Jesus and Sweet Tea

I love sweet tea and Jesus and will be the first to “bless your heart if you need it”… sounds like a bio for social media or a dating site huh?!  In all honesty I was trying to think of how I wanted to start this and really couldn’t but when this came to mind I couldn’t help but think how accurate.

Im born and raised in the heart of the south. The upstate of South Carolina. ‘Y’all’ and ‘ain’t’ are both apart of formal and informal grammar and are indeed in the dictionary…at least the ones down here in the south. Im from a small town where the high school hangout is the Walmart and on every street corner you’ll find a building with a steeple. I grew up in church and in a a conservative Christian home. I went to Christian school 3rd-8th grade and was strongly involved in church my whole childhood and young adult life. I managed to make it through high school and college with very few “mistakes” or “regrets” following behind me and also managed to have a pretty nice and beefed up moral resume of sorts.

When I was 8 years old I told my dad I wanted to “ask Jesus into my heart” one morning before school. He took me into the dining room and we knelt down and prayed and that day I got to begin calling myself a Christian. And my first experience of persecution was when my 11 year old brother told me I was faking it and just wanted to do it bc he did it a few months before. Tough life I know. So that marked the beginning of my new identity as a follower of Jesus. 

Over the years I did grow and mature. I stayed very diligent and faithful to church and the ministries within it. I went on my first mission trip in 10th grade I believe, maybe 11th, to Lakeshore, Mississippi to help with hurricane Katrina relief. I then began a consistent stent of trips to NYC from 11th grade following through, once and even sometimes twice a year, for the next 6 years or so. I gave up going to senior week at the beach my senior year to go to Mexico on a mission trip and then my freshman and sophomore year of college spent a couple of weeks each year doing missions in Brazil. The mission trips were periodic but I began leading a 6th grade girls discipleship group when I was a senior in high-school and actually led them for 7 years up to their graduation. My freshman and sophomore summers I spent working at a Christian camp for months and visiting on the weekends through out the year to volunteer. Again, my “spiritual resume” was stacked. I mean I had it made and was pretty spiritually invincible…except if you have ever read the Bible and understand the gospel you know that pride is one of the greatest weapons used in our lives to blind us and weaken us just enough for the devil to slither in and knock us right off our high horse. It’s amazing how one fall can completely change the rest of your life.

Well at least it did for me. Why am I saying all this? Recently I’ve have been taking some time being quiet. Time to just think and rest my mind for whatever God has to put on it. And one thing He has shown me is the contrast in my identity in Christ today from 20,10,5 and even just a few years ago. I tell you all that stuff I was apart of and did not to boast, but actually quiet the opposite. Don’t misunderstand me. There is no question that a relationship with God will produce fruit and apart of that fruit is our acts of service towards furthering the Kingdom of God, however, I feel like what I became susceptible to was my identity being in what I was doing instead of a personal and deeply intimate relationship between myself and Jesus Christ. And you know what it took for me realize this… a nasty devastating fall off my high horse. One that would honestly paralyze me metaphorically speaking, and cause me to have to reevaluate MY ways of following Jesus. I sustained a spiritually injury that required me to have to fully rely on Jesus. I could no longer care for myself  and all those accomplishments no longer existed due to my injury. The “Injury” was a divorce….at the age of 25.  It was that journey that landed me in one of the darkest places I’ve ever found myself. Lonely, isolated, defeated, ashamed, depressed. I was also at a place of spiritual crisis in which I questioned the reality that all this faith stuff was real. I lost my identity during that season bc how could someone who loves Jesus get divorced? Clearly I couldn’t love Jesus….right?! 

Wrong… that season was crucial in my “spiritual journey”. Bc that was the season I encountered Christ in a way that would solidify His existence and power for the rest of my life. It was in that season that despite the voices of others telling me I was so far gone and couldn’t possibly have Christ, I heard the Lord speak to me and remind me that even the dogs eat the food that fall from their masters table. That was my season of reckoning. 

Since then, life has forged onward and I have found myself yet again at a crossroads. Another divorce. A statistic and failure? Not quiet. Divorce doesn’t define me. What defines me is the fact that I serve a God so good that despite his perfection and goodness He chose to give up his throne and take up MY cross and sit in my filth and shame with me. In fact he chose to take my dirty and worn out clothes and give me his royal garments. And guess what…it had absolutely nothing to do with my outdated once-stacked resume. It had nothing to do with anything I had to give him. In fact it had EVERYTHING to do with quite the opposite. It wasn’t the mission trips that caused Him to love me. It wasn’t the camp ministry’s. He wanted to love me bc of my pain. He chose me because of everything I didn’t have to offer him. He chose me bc of the divorce. He chose me bc of the pride. He chose me because of the shame and guilt. He chose me bc he knew I had no ability or power to choose him. And yet He also knew how despite the brokenness and dark nights of my soul, I yearned to be His. To belong. To be loved and treasured, not because I cleaned up well but despite the stench and disease pouring out of me. 

Over these last years I have watched and lived with my heart breaking and being placed back together piece by piece. I have come to know Jesus in a way that has absolutely nothing do with what I have to offer him but everything to do with who He is despite my lack of worth. I have watched God do miracles. Big ones at that but the greatest thing I’ve ever experience Him do is the changes and refinement internally in my own heart. The better understanding of Agape love and the daily embrace of Grace and redemption. 

My faith is the most important thing to me bc it is the best thing about me. If you see any “good” in me I assure you it’s not my doing. It is Jesus in me. It’s all Him. And it’s taken years of heartache and pain to finally realize that being a Christian has nothing to do with anyone else except for me and my Jesus. And that it’s that relationship and intimacy that then gives us the desire to go out and spread it BUT understanding  that at the end of the day those things should be just an outpouring of what walking with Jesus personally and internally looks like. 

Sincerely, 

A girl who is loved by Jesus 

Likes sweet tea 

And heart that needs all the blessing it can get ❤️