Rachel’s Story of Grace
When I was growing up, my parents faithfully took my brother and me to church. I was familiar with the Bible, and I remember praying and talking about it at home with my family. But the truth is–I didn’t love God. I only prayed to Him when I was in the middle of a crisis; the rest of the time I lived as if He didn’t exist, and I was comfortable that way. You see, I believed I was going to Heaven because I had “sealed the deal”–I had prayed and asked Jesus to “save me”–but I had no idea what that meant or what I needed to be saved from.
When I was about ten, my parents suddenly divorced and left the church. It was a horrible custody fight, and my younger brother and I were split up. I stayed with my mom and watched her enter both a dark depression and a new marriage to an abusive man. By the time I was 13, she had three more children.
Because I was so much older than the three youngest, I became sort of a second mom. I spent a lot of time taking care of them, and almost felt a maternal love toward them. The new marriage was a violent and unpredictable one; we often didn’t have enough food to eat, and lots of nights were filled with watching drunkenness and violence or attempting to prevent suicide. Many nights I spent alone watching the children, wondering if this would be the night my mom would never come home.
But this started turning me toward God. My parents and church had laid a foundation for God’s existence during my younger years, even though I didn’t have a daily relationship with Him yet. In my desperation I prayed for His help.
When I was 13, and my youngest siblings were 2, 1, and 3 months old, we were taken from our home–by accident, actually–by Child Protective Services. Of course, we really were in a dangerous situation, but I didn’t see that then. To me this was the worst possible thing that could happen: everything I depended on was lost–my family, my home, my clothing, and most of my other possessions. I left our house with two plastic bags of belongings, and though the police said we’d probably go back home next week, I never went back.
The police took us to another city, where we spent time in a children’s shelter before being put in foster homes. I was in a new city, my mom and stepfather were in jail, and I had to switch schools twice. So much had changed, but I thought, “At least I still have my sisters. I still have something to hold on to from my life.”
Then we were all split up.
On the day I found out we would be split up, I wrote this in my journal: “Everything in my life is being taken away. Maybe God is teaching me to trust in Him.” He impressed upon me the fact that I was not alone; and that though everything else important to me was gone, He still remained.
One of my sisters went to live with a very nice family, who invited me to both their home and to their church. But it took a while for me to agree to go with them. I didn’t want to join a social club, and I had been to church before; so far I didn’t see the benefit in it. Besides, I had plenty to keep me busy and distracted: new friends, boys, acting in plays, music. I had become pretty independent, and was back to not caring about God.
But I eventually agreed to go. And when I first attended the youth group, I began to understand the gospel for the first time. I suddenly had a spiritual hunger I had never had before; and I saw how the people loved me. People were so compassionate and genuine toward me; they became my family when I had none, and I could really tell that God loved me because they did. These people became instruments of His to show me His love and share with me the hope of the Bible. In particular, the youth pastor and his family picked me up from my foster home every Sunday for church, and during the week had me over to teach me about the Bible and theology.
They showed me from Scripture that I was and am a sinner, naturally rebellious against our holy and perfect God, and that I needed to be saved from the righteous and just punishment I deserved. The Bible said I could never do enough good to please God and go to Heaven; that I needed a substitute–someone who had never sinned–to live and die in my place so I could have peace with God. That person was “God with us”–God in the flesh–Jesus Christ. The book of Isaiah puts it this way: “He was wounded for our transgressions; He was pierced for our iniquities.”
God’s justice and mercy met at the cross. My sins were punished and forgiven by Christ’s sinless death, and my righteousness was earned by His perfect life. And through His resurrection, I too was spiritually raised to a new life of growing to be more like Him, for His glory. I read that those who trust in Him for their righteousness before God, and turn from their own ways, are forgiven and given the gift of eternal life.
Now I could just close here, because having peace with God is the ultimate blessing of my life; but there are so many other ways God was gracious to me, and I want to mention a few.
God provided me with a family. An older couple in the church took me to live with them until I went to college. They sent me to a Christian school, got me braces, and treated me as if I were theirs. They showed me what a good marriage was, and God used them greatly in my life.
But it was really tough at first. Becoming a family overnight with people you’ve never lived with before is hard work! I was still so independent and didn’t get why I had to be home for family dinnertime, why they didn’t want me to wear tight clothes anymore, etc… But God taught all of us a lot and used it to draw us all closer to Him.
Also, through my situation with the government (being, technically, a “ward of the state”), God provided all the money for me to attend a private Christian college I had longed to go to–The Master’s College. I majored in Biblical Counseling and learned even more about the hope we have in Jesus Christ: hope that surpasses our past; hope that is not grounded in ourselves or in our circumstances, but in the life, death, resurrection and ongoing intercession of Jesus Christ. God brought many amazing professors and friends to me there — people who encouraged me in my relationship with the Lord and helped me to grow in spiritual maturity. I also met my future husband there. And now, years later, I have the privilege of teaching our two young children about Christ’s all-sufficient grace.
I pray I can relate to the rest of my original family God’s love and grace in my life. The situation is still a painful and challenging one, but I have seen God redeem so much of it. I know He will continue to do so.
Now, it’s easy to read a “messy” testimony like this and totally miss the point. I know I often make much of the drama someone’s experienced, while minimizing the ultimate purpose of God through it. So, let me clarify: My past was painful. But there was a greater evil at work than my past, a greater evil than what I had suffered. This greater evil was my own heart, my own rebellion against God that I had lived in all my life; my determination to have my own way at all times. God stripped me of what I valued most – my family and familiar life – to get me alone, away from everything I depended on, to show me how needy and weak I really was apart from Him. He used pain to bring me to my knees and show me what I really needed.
My greatest need was not to be restored to my family, but to be restored to God. And now I was, through Jesus Christ. And as Romans 8 says, “Nothing at all can separate us from the love of God.”
To read more Stories of Grace, click here.Rachel is the wife of Joel, a student at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and the mother of two adorable children Jack and Katy Grace.
This post is lined up at Grace Laced, A Wise Woman Builds Her Home, and Raising Homemakers
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