My Testimony

Let me start by saying, this is probably one of the scariest things that I've ever done.  To openly admit something like this in such a public way is super scary, but I feel that God is calling me to do it, and that someone needs to know that they are not alone.  So here goes... As part of my membership class for Pinelake Oxford, we were asked to share our testimony through e-mail.  As I was typing, the joy inside of me grew deeper and deeper, and I could not stop smiling as I looked back on God's faithfulness.  Before you read this:  
1)  I know it's long.  (If you want the abbreviated version, I'm sorry, there's not one.  Every single detail in this testimony has shaped exactly who I am.)  
2)  Please don't blame me for being such a hypocrite in my teenage years.  I definitely was.  I was lost.  I had no idea of the war that was waging inside of me.  I just felt empty.  

Thanks... now you may read...

     My walk with God started when I was 5 years old at a Heaven's Gates and Hell's Flames presentation at a church in Grenada.  I remember watching the scary devil character, and then the preacher pretty much said (in my five year old mind) that if you didn't want to go where the scary devil was then you needed to come down front and pray with the pastor.  So, I grabbed my mom's hand and told her that I wanted to go.  So, she took me, and I prayed the sinner's prayer.  I was baptized shortly after that.  I was saved, or so I thought.  Then, when I was 12, I was at a revival sitting near the front when the revival preacher said, "You may have been saved when you were 5, but if you didn't mean it and you died today, you could go to hell."  This scared me to death, so I rose up and walked to the front at the invitation.  NOW, I was really saved, or so I thought.  So I went through my teenage years in a youth group with my best friend where I went through the motions.  I worshipped, I read my Bible, I prayed.  I did everything that a good Christian girl should do, but I always felt like something was missing.  I tried to fill that emptiness with a boy.  When I was 14, I entered into a relationship with a boy from my youth group.  Life was great.  I thought I had filled the void that I felt finally.  Then, as I began to still feel the void, I blamed it on family circumstances.  That's why I felt empty and unloved.  It was all because of my family.  So, I clung even tighter to my new boyfriend.  
     We grew closer, and I fell in love.  I was a wide-eyed, then 15-year old that believed every word that came out of her smooth-talking boyfriend's mouth.  I listened and followed, and I ended up giving my purity away to him, just searching for love.  The next Wednesday night at youth group, I was devastated and overwhelmed by guilt, and I ended up spilling my guts to the youth minister's wife.  Because I was ashamed of what I had done and especially now that someone knew about it, we left the church.  In the process of leaving the church, I strained my relationship and ultimately lost my relationship with my best friend.  So, then, there I was, left with nothing and no one but the smooth-talking teenager, so I clung even tighter.  We joined a different church, but we were quickly thrown out of the youth group scene and into the adult scene, and it was so tough to adjust.  So, I played the part.  I was the "good Christian girl" still trying to fill that void.  On the outside the smile was shining bright, but on the inside I was a broken wreck.  
     In 2009, I married that smooth-talking boy in an overtly religious wedding.  We wanted our wedding to emphasize that Christ was the center of our marriage.  We truly thought He was or would be.  Honestly, I think we both wanted that to be true, but we had become so jaded by "playing the part" that neither of us realized that it was all a facade.  Then, the hard truth of what it takes to sustain a marriage hit.  We fought hard for five years.  During those 5 years, the void, the emptiness inside only seemed to grow.  I tried to fight it off, I tried to fill it, but it would not go away.  I tried to fill it with everything except for turning to God.  I prayed, but I felt like my prayers were hitting the ceiling and bouncing back.  I felt disconnected, but that couldn't be true.  I was saved when I was 12.  I prayed the prayer.  In June 2014, my world fell apart.  We got a divorce.  (I never thought I would type that word, much less say it, or sign a piece of paper that had it at the top.)  I was devastated.  The emptiness inside turned from a finger size hole to a huge vortex of a black hole. I had no idea how to carry on.  I cried out to God.  Again, I felt like my prayers hit the ceiling and bounced back.  The void grew.  I continued in this downward spiral.  I tried to run back to my ex-husband.  I tried to "make things right" thinking that that was why the void was growing.  Things did not work out, and I was left broken and devastated once again.  
     In February 2015, I was invited to attend a women's conference at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Grenada, MS, (ironically enough, the same place where I was baptized at 5 and 12).  I was still searching, still broken, still trying to fill the void.  So, I decided to attend the conference.  As Alicia Williamson Garcia spoke, I felt God move in me for the first time in a long time.  I felt the walls inside me crumbling.  This was Friday night.  The next day the conference continued, and as we worshipped through song, I felt God's presence like never before.  Alicia sang a song called Healing in which the chorus says, "Healing comes from knowing who I am."  This broke my heart into--the walls crumbled.  I then realized that I had no clue who God was.  I simply saw him as the big man in the sky talked about in my Sunday School classes from birth.  So, I listened, and I learned who God was, and, on February 28, 2015, I surrendered my life to Christ, once and for all.  On that day, I viewed it as a re-dedication of my life to Christ.  My life was radically changed.  The sky was brighter.  Everything smelled sweeter.  I walked back into my classroom, and the things that used to make me so angry before no longer did.  I had a peace like never before--even my students noticed and commented on it.  I was so excited, and I wanted to tell everyone I knew about the peace that could only be found in Jesus Christ.  I still feel that peace each and every day.
     Until yesterday (Sept. 12), I credited my experience when I was 12 as my salvation experience.  Yesterday, upon recommendation of a friend, I watched a sermon entitled "The Ten Indictments Against the Modern Church," and Paul Washer warns against the dangers of the sinner's prayer and how we can so easily pray a prayer that means nothing internally and believe that we are saved, when, if we are honest, there was absolutely no life change.  I had always written the lack of life change off due to the fact that I was 12.  At 12, what do you really have to drastically change?  But God worked in me yesterday and revealed to me that February was my life change.  February was the day that I was radically changed--the day I became a new creation in Christ and I surrendered my life--my entire life to Him.  Since that day in February, God has been working in my life in such amazing ways.  He has led me to Oxford in ways that only He could have.  He has led me to an amazing church family running hard after His glory and His alone.  In my life, I have had so many ups and so many downs, but the one thing that I have learned that is constant is that God is, was, and will always be in control through all of it. His ways are higher than my ways; His thoughts are higher than my thoughts.

