Introduction and My Story

Hi!

So this is me - Anne Evans. And I want to talk about God's grace on this blog. The definition of "grace" is "unmerited favor," or in other words, getting something we don't deserve. God has given us a lot of things we don't deserve.

Let me tell you a little about myself, though, so you know who's talking at you on here.

First and foremost, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ. My life's desire is to know Him more and follow in His ways by His strength. He is the God I will be talking about.

After that, I am a human female living on planet earth. I'm American, raised in a little tiny town in the middle of nowhere. The household I grew up in was run by my rather conservative, protective, and loving parents. They took me to church, youth group, and summer camp regularly. I was home-schooled for the first few years and then attended two tiny Christian schools until graduation. In other words, I grew up learning about Jesus and being sheltered from a lot of the bad stuff in this world. Books were my favorite entertainment, and my social life consisted of the Christian kids at youth group who I also attended school with.

You might think, "She was brainwashed into becoming a Christian because she never knew anything else!" I disagree. Yes, it is true that as a young child there was no doubt in my mind that what I was learning was true. But I grew up. I struggled through doubting my faith several times and I was exposed to all kinds of different views and religions as soon as I went to college. But what I came back to in the end is that: 1.) Jesus is the only one who offers hope with love and assurance, based off of Jesus' actions and not my own; and 2.) I have found Jesus to be reliable through my own experience and through other people's experiences. And so I continue to believe.

In "short," I believe that Jesus is God and He loves all humans very, very much. But all of us humans have disobeyed Him in some way. We are not perfect, but God is. And God cannot lovingly coexist with us the way He wants to when we are imperfect. God is also a just judge and cannot let disobedience (evil) go unpunished. Unfortunately, the punishment is separation from Him (the definition of all good things), death, and eternal suffering in Hell. But He still loved us rotten humans, and so He found a way to do the punishment and restore His relationship with us while still being just, without killing us. That was Jesus. Jesus is God, and Jesus as God turned Himself into a regular human while still being completely God. (No idea how it works, but it happened. Read the Bible.) Jesus lived like any human except that He did everything perfectly without disobeying God/Himself once. Then He allowed Himself to be murdered so that His innocent life could take the place of us humans in the just, criminal punishment we deserved. But for Him, death didn't stick because He didn't deserve the punishment and He is God. So Jesus completely paid for every human's disobedience to God when He died in our place, and He proved that He paid for it when He came back to life three days later. Except that every human has to know this stuff and believe in it in order for them to be saved from God's punishment. Once they do believe, they are "saved" from God's punishment, reunited with God as the beginning of a great friendship, given hope and purpose, and given and promised many wonderful things, including eternal life and joy in Heaven. Knowledge and belief is the key.

I am convinced that Jesus is the only way to find fulfillment in this life and hope for the next, and that God/Jesus is always with me, hearing my prayers and enduring my struggles with me.

But that sounds rather self-focused. We'll get back to it in a minute.

As I said, I believed in Jesus from childhood. In my teens, my belief and experiences with Jesus grew a lot. I struggled through overwhelming busyness, loneliness, crippling fear, perfectionism, and the kind of hurt that comes from having a home broken by depression and mistrust. Through that, I learned that God is always with me and can be called upon whenever I need help. He doesn't always help in the way I want, but He has gotten me through days and pain I thought I would never survive. I still struggle with most of that, but I have God who helps me endure, live, heal, and grow. I also learned during those years that not matter how hard I try, I cannot achieve God's idea of perfection on my own, without His help. Trying and failing to do that took me down dark paths in my mind I wish never to return to because my focus was on my failure (or self-righteousness) instead of God.

I went off to a nominally Christian college with a lot of hopes. I believed God was calling me to missions (going to another place to tell others about Jesus), but I found that my focus was more on my other passion - books and writing - than it was on God. So with a little advice and prayer, I changed my degree to a major in English Literature and a minor in Christian Studies. Over those 3.5 years, I began to lose sight of Jesus. Instead of focusing on and putting my identity in Him, I focused on my career and put my identity in other people's opinions of me. So when the guy I hoped to marry turned out not to be a great person, my parents started talking about divorce (despite their promises never to divorce because they loved their kids), and my career goals seemed unattainable - I fell apart. I had no hope in this life. Nothing gave me joy. I had passion, but as soon as I stopped doing whatever inspired the passion (like reading fiction), I was as hopeless as ever. And this relationship with Jesus that was supposed to bring me joy brought be nothing but the feeling of guilt. I knew God still heard me, but what about the promises of joy, hope, love, and peace? All I felt was misplaced guilt because I was still trying to please God with my attempts at perfection, though I was trying to ignore the problem.

