A Misunderstanding

I grew up going to church. Every Sunday, Mom woke me and my brother up, got us all dressed up in our "church clothes," and took us to Sunday School and the 11am worship service. As I got older, I became involved in youth choir, youth bells, and adult bells. I started teaching the Pre-K Sunday School class in high school, and spent every summer going to choir camp, mission trips, choir trip, and VBS. I did everything!

And yet, something was still missing. And I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong. I'm a good person!  I thought, I do well in school, I respect my parents, I make good decisions. Why is that not enough? I had come to believe that faith in God meant doing good works and being a good person. So, when doing one good thing didn't help me feel any closer to Him, I did more, volunteered more, helped out more. Surely that would bring me some sort of enlightening experience with this omnipresent being who was somehow involved in my creation.

But how would I know if I was experiencing God? Was I supposed to listen for a response to my questions? Would it be an actual voice, or some miraculous sign like the stories talked about in my Christian magazines? What if God came to me in some sort of burning bush, like Moses? (I wasn't sure how I'd handle that sort of experience...)

I wanted more from God, but nothing I did brought about anything like I expected; and I wasn't quite sure what to expect. Eventually, in the middle of high school, I gave up on faith-- to an extent. I still did all my activities, followed the morals I'd been taught, and attended church weekly. I simply decided that whatever "more" I was searching for didn't exist. Church and faith were essentially the same: do good, behave well, love people, go to heaven.

If you've ever had similar thoughts, let me be blunt: that is NOT all there is to God. He's so much bigger than doing good deeds. He wants you to know Him. He wants to have a relationship with you. And, even though it might not seem like it, He's been actively seeking you out, searching for you, since the day you were born.

In the next few blog posts, I'm going to go over a couple of ways that I learned to open my heart up to listen and search for the Lord; namely prayer, Scripture reading, and discipleship. For now, I'd love to hear your stories. What have you experienced from Church? Have you ever gotten tired of the whole faith thing? Does my story spark any questions? Let me know!

Welcome to Ezer!

The word ezer is a Hebrew word from Genesis 2:18: The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”  Ezer kenegdo doesn't have a direct translation from Hebrew to English, but is often translated as helper, companion, or helpmeet. But, as Stasi Eldredge points out in her book Captivating, the adjective ezer is used only a few other places in the Bible, and it's only used to describe God himself when he comes to rescue someone. How awesome is that?! We are a lifesaver! We aren't subservient or second class; we are sustainers!

The goal of this blog is to help, encourage, enlighten, and grow young women searching for answers to spiritual questions. If you've ever felt like there had to be something more to your faith than a handful of Bible stories learned at Vacation Bible School, or if you've never felt satisfied by the answers offered to your spiritual questions, or perhaps you're not spiritual and are just curious about what I'm talking about--- then this is the place for you. I welcome anyone and everyone, though, as a woman, I will probably focus more on issues that affect women.

Growing up in the church, I had a wonderful, loving, and supportive church community. And yet, I never learned anything more than the stories, the surface lessons. When I asked questions, I often got evasive answers, or frustrated responses--sometimes the other kids in my group would tease me for asking so many questions. Eventually, I gave up on spirituality. I concluded there wasn't anything in the Christian faith beyond the moral lessons and doing good works. And then, in college, God showed me so many amazing things. He completely destroyed all the preconceived ideas I had about what it meant to have faith in Him, and how to actually have a REAL relationship with Christ. I'm not by an means perfect or mature in my faith, but now that I know there's so much more out there, I can't wait to open the eyes of those like me; those young women who, for whatever reason, have grown numb to God or just never had the chance to know Him.

To begin with, I would love if you guys would do two big things for me: first, spread the word! Post my blog on your Facebook pages, tell your friends about it, and even twitter about me! Second, tell me what questions you have. With what issues about the church, your faith, God, the Bible, do you struggle? What do you not understand? I would love to hear any and all of them! You can leave a post here, or email me anytime. Your contributions are definitely appreciated!