Sunday Scripture

Matthew 7:24-28 24“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

OK, I have to give God lots of glory tonight.  For long-time readers you may remember a girl that started our youth group about the same time I did and she had “issues”.  She came from a bad home life, she herself had gotten into drugs and alcohol and she believed that she was gay.  It’s been almost two years since I first met her and since then, she has admitted she had a crush on me when she first met me, come to my bible study high on cold medicine, come to my Sunday School class with a hangover and thrown up in the trash can, talked and texted with me endlessly, attended counseling sessions for anger management…gosh where do I stop?  Let’s just say it’s been a long two years with her.  But let me not forget the good stuff about her…even during this stuff.  The girl is smart as a whip.  She’s always the one wanting to read and ask questions.  She’s one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.  She will do anything anyone asks her to do.  She’s respectful and mature and funny and well, she’s just great to be around.

The reason I’m saying all this is we had youth Sunday today and she gave her testimony.  She talked about her family issues and growing up with just her dad and brother and how they hurt her and how all that led to her dressing like a boy and hating boys and acting like a boy and just getting confused about who and what she was.  How she got messed up with drugs and alcohol with several different family members but then talked about how one day she came to our youth group and kept coming just to get away.  How she had gone to church her whole life and she knew she was doing wrong and finally after over a year of attending our youth group, she finally realized how hypocritical it was to go to church week after week and then go home and do what she was doing.  She decided to make a permanent change.  Her testimony this morning basically ended there but I’ll continue for her….Her aunt and uncle decided to take her in last fall and her “inside” had finally changed at that point but she was still dressing like a boy and they bought her an entire new wardrobe and took her for manicures and pedicures and got her ears pierced and she bought a purse and suddenly her outside matched the beautiful young lady she had become on the inside.

As I listened to her stand up in front of hundreds of adults and tell this story and give God the glory for changing who she was, I couldn’t help but run up there with her.  I about had Pentecostal church at the Baptist church this morning.  I shook and I cried and I hugged her and told my church how proud I was of her.  I told them how she was an outcast in our group because the boys didn’t like a girl that looked and acted like a boy (she literally was mistaken for a boy) and the girls felt uncomfortable around her but our youth leader was wise enough to tell her to keep coming and God got ahold of her and she is a completely different person inside and out .

The key to her story is she decided to stop doing what she was doing and live according to God’s plan. She chose to make Jesus Christ her foundation and now everyone knows how different she is.  She’ll tell you, her family will tell you, the youth members will tell you, I will tell you.  She is a different person.  And God did it all.

And you know what?  I am SO glad God chose me to be involved in that.  This morning God got the glory for what He’d done in her life and I just want to use this as another vehicle to say that God is real, He’s alive, He can change your life if you just let Him.  It’s an awesome thing.