I'm so excited to get to post my first blog! I created this as an easy way to keep freinds and family updated on my upcoming mission trip to Australia, as well as to share what the Lord is doing in my life and teaching me through this experience.
Here is a little bit of information about my trip:
- My mission trip is through a ministry called Teen Mania Ministries, http://www.teenmania.com/, which has a program called Global Expeditions which allows young adults and youth to take Christ to the nations.
- I leave for Garden Valley, TX to meet my team and go through some training and then head off to Sydney on June 14th, 2010. I will return to TX on July 10th, 2010 and then head back home to St. Louis.
- While in Australia for 26 days, we will be ministering to the people of Sydney by spending a lot of time in the city doing street ministry. We will also train to perform a drama depicting the freedom from addiction which is found in Christ. We will also get to do some work with Hillsong Chruch as well.
- The cost of my trip is $3,981 which covers my housing and living expenses, flights, as well as ministry tools.
I said in the support letters which i sent out that I would use this first entry to share some of what the Lord has done in my life and so that is what I am going to do. I love this verse in Revelation 12:11 which reads, "They overcame by the blood of the Lamb and the word of thier testimony; they did not love thier lives so much as to shrink from death." I love this verse because since Jesus transformed me, I have been victorious over my former bondage and so now i get to tell the world that I know from personal expeience He saves and redeems. My prayer is that my sharing my story will liberate others in thier own bondage ans that it will give hope to those bound by some of the things I once was as well. I pray that through my story, others will be given the hope they need to overcome through Jesus Christ. And the end of that verse says they did not love their lives, meaning it's simply not about me...i am now dead to myself and alive to the Lord...He lives in me and i promise that life is so much better when He is in control and I'm not! But it also reminds me that to be able to continue to overcome by the blood of the lamb and word of my testimony, I must not love my own life or ways more then HIS--really at this point, Jesus can't just be a part of my life, but He is my life. And that's just how He desires it to be. But it wasn't always like that...
Before I was a year old, my parents divorced. Growing up, I knew nothing about religion or God. My mom is Jewish and my dad Catholic, but niether really practiced either. Through my childhood, I lived with my mom and visited my dad most weekends. My dad has been an alcoholic all of my life, which caused a lot of hurt and disapointment, and my mom was always distant and busy with work and dating men. Through my elementary years, I was a good student and grew up faster then most of my peers. There was just one thing that seemed to be wrong with me--my weight. I'd always been the 'heavy girl' in school, so at the end of 5th grade, my mom and i did a diet to see who could lose more weight for a trip to FL. I wanted to prove to her and everyone else that i really was good enough. I lost a significant amount of weight and finally felt approved of. Only, this didnt last long. By 7th grade, I was skipping lunch, afraid to eat carbs, and heavily envolved in track and cross country. By freshman year, my close group of friends had begun to notice the meals i skipped and the depression I'd just begun to dabble in. As food, calories, numbers, and weight consumed my mind, I discovered my new best friend--bulimia. A simple method of weight control had quickly become a full-blown addiction. By Sophmore year, I'd become distant from friends and family, lost in my world of an eating disorder, faking my way through week after week of counseling. My dad disapeared at this point, and i had no idea whether he was alive of dead. Meanwhile, my mom and i weren't talking; anger and bitterness consumed our realtionbship. Eventually i came to the realization that I would never be good enough for the people i cared about most to stick around, and because i couldnt control it, i continued to try to seek control in food, but the more out of control my life became. In Dec of 2006, my dad came back into my life which meant i got to see my three siblings for the first time several years. That Christmas Eve, I attended church and Life Christian with them. I wasn't into the whole religion thing, but wanted to be with my newfound family. I didnt understand what it was at the time, but when i walked into that church service, I felt something like I'd never expereinced before. It was that