I will be baptized next Sunday to publicly celebrate the fact that I am now a new creation in Christ, and I could not be more excited!

-KG

And She Lived Happily Ever After...

Tonight I found myself driving in the wrong direction for about 25 miles without even realizing it.  Yes, this really happened.  I never thought that God would use something as simple as driving in the wrong direction, but He did... Boy, did he....

This time last year, I was driving my car in the wrong direction.  I had Jesus in the passenger seat, but I had the wheel gripped tight, and the gas pedal pushed to the ground.  I trusted Him to "guide" me from the passenger seat as long as I got to keep both hands on the wheel.  I treated Him like a GPS.  I would listen to His voice as long as I agreed with it, but if I felt like He was about to take me down a back road where the road might be a little bumpy, I'd swerve back onto the main road until I felt Him saying "re-routing."  

God even allowed Satan to grab the wheel that I was gripping so tight and throw my "car" (life) into a tailspin with the complete and total heartbreak that last summer brought about, but white-knuckled I held on.  I pulled out of the ditch, and back onto the road.  I still would not let go of the wheel.  

At my deepest darkest point, I asked Jesus to move to the back seat, and I replaced Him with a different passenger.  I listened to the words of this passenger, the same one that Satan used in the tailspin, and I continually pushed Jesus away for being a "back seat driver."  

Until God grabbed me in February and brought me face-to-face with the reality that I was living, I was in control of my life.  When I was 12, I let Jesus into the passenger seat, but I never let Him drive until February.  In February, I attended a women's conference at Emmanuel led by Alicia Williamson Garcia.  She spoke about what it meant to truly live a Christ-centered life in this culture.  This rocked my world.  As she spoke, through the Holy Spirit, God put His hand on my shoulder, begging me to take my hands off the wheel.  On Friday night, I loosened my grip.  On Saturday, I broke free.  I raised my hands into the air (figuratively and literally) in full surrender.  Jesus moved into the driver's seat.  This is not to say that I haven't tried to be a passenger driver quite often, and, especially not to say that I haven't reached over and jerked the wheel a few times hoping to avoid some pot holes along the way, but what I've come to see is that what the enemy meant for harm at this point last year as my divorce was finalized, God has used to bring about healing of wounds that I didn't know that I had.  What the enemy meant for evil, God has used to mold me from a carnal woman to a spiritual woman.  What the enemy meant for evil, God has used to show me that His ways are higher than my ways, and His thoughts are higher than my thoughts (Isaiah 55:9).  He brought beauty from the ashes.  He showed me the true meaning of grace.

