Hungry For God

As a leader and missionary I find myself constantly attempting to get others involved, trying to lead them into being God chasers. America as a whole struggles to get people committed to the body and to devoting their lives to following Christ. We are constantly searching for people who are hungry for God.

Here is something I read about a Pastor in America talking to an Ethiopian pastor who lived in horrible poverty. He said, “Brother, we pray for you in your poverty.” The humble Ethiopian turned  and said, “No, you don’t understand. We pray for you in your prosperity.”  Seeing the taken aback look on the American Pastor’s face he continued, “We pray for you Americans because it is much harder for you to live at the place God wants you to live in the midst of prosperity, than it is for us in the midst of our poverty.”

I think that is such a key point. Most people you meet are starving. They try to meet that desperate need with anything and everything. Now days we turn to alcohol, physics, parties, medication, programs, money, possessions, status, professional psychologists, social acceptance… the list goes on. We try to fill that emptiness inside with all the stuff that America has to offer. We come to church to check it off our list, to socialize, to meet the "religious" part of us, some even come to sit and be taught. But how many of us come just because we are God chasers? We are following Him, running towards Him, we go to church because we fully expect to meet personally with our almighty, all powerful God.

How many times do we come to church on Sundays and completely miss the presence of God only because we didn’t really expect to meet with Him? But maybe we don’t actually want to meet with Him. Do we even know when He shows up? When you go to “church” on Sunday is God going to be there in the building? If so what is He doing? What is He saying? Who is He talking to? What if He shows up to personally talk to you? One of the things that scares me the most is becoming so complacent that when He does show up we either miss Him, or He finds us comfortably tipped back in our church seat napping and when He asks us about the things He has sent us to do we will not have an answer because the list is crumpled up in the garbage can. I believe that no matter how hard we pray or ask God to work, He will not pour out His Spirit on those who do not hunger for Him.

Do we really want Jesus? Or do we just like the idea of Him? Do we just like the things He has to offer? Or do we want Him to completely ruin us for the world? Do we really want Jesus? Or do we just want to know about Him? What will it take for us to be overwhelmed by His presence? For us to fall on our knees and bow our faces in reverence to our almighty God? What will it take for us to break out of our self-induced, self-absorbed comas and start really living for the One whose blood spilled out upon Calvary’s Hill?

A couple months ago I was once again sitting at the table having a conversation with my dad when he said something that really struck me.  “The one thing that comforts me is knowing that whatever God tells you to do, you will do because you don’t know how to stop following God.”

He is right. Rewind about 9 years. It was a spring day, I was alone, terrified, depressed, and hopeless. That’s when I met Jesus. He was there all along, I can see Him when I look back on my younger years but I’d never let Him in. That day I realized that only He could fill the starving part of my soul. At the time I was still living with my birth family and I had no clue what to do about this whole “following God” thing or what a real relationship with Him was like. In fact it was a few years after that when I got to meet my adoptive dad that I really started learning about who Jesus is and who we are in Him. I suddenly found that everything I had been taught about God needed to be rearranged and redefined. 

Somewhere during all the long talks and late nights a fire was lit inside my soul, one that could not be quenched. During the short course of my lifetime I have been through many struggles. Many of the things that happened, the things I had to go through were not easy to overcome. Sometimes I still struggle with them. It’s not easy to make the decision to choose God over your family, to forgive the man who tried to rape you, forget all the voices telling you that you aren’t worth it, to find love in your heart for somebody after years of being abused, it’s not easy to miss out on your sisters growing up, or overcome depression, anxiety and self-destructive habits. It’s the hardest thing in the world to break addictions and the chains that Satan so tightly bound you with. But here’s the good part. We can choose to let those struggles make us bitter against God or we can choose to believe Romans 5:1-5

“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

Thankfully, my struggles ended up driving me straight into the arms of my God. And sometime during the course of finding my place in God’s plan, finding Him through the struggles and the dark I came to the realization… (I think I first really realized it when God told me to go to Peru) I came to the realization that I cannot say no. I have continually found that I am unable to say no to God. There are times when I’ll argue with him, I’ll try to rationalize and dance around the point but in the end I find that I have no choice but to follow my God wherever He leads.