night, surrounded by this family i barely new, I first experienced the love of Christ. I had no idea who all these people were singing to or why in the world they were lifting their hands into the air, but all i knew was that whatever they had, I wanted. Over the months to follow, I got to spend a lot of time with my siblings and they just kept loving me like Christ. Growing up with no knowledge of God or much religion, I figured He may be up there somewhere, but distant and drifting. As I continued struggling through my eating disorder, my siblings never left my side, which never made sense to me considering everyone else I thought loved me had. I started going to chruch every sunday with my youngest bro and sis-in-law and they started teaching me aboru God and the bible. Eventually I met some Christian friends at school and got plugged into a youth group called ZOE Ministries, where i eventually prayed to recieve Christ. Despite this new God I was completely amazed by, my eating disorder continued spiraling out of control. By Senior year, I was skipping school, failing several classes, unable to hold a job, ditching friends and family regularly to spend time with my eating disorder. I continually lied and decieved all the people who cared most about me, not really caring about anything other then where my next binge would come from. By this point, I also began struggling with pornography and masterbation, something I'd been exposed to at a young age. I knew I would never lose my virginity outside of marriage, so this seemed like the perfect solution to satisy the unmet desires of my flesh. While engaging in this unacceptable, yet addictive struggle, I was further pulled into a pit of guilt and shame. At this point my four-year battle with self-harm also began raging out of control. Every night after bible study or ZOE, drive to my church's parking lot and sit in the dark, binging and then purging into zip-lock bags which i hid in my trunk. To cope with the guilt and shame of this behavior, I would cut and burn my body, sometimes to become numb to it all, other times to pay for my failures or not being good enough. I would use a razor or pair of scissors to carve words like fat and ugly into my arms and legs. My mind was so drenched in lies, that no one could really break through to me, though they never did give up trying. Finally, my mom admitted there was a problem and put me in a secular treatment program for eating disorders for 9 weeks, only for them to tell me they couldnt help me anymore and i needed more treatment. Money was tight, so more treatment (which averaged $30,000/month) wasnt an option. During my time in this program, I picked up new tricks from the other girls and my eating dis only got worse. On average, I was throwing up about 2o times a day at this point, keeping down nothing bu the occasional meal i'd be forced to eat with a friend. In the meantime, I was literally running out of skin on my body on which to cut and burn; I really didnt want to die but i had not motivation to live if this was how my life was going to be forever. If I would accidentally cut too deep one time, I really wouldnt care. At least id be free from the misery i saw no way out of. Two weeks later, I was in the process of applying to a biblically-based treatment program called Mercy Ministies and I had to have routine bloodwork done for it. When my lab results came back, my doctor called to tell me that my labs were so messed up, it really wasnt safe for me to even be walking around. The next day I was admitted into the hospital. My body was slowly giving up after all I'd done to it, it couldnt function much longer. I layed in that hospital bed waiting to die, praying it wouldnt be much longer. For the next three weeks, I was pumped full or fluids and food, yet somehow i only felt emptier and emptier on the inside. When I was sent home on over eight medications, under 24/7 watch by friends and family, I was still pretty hopeless. All I wanted was my eating disoerder; two weeks later i was right back to it. At this point, I began using and abusing laxatives and dieretics. one firday I skipped school and had a particularly bad day; i took over 50 laxatives and dieretics in attempt to rid myself a binge i couldnt get out. I really did not care whether i lived or died. I knew God loved me and I longed to live a life for me, but if this is how it was going to be forever, I just couldnt do it. My friend came over to check on me after school and upon figuring out what id done, she knew something had to be done. After fighting off some people i love so much who never left my side, I found myself sitting in that hospital bed once again, beign pumped full of fluids, knowing i had little hope since even the doctors couldnt fix me before.