As crazy as this may seem, this wasn't the crazy part.  As I turned around to head back to Oxford after driving halfway to Tupelo (yes, I did...), it hit me like a flood.  When faced with a situation like this a few years ago, I would have been angry, frustrated, and upset.  Today... I was excited.  I was excited that I could open my sunroof, feel the fall air, and just cruise for a little bit longer.  Again, I probably sound like a crazy person when saying this, but this realization is huge.  Today was a beautiful day, and I'm not just talking about the weather.  I'm talking about life.

I.  AM.  HAPPY.

I can't even begin to tell you how long it has been since those words came out of my mouth.

"And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose." - Romans 8:28 ESV

Fresh Perspective

Now, this is a story all about how my life got flipped-turned upside down, and I'd like to take a minute, just sit right there, I'll tell you how I became the prince of a town called Bel-Air.  (Well, actually not quite a prince, or in Bel-air... but I would like to tell you a little bit about the past year of my life.)

In June 2014, my life was seriously flipped-turned upside down.  Life as I knew it was shattered.  Dreams were broken.  Hopes were crushed.  The very sand that I had built my life on washed away with the tides, and I was left with a broken heart and tons of questions.  I was angry.  I was bitter.  I was at rock bottom.  I fought--hard.  I begged.  I pleaded.  I did everything in my power to try to make it right.  I did not understand how something so ugly, so heart-wrenching, so disastrous could be "part of a plan" or "happen for a reason."  Honestly, every time someone told me these things, I wanted to punch them in the throat.  Literally.  How can God, the Perfect One, have willed for me/us to get a divorce and to break the sacred vow of marriage?  How's that part of the plan?  Question after question flooded my mind.  I searched for answers in everyone I spoke to about it.  I searched for answers by trying to "undo" what had been done.  I was searching....looking everywhere but up.  I felt like someone at the bottom of a deep dark pit running in circles aimlessly trying to get out.

Little did I know, while I was running in circles doing everything in my will to make it right, God's hand was reaching down to pull me out of the pit.  All I had to do was to look up to see it, take hold of it, and just be held.  I decided to go back to church in January--still searching for answers.  God met me there, right where I needed to be.  Message after message, my heart broke.  I felt like God was speaking directly to me--calling me back home.  Since January, I have been on a journey.  A spiritual journey, an emotional journey, and a physical journey.  I attended a Women's Conference in February, and God spoke directly to my heart through Alicia Williamson-Garcia when she said, "We wonder why we don't hear from God....God speaks Bible."  This resonated volumes with me.  I heard that line over and over in my head.  God. Speaks.  Bible.  Not English, not Spanish, not German, or even Hebrew.  God speaks Bible.  How can I expect to hear from Him if I'm not diving into his living Word?  Again, a journey began, another twist in the road.

So, God began to place on my heart the strong motivation/urge/desire to move to Oxford.  I prayed long and hard about it only wanting to do His will.  Again, for answers?  God speaks Bible.  So, I prayed.  I studied.  I searched.  All the while, I strived to "get back to God."  It wasn't until very recently that I realized that all I had to do was look up to his out-stretched hand.  So, I finally looked up, and God welcomed me home with outstretched arms--his prodigal daughter.  So... back to the desire to move to Oxford.  I had a plan.  I was moving to Oxford to live with my sister and to work at one of two schools that I had in mind.  Everything seemed to be falling into place.  Without even putting my house "officially" on the market, I had an offer on it.  I attended a job fair in Oxford, and I left in tears--happy tears.  God was working it out according to my plan.  I went into an interview that I rocked out.  I knew that I had the job.  It was a lock.  I waited, and waited.  I heard some good news about the job.  I knew I had it.  I just knew it.  Then, the e-mail came.  I didn't get it.  Where did I go wrong?  Did I mis-read God's plans?  I must have.  I decided that it was "God's Will" for me to stay in Grenada.  I decided to stay put.  So, I was confident in my  God's plans for me--staying in Grenada, or so I thought.  I was okay with this... for about a week.  After a week, I began to sink again.  I felt myself slipping away into a pity party.  Poor, poor pitiful me.  I was going to be couch sleeping "homeless" for a month.  I didn't have an apartment.  My puppy was gone.  Life was not what I though it would be.  I was bitter.  I felt the bitterness start to creep in.  As it did, I also felt a tug at my heart--God speaks Bible.  So, as I searched and studied, I felt God speaking to me, over and over, "Fix your eyes."  "Focus."  It took reminder after reminder to wake me up.  Over and over again, at the start of each new day, I chose to fix my eyes on Christ.  I chose to rise up and seek Him through it all--in the good and the bad.  It was at the point of total surrender that it all became clear to me.  God knew what he was doing.  Everything truly does happen for a reason.  He is already there on the other side of this mountain looking at the entire journey from afar.