Has it been easy? No way. Is it always easy now? Nope. Is it worth it? Without doubt. Many people often ask me if I could go back and restart would I? They want to know what I’d change. I struggle to answer that sometimes but in the end it always comes down to the fact that I wouldn’t change a thing. Because if I took out the tragic, the trials, the struggles, the dark parts… if I took that out... my faith wouldn’t be as deep as it is, the fire wouldn’t be quite so consuming and I wouldn’t know Jesus’s love like I do now. 

I don’t wish my life from here on out to be easy either, because if my life runs smoothly with no struggles, no parts that make me question what God is doing that make me drive deeper into His Word, I’ll become complacent. That is my biggest fear. I never want to become lukewarm, I never want to lose passion, I never want to forget how great God’s mercy and grace are over me. So I welcome the struggles, the trials that are sure to come because they will require me to take my faith to a deeper level, to run to my Father’s open arms and trust Him with my life.

And in the end… when I have done all that I was commanded, I say, “I am an unworthy servant; I have only done what was my duty.” *Luke 17-10

~KrissElise

Overcoming the Impossible

I'm a successful twenty-one year old. Pastor's daughter, active in the church. I have a good job, perfect family, I'm the daughter everybody wants. My life runs smoothly, I stay out of trouble and I have my future planned out. I have no worries. I have it all together and all figured out. 

Don't you want my life?

Okay well that's a long shot out there.. but that's what a lot of people see when they look at me. On the outside... I guess that's what many see. But the real truth? Well there is much more to that than I can tell in a 500 page book. But let's put a little shot of reality into that.

I'm a twenty-one year old who loves God. I'm a pastor's daughter, I was adopted and struggle with years of turmoil with my biological family. I am successful at work, but I often stress about all the details that come with being self-employed. I've made mistakes. I was lost and broken. Jesus saved me. I've had addictions, and been held down by chains. I have a great family but like all families (with 7 brothers) they drive me crazy. I do my best at being a daughter who honors God and parents. I have no idea what my future holds. All I know is that I will serve my God until He returns or calls me home. I am a broken, redeemed, blessed girl who still struggles, who still faces temptations of the flesh, whose life gets shaken by circumstances but has peace that God is still good and still in control no matter what. 

Soo... having that said... I'd like to give you a little insight to one of the many deep struggles I have faced, and still face today. Ever since I was really little I struggled with self-worth. The earliest time I remember thinking I was fat or ugly, I was five years old, almost six. I was going to be the flower girl in a wedding. All the dresses were being handmade by a lady we knew. I cried and screamed when I was supposed to take my shirt off to get the dress fitted.. I didn't want her to see how fat and disgusting I was. At the time I didn't realize my thoughts were unusual. That was normal to me. Now.. it breaks my heart. I wasn't even six years old. 

January 2000

The first time I remember somebody actually noticing that something was wrong wasn't until late in my teens, I had met the people who are now Mama and Daddy to me. We had taken the youth from church out for kickball at the park after bowling. We had lunch there and I didn't eat. Dad asked a couple times if I was going to eat and I told him I wasn't hungry. I was lying in the grass when he came and sat by me and asked me point blank. "Are you starving yourself?" A million thoughts flew through my mind. I told him "No." with the tone of voice that says "Are you crazy?"

I'm not sure when he actually had a clue of what was going on but I'm pretty sure he had an idea before I actually really knew. After that he'd often make comments like "You know it's okay to eat right?" He'd randomly bring up concepts about eating, calories and nutrition. Or express concern that I wasn't eating enough for the energy I was expending. Soon after is when a lot of really hard circumstances came up in my life. Stuff that nobody really had a clue how to help me with even if I had let them in to know. As some messed up way to try and be accepted and have control of my life is when I got to that really bad place. I was dropping weight fast enough that quite a few people started to notice, including my adoptive Mom and Dad. That's when they got really concerned. 
  