Several weeks later, I arrived at Mercy Ministries http://www.mercyministries.com,with a seven yr. eating dis, 4 yr battle with self-harm, struggles with perfectionism, anxiety, depression, sexual sin, codependency, and suicidal thoughts, broken, hopeless and dead. Finally, exhausted in my own strength, it was God's big moment to shine, and let me tell you; He has! After getting off to a rocky start at Mercy, I got to experience God's comfort, love and prescence at a personal level for the first time. All things i'd been taught over that past year began dropping from my head to my heart, and thus transformation had begun. As I was imersed in the word of God 24/7, the Truth began to penetrate deeper then the lies which had dictated my life for so long. No longer did it seem normal to purge after meals or bring physical harm to my body. In fact, it sounded completely crazy, as if Jesus' blood wasn't enough to cover all of my mistakes. I learned that repentence was more then just saying, "God, I'm sorry." but that it meant literally turning the other way and fleeing from the sin which so easily entangles. For me sometimes that literally meant sometimes not even walking upstairs after meals if I knew i was struggling. And as hard as it was at times, God met me right where i was at every time. He loved me enough to come to me, but also loved me too much to let me stay there for long. I am so far from perfect but the beautiful thing is that His power is made perfect in my weakness every time. (2 cor 12:9) I know i no longer have to seek control in food or numbness in self-harm because my position in Christ is completely dead to myself and ailive through Him. Really, it's just not about me anymore. My focus has shifted from all of my flaws to the incredible love which overlooks them. I no longer live bound by insecurity, worthlessness, failure, or feeling unloved because now my security is in the Lord and as I've gotten to know His character, I've discovered my identity in Him as well. I know He is the perfect father, who will never leave or forsake me. I know He's my great counselor. He's Jehovah-Rapha, God my Healer. He knows my heart. He formed every part of my body and planned every moment of my life before I was even a day old. Even when I didn't know Him, He knew me. I no longer have to look to people's faces to find my worth because He is enthralled by my beauty, sitting up in Heaven just nodding His head because His creation is good, beautiful and flawless in His sight. HE has truly romanced me into this intimacy with Him which i never could have even fathomed on my own. The more I've gotten to know Him, the more I've been able to trust Him and this intimate, loving God is the One I've gotten the privalige of getting to know. To just sit at His feet and listen to His heart beat--I mean really the more i fell in love with Him, the more i simply had to accept what He said about me. And the most amazing thing about this God who we serve is that there are thousands upon thousands of different medications, diseases, illnesses, and pains. For instance, you can't take a pill for heartburna nd expect it to cure your cold. Each medicine is designed for a specific pain or illness. But here's the thing, we each struggle with different pain and illnesses--from eating disorders to depression to alcoholism to infidelity to lust to anger...the list goes on...fill in the blank...but it does not matter what the 'sickness' is, how long its been going on or the symptoms is has brought, becuase there is ONE medicine which cures EVERY SINGLE ONE of those issues; He is the Lord of Lords, King od Kings, the God who set the stars in the sky yet cares about every little detail of my life. How amazing is it that He is the answer to every single one of our problems and that He works; every single time. There are no execptions. That hole inside of me which i tried for years to fill with one thign to the next has finally been filled by the One who actually put it there in the first place, with the only thing made to fit inside of it--the real, passionate, purposeful, intimate, uncomnditional, selfless, transforming, life-changing, never the same again love of Christ. He is big enough. His love changed my entire world and now I have a divine purpose, passion, security and love in Him. No longer living so far beneath my privalge, I'm excited to do life with the One who gave it to me!
Now that I know who i am in HIm, there's no telling what He is goign to do with me---all i know is that His plans are always way better then mine and He is the God of impossibility who breathed hope back into my life. Today, I am no longer a slave to my issues, but a beloved daughter of the Most High KING!
Currently, I am a freshman at Missouri Baptist Unv., nannying part-time, and leading a freshman girls bible study at ZOE Ministries, http://www.zoeland.com as well as helping out with other activities there. At the moment, I think the Lord is calling me into nursing, but I'm just learning to trust Him to open the doors one at a time and show me the way He wants me to go. I'm also learning what means to rely fully on Him in this season of life and what it really looks like to have Jesus as my best friend. I'm learning and growing in His Word daily and just walking out life with Jesus.
Thanks for reading my story and supporting me in this mission to Australia!
Courtney :)