I was a mess when I graduated with my BA that December. I went home with my parents for Christmas with plans to focus on my career and return to the city where the college was that January. Then I realized I had no money. I needed plane tickets, an apartment, reliable transportation, and a job in order to do that - and I had none of that. I was crushed. I had putting my last hopes in my career plans, and while I could still work toward that in the distant future, the immediate future looked like a rotten job in a small town where I had one friends and parents I was having problems with. When a job and living situation is your only source of hope, those circumstances crushed the hope. (Yes, I know, I was a bit over-dramatic.)

That was when I begged God for help. By begged, I mean sobbed into my pillow for over an hour, telling Him how hopeless, trapped, and helpless I felt and begged for a way to escape my circumstances.

And God helped me. But not how I expected.

Later that day, my mentor, a sweet, godly lady from church who I grew up knowing like an aunt, finally called me back. She gave me several suggestions, including going to the tiny Bible college she attended years before. She gave me a list of reasons that sounded appealing, also. But I was broke. She figured I could go that fall semester, after saving up all spring. My thought was that, if I had to be at home saving money, I might as well go with my original career plan in the fall instead of this. So if I was to go, it had to be immediately - in 7 days when the semester began in January. Seven days to apply and be accepted, move halfway across the country, and come up with some $1500 and a plane ticket. I figured that if God wanted me to go, He would make a way because it was never going to happen otherwise. So I applied. And in 4 days, I was accepted and had a plane ticket and a way to pay. So I threw out my other motivations for getting there and went with: "God wants me at Bible college, and so I'm here to find out why and to do it."

I am at that Bible college now and have finished more than half of the program. Since I've been here, I have learned SO MUCH. In the first months, He began healing me from some of my hurts and in my relationships. He gave me hope again and helped me deal with some of my sins/addictions. Not long after that, I began learning that my entire relationship with God hinged on knowing Him and then depending on Him. I knew I couldn't be perfect according to His standards; I was always failing and feeling guilty because I knew He wanted me to live in a way that pleased Him. But I didn't know that Jesus was waiting "with a broom and dustpan" to clean up my life if I would just ask for help. I thought I had to clean it up and then go to Him. In order to find that help, I needed to ask and rely on His help. And in order to do that, I needed to know Him and His character well enough to be able to trust His help. Knowing Him comes from a lot of prayer, Bible study, shared stories and friendship with other believers, and service to Him over time. I am still learning that, even with His help, God paces us out and doesn't fix everything immediately; and since it is Him doing it, he certainly accepts us wherever we are in our messy learning - He doesn't ignore or judge us for not having things together. We have all of this hope, forgiveness, and opportunity for life as soon as we believe. But in order to learn and grow in it and to avoid the false feelings of guilt, we have to continually return our minds to these truths and to knowing Jesus who provided all of this stuff for us. And that is where I am now - knowing all of this stuff and struggling to put it into practice. It is difficult and painful sometimes, but when I keep returning to thinking and trusting in Jesus and what He did and praying for His help, I find peace, joy, victory, love, hope, and every good thing.

And as I am learning to know God and His endless love for every human on the planet, including me, I can't help but want to join His mission to offer all this wonderfulness to everyone. Knowing God makes me want to love Him, because He is the definition of love. And loving Him means loving what He loves: all people. And I want to join Him in loving others, even though it will mean that I have to give up a lot of things I like and will make me suffer sometimes. But I know He will give me the strength to endure it, and Jesus is totally worth it. (And there's Heaven to look forward to.)

All of that is the reason why I want to write this blog - to get the word out to those who don't believe in Jesus and to help grow and encourage those who do believe. I have been praying about this for a while now, and I finally gave in to God's urging to "Write!" I pray He will give me the words and keep me focused on Him in my life and on this blog. I pray He will show Himself to you all, dear readers, and will use my scribblings to benefit you in some way. It is Him who changes hearts, not me.

(Also, if you're wondering, the picture is one I took of a beach in Washington.)