Meeting Him

Photo credit: Jonatán Becerra on Unsplash

Q: Tell us a bit about yourself

A: Hello, my name is Rachel and I’m a 24-year-old Science grad. I love travelling, going to the gym, adventure, Disney, fluffy cats and foreign television (get on those k-dramas, people). My favorite color is dark green. And a fun fact about me is that I’m not interesting enough to have a fun fact (lol).

Q: What was the most challenging thing you dealt with in your teenage stage?

A: Well, when I was 16 years old, I was dealing with all the regular things teens deal with, ya know? Unrequited love, poor self-image and confidence, navigating friendships, trying to ‘find myself’, working part-time and becoming an expert procrastinator with my homework – all that good stuff. But, on top of all that, I also had to deal with the loss of my mother to her 3-year long battle with colon cancer.

To be honest, I think the fact that it happened smack-bang in the middle of the most formative years of my life. Where you’re dealing with crazy hormones and a healthy dose of teen angst, made it that much harder to not just accept, but to even simply comprehend it.

Because how do you comprehend losing something that is never supposed to be lost? Something that’s permanent and just there, like the sun rising in the east or the seasons changing?

A mother is a nurturing figure in your life; someone who is always cleaning up after you, preparing your meals, making sure you’re well taken care of for things you didn’t even know needed caring for; someone who is always by your side, wishing the best for you, warning you to stay away from boys because you’re, like 12, encouraging you to be better, challenging you to do more and believing you’re the best thing since sliced bread (but somehow never playing favorites among her three other kids – I’m telling ya, they have special powers: that is a mother.

That was my mother.

And then to have all of it just vanish, poof! all at once. And yet at the same time not, because it was a slow decline over several years. If I look back on it now, I realize how much we can take for granted. Because I could not appreciate the beauty, solidity and unconditional love of my mother until I didn’t have it anymore.

I think the thing I miss more than anything is just having someone take care of me, in the most basic of ways, you know?  (cooking me dinner, ironing my clothes, asking if I need anything from the supermarket, whipping me up a hot Milo at 10PM, waking me up for school in the morning). And not because I’m incapable of doing it myself, but because of how it makes me feel: loved.

These simple everyday acts we seem to take for granted, because how could we not? I never realized the implicit power they carry in making you feel looked after. Like someone’s always got your back, thinking about you, anticipating your needs and providing for them.

I never realized how hard that stuff was until I had to start doing it myself. And it’s not the same, because now it’s something you have to do, not something that somehow happens to you.

So appreciate your mothers. Because you’ll miss the simple, yet poignant, care they give without ever expecting anything in return.  Because they love you. And because your happiness is truly theirs as well. 

 Which is something I still struggle to fathom (and perhaps, until I someday have kids of my own, always will).

Q: What was your life-changing experience?

A: Woah, that’s a weighty question. But I can pinpoint it. The year: 2017, the place: Switzerland and the event: meeting Jesus.

I did a DTS (Discipleship Training School) abroad in Switzerland with an organization called YWAM. I went there, a girl who was brought up a ‘Christian’ all her life, ironically, looking for God. Quite a standard cliché, really.

I remember at the beginning of the school, we all sat in a circle to basically share ‘our story'. And after my whole spiel, I concluded with this: I just want to connect what’s in here (pointed at my head) with what’s in here (pointed at my heart); simple, really.

Except it wasn’t exactly.

If I could describe the first several weeks in a word: cyclic. It felt like I was repeating the same thing over and over and getting nowhere for it. Read Bible: check. Write down notes in class: check. Spend some time alone with God: check. Practice trying to hear God’s voice: check (well, kinda- I mostly just tried to shut my brain off for a few minutes so it was quiet enough to hear something other than my own chaotic thoughts- but alas, to no avail. Not even a peep). And then back to stage one all over again.

And it was so miserable. To travel halfway across the world; desperate, afraid and hopelessly hoping for a miracle, some kind of divine intervention; for something to just zap! me and make me come alive because I felt so dead . . . only to end up in the same place as where I started.

Well, let’s just say if God didn’t finally intervene, I don’t know what I would’ve done. Probably just refuse to leave the school until they give me what I came for, or my money back, lol. 

But He did. And when my heart was finally fully clean and open to Him; when He saw how desperately I was seeking Him and laying every part of myself down before Him because without Him I was a mess – everything changed.

Most immediate: my mind was so quiet. Like all my racing thoughts just…disappeared. In the long run: increasing joy and faith; hearing His voice so much more clearly (like I can feel it in my heart) and just seeing how He has guided me every day and answers my prayers so tangibly. And how when I abide in Him I feel Him so closely with me (almost physically) that I just cry all the time because I can’t contain my gratitude and happiness. That I can just pour out my heart to Him: the good, bad and the very ugly (lol) and he just takes it all off my shoulders and always provides a solution.

It’s so surreal and awesome. God is good!

Q: Now when you look back at your life, what is something you are grateful for?

A: I am grateful for God’s gracious handiwork in every part of my life, at every point in my life. They say hindsight is 20/20, and walking with God this past year has afforded me the most tangible and freeing clarity. That I can hardly begin to put into words the depths and heights of my gratitude to Him. In the Bible it says that God is always faithful, even when we’re not. And I truly believe that, because even when I was a million miles away from Him, God was still there.

Sometimes I truly feel like every single day of my life led me to that one single moment of meeting Him in November of 2017. Because I can see how He’s actually been gently nudging me along until finally, I responded to His knock and let Him into my heart. The simple joy, peace, assurance, excitement and hope I feel that can only come from Him; something that I never experienced despite growing up in Church, is so precious and so real and so powerful.

And I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. Because the world cannot give you that, no matter how hard it tries.

Q: For those who are currently experiencing challenges and pressure, what is one sentence you'd like to encourage them with?

A: Just give God your whole heart; be desperate for Him, and He will fill you up until you’re overflowing.

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