Fast-forward to last week... I settled down with the idea of staying in Grenada.  I was okay with the fact that this is what God had in store for me.  One day a few weeks ago, I checked my email where I found an e-mail thanking me for applying for a math position at a school that I would love to teach at.  I didn't apply for it; the system linked me up to it automatically.  I decided that it was worth a shot at least.  Last week, I completely forgot about the fact that I had applied for the job.  My phone rang on Tuesday, and it was the principal of this school calling to set up an interview.  I went for my interview last Wednesday, and I loved the school.  The demeanor, the people, the values--everything.  It was perfect.  Again, I continued to pray, not my will, Lord, but thine.  I received a call back after the interview that sounded promising, and I continued to pray--Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.  Today.... big big news....

This summer, I will be moving to Oxford, MS, and, this fall, I will begin teaching 7th grade math at Oxford Middle School.  I am beyond excited for this next chapter of my life.  I have no doubt that God has big plans for me.  He has provided, and He will continue to provide.  It was only when I stopped relying on my own will and my own abilities and truly began to trust and to look up that I found Him waiting patiently for me.  And, now, I have an answer to the prayers from June 2014.  Maybe, just maybe, it isn't that God plans or wills these things to happen in our lives, but, rather He allows them to happen through our own free will, and He uses them to shape us into His image and His likeness more and more everyday.  Praise God for his faithfulness--every.  single.  day.

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.”
—Isaiah 55:8–9 NKJV 

Another Day

Today was one of those days.

I felt like Super Woman!  From the time I woke up this morning, I felt like I had the power to change the world.  I woke up on time.  I made it to school on time (even with 7:20 duty and time to spare!).  For those who don't know me well, the last one was a major feat!  I felt on top of the world!  I can't explain why I felt this way, but I was excited.  I felt like God had something big in store for the day.

So, I went to school as usual, made it to duty on time (Did I say that already? :) ), and we began our standardized testing for the day.  For those of you that have never had the pleasure (*note the sarcasm*) of walking around a classroom "actively monitoring" students in a completely silent classroom while they take a test that generally lasts anywhere from 75 to 90 minutes, let me tell you firsthand, it's definitely not the way I'd rather be spending my time.  So, today, as I was walking through the rows, I began to think about my students, individually and collectively, I thought about who they would become, what careers they would choose, where they would go to college, etc.  As I was thinking about all of these things and looking at the faces of my students, God called me to do something that I honestly cannot say that I've ever done before.  I prayed for them.  I don't mean collectively-- "God, be with my students."  I mean, individually, by name.  "God, please be with ______, guide her in Your ways..." Like that.  It continued as I prayer-walked through the room praying over all 26 of my homeroom students.  By the end of it, I had tears streaming down my face.  After spending 7 months with these "babies" and all 115 of my "babies", I have come to know personalities, dreams, fears, and family situations.  My heart aches and rejoices for these students, and it's not of my own doing.  One of the places where I see God working in my life is in my classroom.  (This could be because I pray for patience every second of every day. Haha)

I say all of this, and I am posting this blog to say that God knew what He was doing when He called me to be a teacher so very long ago.  I knew from a very young age that I wanted to be a teacher, so I never really thought twice about what God's calling for my career would be.  What I have quickly realized is that God orchestrated it all from the very start.  I am simply answering the call and being a servant willing to do His work in my mission field.  Teaching these precious eighth graders for three years has been the most humbling experience that I've ever had in my life--second only to my salvation.  They will tell you the truth--that's for sure.  I pray that no matter where God leads me that I will continue to answer the call with a resounding, "Yes, Lord!"

