Wreck Me Righteous

Everyone has a story to tell. Some stories seem better than others because of detail or even the way they are told. Here is the story of how I came to know the Lord and some of the events that led up to that point.God is doing and is continuing to do many things in my life.
I grew up in a “Christian” home. My grandfather was a Baptist preacher, nana played the piano at church and was a good strong Christian woman. My parents always went to church but their relationship with each other definitely did not reflect what they said they believed. When I was 10 I walked down the isle of a tiny little Baptist church in a little bitty town. A week later I was baptized. However, those two events sadly meant nothing in my life. I was playing church at the age of 10. I thought I was safe because of praying a little prayer and walking a little isle so I wouldn’t go to hell. My life showed no reflection of what I claimed to believe. Honestly I do not believe I came to Christ until my freshman year of college. My life between 10 years of age and my freshman year (18 years of age) was spent living for myself and everything I could do to be pretty and cool and have the greatest boyfriend and etc. When I was in high school I dated a guy for about 3 months, we began talking about marriage. It freaked him out. He was not ready to settle down or do anything like that. For the most part I thought we had a moral relationship because we were not sleeping together. We did other things that very well could have led into that, yet there was strangely always a stopping point. That is sad but awesome, because even that shows God trying to protect me from something I did not understand. He called everything off. As hard as it was for me I thought, “he will come back.” The next week was the winter formal at my high school. I went with a group of girls. That night when the 3 of us left we left with 2 guys. One of the girls said she had to go home early, so we let her go. The other girl received a phone call from her mother telling her she had to come home immediately. Her mom had a bad feeling about us being out and she wanted her home right away. So we took the girl home. I thought we were going to IHOP or Waffle House, that is what the guys told my mom we were doing. We continued to drive around for a little bit and the guys decided to stop at a gas station. When we parked, the guy driving turned around, looked at me, and said “so you have a choice.” This was a normal thing. He would pretty much play the would you rather game or the ultimatum game. This time was different. He said, “you have two options. One, have sex with me or two, walk home.” I was shocked. That had not crossed my mind with him at all.
About 4 months earlier I made the mistake of having sex with a football player. I did not enjoy it and hate to admit that I even did that. When this guy found out about it he was furious that having dated him off and on I had never slept with him. He decided to change that. He repeated his words “have sex with me or walk home.” I didn’t want to choose either option, I wanted out of the whole game. By this time he had stepped out of the car and walked back to my door. He opened the door and grabbed my arm. “Have sex with me or walk home,” I looked at the guy in the passenger seat. I will never forget the look on his face. No one has ever had that look of fear in their eyes, well at least not that I had ever seen. The guy in the passenger seat took out a $5 bill and said “just go in. Go in and buy what you need. Just do it.” My eyes kept shifting back and forth. I didn’t know what to do. I finally told them I would go in but I was taking my phone with me so I could pretend to be on it and feel less awkward. He allowed me to do so. I called every person in my phone except my parents. Only one person answered, it was a friend’s mother. I couldn’t bear to tell her what was happening, I simply apologized for the late night phone call and hung up. I proceeded to buy a box of condoms and went back to the vehicle. The guy was waiting in the back seat and his friend was now in the driver seat. It was the longest walk back to the first parking space EVER. I got in and he proceeded to rape me. I cried. I just kept saying “please take me home…please just take me home.” He eventually got tired of hearing me say that and stopped. His friend had turned the radio up loud so he didn’t have to hear what was going on. The guy climbed in the front seat being so frustrated I would not just let him “enjoy” what was happening. He told the guy to just take me home. He did. That was one of the hardest things to overcome in coming to Christ. I could not believe that God would allow such a thing to happen and still be considered a loving God. My rape wrecked my view of God. I began to drink, buy drugs (didn’t take them…too big of a chicken, thank God), and race cars. I wanted to be a rebel. I acted out and was punished for my actions. The next year I decided to be little miss smarty pants. I took the hardest classes the school offered and was the president of a political club. Then when that didn’t work out I signed up for a mission trip to Venezuela. It was amazing. God did all sorts of things there and I would love to go back if given the chance.
In the fall I started college. God began working in me. The first day living on campus I met a group of students who were part of a campus ministry called Campus Outreach. One of the girls on my floor started a flag football team as well as a Bible study. I would go to parties but had no desire to drink. I was a busy body, doing anything and everything I could to be around people. I went to the Bible study, was on the flag football team, went to weekly Campus Outreach meetings, went to the BCM, went to fraternity parties, church, hung out in the school cafeteria more than I went to class, and etc. The next spring, He revealed to me how great He is and how I do not need the things of this world to be satisfied. I was not being satisfied because I did not have Him. He showed me that although I had been raped 2 years prior He could use that for His glory. He in no way desires bad things to happen to His children, just like any good father (Matthew 7). He knew that it would happen. Satan has to ask God’s permission before doing anything to His people (read Job…great example). God allowed this wretched thing in my life because He had (has) a plan to use it for His glory and to make His name great among the nations. He in no way wants me to make my own name great, rather His name is to be proclaimed through out the nations (Matthew 28:18-20).
God has given me the desire to share with anyone that breathes and does/does not know Him. Criteria, if they are breathing, hearing, and human…share with them. My goal in life is to make Christ’s name great among the world. He has given me a heart to go to another country to live for Him. He has me here right now for a reason. Because of past mistakes and taking out loans for college I am now tied to the U.S. financially until at least 2013. Until that time He has not allowed me to leave Jonesboro for more than 7 days (seriously … it is kind of funny and frustrating at the same time). God has a plan for me that will far exceed my plans for me. All I have to do is submit to Him and follow Him where He leads. I may not fully comprehend what He wants me to do, but I shall do it anyway .
God had to completely wreck me to put me on a path of righteousness. This seems to be a common theme with God though. A quote from the movie Eat, Pray, Love, "Ruin is a gift, ruin is the road to transformation." While I do not agree where she was going with the statement in the movie I wrote it down because it reminds me of how God has worked in my own life. He had to ruin me and show me that I was absolutely nothing compared to His greatness. II Corinthians 5:17 "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come." We have to be transformed to become Christ-like. To be transformed we must change completely who we were to something new. God has to wreck us of who we were to make us into "little Christ's"... I am content with being wrecked righteous.