I was quickly spiraling downward. I remember many times in my teens skipping meals and restricting food intake. I never had a positive self-image because of a lot of things that happened in my past. I think part of my struggle was always trying to get my biological father to accept me. So I drove myself to be "skinny enough" and "perfect enough" which was actually a goal I would never be able to attain in my own eyes. At some point it had become an addiction. I believe part of it had to do with control. When my life around me spun into chaos I knew I had control of one thing a least. Honestly I still don't know all of what caused it, I may never know. All I know is it brought me to a scary place, a place where I always felt completely drained, I'd spend entire days with most of the time sleeping on the couch, I'd go 36 hours without a meal. Most of the time when I did eat I felt physically sick. More and more foods I put on the "can't eat list". I found myself often eating dinner when I needed to so people would be happy and then throwing it back up. Even then I hadn't really admitted that there was a problem.

I guess with eating disorders, anyway in my case, I completely lost common sense when it came to weight, eating, exercising etc. To me, what I was doing seemed completely sensible. I had no concept of what was healthy and what was actually hurting me, by the time that I realized what I was doing was harming myself, I was so far into the messed up realm of borderline anorexia that I didn't know how to stop, I didn't know what was right, and I wasn't even sure if I wanted to get better. It was hard enough just to get through the day, I couldn't think about the future. At my lowest weight I was about 15 lbs lower than what my body naturally gravitates to. I didn't really fully realize the severity of it until the night Mom really had a hard talk with me, it was the same night Dad came and sat down on the couch next to me with three different meal plans. He told me to pick one. That is when he told me that he couldn't sit by and do nothing. That it was either that or he was taking me to the hospital. He told me that he wouldn't let me kill myself even if I couldn't see that, that is what I was doing. I saw the worry on his face, the tears in his eyes and I knew that if not for me, I had to get better for them. Because I they loved me and they deserved for me to at least try. That was the beginning of recovery. 

The full details of what "recovery" was like for me would have to be saved for another blog post. But one thing is for sure. Recovery is possible. Looking back now I realize I did the impossible. How did I do that? Certainly not in my own strength. The only glory and praise to be given is all for my Jesus. He was my strength, my rock, my everything. Without Him I would have never made it off the ground. He gave me everything that I needed. It was one of the hardest battles of my life, but I know He provides freedom. He provided me with such supportive and unconditionally loving parents and brother who helped me through the really rough stuff. The thing is... what is recovery? A lot of people believe that when you are "recovered" it doesn't affect you anymore. And it's not actually true. 

I still fight everyday. I'm still tempted to skip meals, I find I start restricting foods and amounts, I want to burn more calories without increasing my food intake, I still feel disgusting some days and want to throw up the meal I just ate. I will probably fight those things for the rest of my life in some form or another. Especially when I'm really stressed and things are out of my hands and I want that little bit of control. But what I can say is it doesn't have control anymore and my God is bigger and more important. So everyday I choose to lay down my life, multiple times a day I choose righteousness over sin. With God's strength in me I conquer the evil of this world. 

As I grow in Christ I am learning to accept myself, that I don't need everybody's approval, because my maker loves me and calls me beautiful. I know that society's view of beautiful is really messed up. I'm starting not to care. Sometimes I look in the mirror and I'm okay with the girl looking back at me. I'm gaining more confidence. Less insecure. And so I keep on keeping on. One day at a time, striving for the great things out there that God has for me and I will keep on growing and giving up myself for my Jesus until He calls me home or comes back for me. 

So why am I posting this for the world to see? Because I believe that Satan's power lies in the silence. I refuse to let him win. I know there are many others who struggle secretly, who are dying because they are afraid of being rejected. Afraid of speaking out. I believe that this is one of the many struggles in life that if I am willing, God can use to help others. If you are struggling, please know that you are not alone in this fight. Stay strong <3 Keep on. <3

~KrissElise