Please continue to pray with me, for all of our students.  Some of these little ones are facing situations that even adults would be shattered by.  Some seem to lead perfectly happy lives, but no one knows what lies behind the curtain or what goes on each day when they leave the school.  It's a battle.  The war is waging for our students.  There is a spiritual war going on for the hearts of each of these students, and they are at their most vulnerable points.  They can either succumb to peer pressure and follow the crowd, or they can boldly stand up for Jesus.  My prayer is that they do the latter.  That was my prayer for each one of my little ones today.  While my job does not allow me to openly profess my faith and proclaim it to my students, I pray that I wouldn't have to.  We shouldn't have to wear a cross around our necks, hang a cross on a wall, wear a special t-shirt, or tote around our Bibles for the world to know that we are Christians.  They will know we are Christians by our love. (<-------That was all God speaking right there--read it again!) I pray that my students see that love exuding out of me every single day--a love that can only be from Christ.

At His Feet,

Kayla

It's Not About the Nails..

Imagine Jesus Christ hanging on the cross, suffering and dying for your sins. So often, when we think about the cross and even our salvation, we focus on the cross itself. We focus on the nails in His hands and feet. We focus on the physical suffering and the physical pain that Christ endured. This was the picture of my salvation. When I walked down the aisle at Emmanuel Baptist Church when I was 12, this was what I professed to believe as I gave my life to Christ-- that "Jesus died for my sins and rose from the dead three days later  so that I might have eternal life."  While every bit of this is true, I think we're missing the greatest part of the crucifixion of Christ--the most important part. 

A few weeks ago, I began reading Radical by David Platt. I felt a strong calling on my life to begin living and growing in my faith and my walk with the Lord. You see, I had been pulled astray from my walk with Christ by influences, situations, and the things of this world, but the most humbling and amazing thing to me was that through my wandering and doubt, He never left my side. So, I began reading Radical, and I couldn't put it down. One day, as I was reading, I read something that knocked me to my knees; something that I had never heard preached from a pulpit, that I had never heard from a Sunday School teacher, that I had never heard at a church camp or conference--it's not about the nails. I re read this passage multiple times to ensure that I understood it. I'll share it with you below:  

“What happened at the Cross was not primarily about nails being thrust into Jesus’ hands and feet but about the wrath due your sin and my sin being thrust upon his soul. In that holy moment, all the righteous wrath and justice of God due us came rushing down like a torrent on Christ himself. Some say, “God looked down and could not bear to see the suffering that the soldiers were inflicting on Jesus, so he turned away.” But this is not true. God turned away because he could not bear to see your sin and my sin on his Son.

One preacher described it as if you and I were standing a short hundred yards away from a dam of water ten thousand miles high and ten thousand miles wide. All of a sudden that dam was breached, and a torrential flood of water came crashing toward us. Right before it reached our feet, the ground in front of us opened up and swallowed it all. At the Cross, Christ drank the full cup of the wrath of God, and when he had downed the last drop, he turned the cup over and cried out, “It is finished."

This is the gospel. The just and loving Creator of the universe has looked upon hopelessly sinful people and sent his Son, God in the flesh, to bear his wrath against sin on the cross and to show his power over sin in the Resurrection so that all who trust in him will be reconciled to God forever.”

Excerpt From: Platt, David. “Radical.” Multnomah, 2010-05-04. iBooks. 

This material may be protected by copyright.

Check out this book on the iBooks Store: https://itun.es/us/iM_bz.l

Did you read that?!?! It's not about the nails, or the whips, or the Roman soldiers, or Pilate, or any of the various things we highlight in our Easter programs. The cross and the crucifixion is about Christ enduring the wrath of God for the sins of all mankind. So, think about it for a second--God's wrath-- the same wrath that flooded the Earth due to wickedness, the wrath that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, the wrath that was built for centuries by every sin committed by every human being from Adam and Eve all the way until Christ's return. That wrath. This was the wrath Christ endured on the cross. This was why Christ was sweating blood in the garden. Can you imagine? We sing, "Every sin on Him was laid" but have you ever thought about what that means? He took on God's wrath for US. for you, for me, for every human being that wanders, has wandered, and will ever wander this Earth. That's amazing right there.  To me, that gives going to the throne for forgiveness a whole new meaning. You approach the throne through Jesus's blood knowing that your debt has been paid in full. Again, we sing, "Jesus paid it all" but until now, I had no idea of the true price that He paid. We see the picture of the cross. We see the anguish, the nails, the suffering. But do we ever stop to think about the wrath the immeasurable suffering of Christ on that cross as he felt the brunt of God's mighty wrath. 

I don't know about you, but this left me eager and longing to tell someone, anyone, the good news. I'd long known that Christ took my place, but I now see it through an entirely different lense. 

Praying for you guys always!

-K