I became a student of the Word. At the time, I didn’t know how reading it could really transform my heart and desires, but guys – it really does! There is part in the letter to the Hebrews about the Bible being “living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword,” and I have really experienced this in my life! I have seen the Word of God cut out so many weedy roots from my heart and replace them with satisfying, peaceful life!
As I have chosen to walk with Jesus, I am learning a lot:
I am learning that as a follower of Christ, I am now called and empowered by the Holy Spirit to live a life characterized by more of God’s holiness than my wickedness.
I am learning that I am free from the burden of guilt and shame for my sins because of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.
I am learning that this relationship with Christ means that I am called to love God first. Only when I love Him and worship Him above all else, am I able—with the power of His Spirit within me—to love others and live faithfully. God is love and He pours it out to those who love Him. So, any figment of love I get elsewhere is really just an illusion.
I am learning that God not only changes my relationships, but the entire way I relate to the world around me. I can begin to see life the way that He sees it. I see the beauty of all creation and also mourn the darkness that is still yet to be made right. I long for life the way it should be but—unlike my high school self—my longing is filled with hope because I know a Day is coming when all will be restored!
And that Day will be better than I ever dared hoped because I will see with my own eyes Holiness Himself. His light will shine brighter than the sun and I will be able to stand and live and thrive in His presence for all eternity. What a beautiful, holy Day that will be.
I wonder if my story resonates with whoever may take the time to read it. Any part—the good or the bad! If so, or even if you have any questions, I would love to chat with you. Maybe you find yourself skeptical of these ideas or think I am making it all up. Maybe you know Jesus but just need an encouraging reminder of what is true. Either way, I believe Jesus is inviting you to walk you out of darkness into His light to see the world for all its wonders and show you a better way of living in it.
The only way to truly live: with Him.
Notes:
Before you attribute that awesome summary to me, don’t. This phrase is something I gleaned from the pastor of my former church family, Mark Vroegop, who authored this phrase in a sermon series on Christian identity.
