My Story

This blog post is a bit of a deviation from what I normally do.  For one, it's not Tuesday night and I'm not scrambling at the last minute practice a discipline and post my reflections.  Instead, I've been instructed to share my story--more specifically, to share my spiritual journey up until this point in my life.  I guess I don't know any better way to start than to just jump right in.  Here goes nothing!

My story really starts with my parents' story.  My mom met my dad while she was teaching in New York, where my dad is from.  Their's is truly a remarkable, romantic, everything-that's-good-about-the-world kind of story--But that's their story to share, not mine.  At the heart of their love story, at the heart of their relationship, is Christ.  I may be biased, but their marriage seems to be the true manifestation of a Christian marriage.  And everything that flows from their marriage is grounded in Christ.  This includes, most prominently to me, the raising of me and my siblings.  My parents diligently led us in the faith in the most caring, gentle, and faithful way.  I am the youngest of six children and all six of us have professed our faith in Christ--a true testament to my parents, but most of all a testament to God's faithfulness.

And so I grew up knowing and believing that I had an identity in Christ.  I never had a true conversion experience, as is often the case with is Christian-home kids, and sometimes I envy people of their dramatic conversion stories.  But as I reflect on my upbringing I realize that having it any other way just wouldn't be my story.  Just as my story could not be anyone else's.  My story is still miraculous.

I went through elementary and middle school feeling as normal and carefree as any kid can during those awkward years.  It was in high school that it seemed like life decided to weigh down on and shake me.  My first few years of high school were fine; I had a few great friends and we had a blast not caring about whether or not people thought we were cool (because we knew we were, duh)  It was my senior year that I started to get my bouts of anxiety and was soon diagnosed with an anxiety disorder.  I remember scrolling through pages upon pages about my illness on the internet.  The more I read the more I felt like I was drowning in the statistics and my own despair.  It was hard for me to accept that this would always be a part of my life; it was a phase that I would never grow out of.

I have a very close family and am also generally pretty self-reflective and so at first I tried to cope with my anxiety by turning to myself and other people for comfort.  I thought I was turning to God when I would open my Bible and desperately try to find comfort in the words that I read, but in a way, I was still trying to comfort myself.  It all just became too much.  I think I had to hit the bottom to finally have it click that I could  not do it by myself--I couldn't do it at all, in fact.  I've never felt closer to God than when I really and truly gave my pain completely to Him.  It still holds true now; whenever I feel especially anxious, I also feel God's presence more poignantly in my life.  Obviously, this causes a lot of mixed feelings in me.  I'm now at this point where I want to be able to turn to God in the good and bad times.  I've met Him in the dark, but I want to meet Him in the light even more.

This is only a small piece of the pie that is my spiritual journey.  Actually, a more appropriate analogy might be something like a road (original!) because my spiritual journey is still going.  Anyway, I hope this has given insight into who I am, where I come from, and who I hope to be.

Peace,
Steph