1. Saved at the age of seven: Salvation is obviously the most important moment of any spiritual journey. Although I have wrestled with many doubts about the status of my standing with God, having the presence of the Spirit in my life for such a long time has prevented me from making many mistakes that I might have made during my childhood and teenage years had I not been a Christian.
2. Doubts about my salvation beginning at the age of seven: Growing up in the church, I heard Gospel invitations frequently, and I began to doubt whether or not I truly believed the Gospel or if I had simply prayed a prayer. I started to pray for salvation on a regular basis, but I never truly had peace about my standing with God. In time, this uncertainty led to spiritual stagnation, and because I did not effectively address my uncertainty early on, it continued to haunt me for many years.
3. Moving from Michigan to Florida in March of 2006: My dad was forced to leave Michigan to find work, and our crosscountry move was immediately preceded by the succumbing of my grandfather to brain cancer. I was angry that God was leading me away from family and familiar surroundings, and I was also mourning over the loss of my grandfather. God later brought wonderful friends into my life in Florida, but more importantly, I eventually realized that this move (and subsequent moves within Florida) taught me to rely on God more than on my surroundings and the people in my life.
4. Belittled by boys during middle school: Several middle school boys who attended my church often made remarks or acted in ways that made me feel unlovable and embarrassed about my physical appearance. Unfortunately, I allowed bitterness to build up in my heart, and I have wrestled with this sin for many years. Also, because I did not have any male friends in middle or high school to counteract the hurtful things the boys said, I developed an unhealthy view of men, from which I am trying to recover.
5. Increased anxiety about my standing with God starting at age thirteen: The doubts that I had about my salvation resurfaced and intensified during my middle school and early high school years. I felt as though God was ignoring my desperate pleas for assurance and that, if I truly was not saved, that He was refusing to give me the faith that I needed to believe the Gospel. For four years I wrestled with the fear of death and uncertainty about my salvation, yet God later turned this period into a memorial of His faithfulness in my life.
6. Anorexic for three months when I was sixteen: Sinful discontentment with my appearance, combined with my desire to lose weight and misinformation from the Internet, quickly spiraled into an anorexic episode that lasted about three months. My calorie intake and weight loss were more equivalent to a diet than to clinical anorexia, but my mind quickly degenerated into an anorexic mindset of anxiety and preoccupation with becoming as thin as possible. God used my mom to speak truth into my life, and although my mindset is healthier now, I still find that I wrestle with body image issues.
7. God gave me peace about my salvation at the age of seventeen: Every year at church summer camp I wrestled with altar calls because I was unsure of salvation. Finally, God used the words of my pastor at the end of camp in 2013 to reveal that the presence of the Holy Spirit, which I had known and experienced for many years, is evidence of my salvation. This touchstone of true salvation not only gave me tremendous peace at that moment, but it has also helped me endure doubts that I have had since that time.
8. Deep, dark depression for seven months at the age of eighteen: Although I rededicated my life to God shortly before I turned eighteen and had wonderful devotional times for several months, an episode of depression struck me from out of nowhere during the summer of 2014. Lack of sleep and a heavy college course load compounded the problem during the fall, and I began to wish that God would take my life and end my suffering. Through this time of testing, God again proved His faithfulness in my life and I can now look back and praise Him for His protection during that time.
9. My first double-double in a basketball game on January 15, 2015: Strangely enough, God used the fulfillment of a long-held dream to begin the process of leading me out of my depression. Granted, this time also coincided with a lighter course load during the spring semester, but I truly believe that God used that moment of overwhelming happiness at the end of the basketball game to remind me that there is joy in living, and that there is more to life than the monotony of the school and work routines.
10. Moved one thousand miles away from home and lost my pet to cancer in August 2015: The cat that I owned since I was four years old first began to have health problems in October, but in June he took a severe turn for the worse; we brought him on the road trip to Cedarville to care for him, but four days before we arrived on campus he began to have seizures. We had to have him put to sleep at a veterinary office in Tennessee two days before we reached Cedarville. Losing my pet to brain cancer and moving away from my family all in the same week was one of the hardest things I have ever experienced, but God has used this painful process to teach me that He is the one constant in my life and the only one I should trust and follow.
11. Healing and learning to trust in God (present): Currently, I am in a (hopefully) upward curve of healing. In the days leading up to the death of my cat, I thought that I would mourn over his passing every day; however, even as he was having seizures and experiencing tremendous suffering, God reminded me of comforting verses in the moments I needed encouragement the most. More recently, He used the sermons of Clayton King to exhort me to use my experiences to strengthen others, and to remember that in every situation I need to look to God for my strength instead of relying on my own abilities. Sitting back to look at the graph I have drawn, I see clearly what I have always felt to be true: there are far more valleys than peaks in my spiritual journey thus far.
Because I grew up in a Christian home, my struggles have thankfully not been as severe as those that other students in this class may have endured. Nevertheless, my experiences have shaped who I am and how | relate to God. God has taught me, and continues to teach me, more about my personality and sin struggles through the valleys He has brought me through, but I will limit my comments to just a few key points I believe He is trying to make in my life. The first pattern that I see in this chart is how my “lone-ranger” personality, as many Christians like to call it, has resulted in many of the deepest troughs in my spiritual journey. Very few people know about my depression and anorexia, and most of those who do know about those struggles were told only after the fact.
I have always been an introverted person, but unfortunately I also wrestle with a great deal of pride. Competing in sports, being picked on by boys as a child, and growing up as a “good Christian girl” in the church encouraged my sinful tendency to always maintain a strong exterior and keep my spiritual struggles to myself. However, because I did not tell anyone about the pain that I was feeling in my heart, the difficult experiences that I faced (both those caused by sin and those, like the depression episode, that appeared out of nowhere) lasted much longer than they should have. I believe that God is trying to use these experiences to show me that need to humble myself by being more transparent with others so that I can strengthen others in the church who may be wrestling with some of the same problems and sins that I have faced.
The second idea that stands out to me from this exercise is that a lack of consistency in the spiritual disciplines often, though not always, has been a determining factor in how long! experience a spiritual drought. For example, when I struggled with uncertainty about my salvation, I would often plead with God for answers, yet ironically I was not faithful in seeking Him in the Word. I did read my Bible on occasion, but not with the devotion that could have possibly helped end my uncertainty sooner. In contrast, I have been slowly working my way through the Old Testament, and although I have not been as consistent as I should be, God has both used the trials I have already been through and the time that I have spent with Him to strengthen my faith.
As I mentioned earlier, I dreaded the death of my pet for a long time, but when he was actually dying, God gave me the peace and the faith to trust in His Sovereignty. Thus, although it is challenging to find a time each day to fellowship with God, the health of my spiritual life depends on regular communication with Him. The third, and final, comment that | would like to make about the graph and my reflections from this project is that I am beginning to see that when I do not deal with spiritual struggles right away, they tend to pile up on either side of me until I find myself in the middle of a valley surrounded by high walls of unaddressed issues. Because of my pride, I tend to repress my feelings and speak harshly to myself for feeling the way I do; this type of attitude causes me to set aside the problem or to internally complain about it without actually