I am a visual person. One with a huge heart too. So in an attempt to share my story and my insights on the human condition, I am giving my all to draw pictures with words. Hopefully my attempts are not confusing and prove to be helpful to you in your spiritual journey.
My Story
Chapter 1- The Spirit of Knowledge
In 1994, I moved to Michigan after having pulled off a massive
wedding charade with my inheritance. You see, in reality, I had gotten married
in June of 1992. Eight short months after having found my father dead in his
lazy boy. But I was only eighteen and a
total people pleaser; I thought for sure my mom would kill me if I told her I
was getting married. So, Paul and I
secretly tied the knot at the justice of the peace in Bridgeview, IL. Now with only $400 dollars to our names we
were headed to Holland, MI to raise the 3-year-old that Paul had fathered while
sowing his wild oats. Looking back, it’s
crazy to see that newly 20-year-old girl in a foreign land surrounded by
strangers trying her hardest to triumph amid heartache and uncertainty while
completely oblivious of her own pain. You see…. she was going to change the world.
With a strong sense of social justice and a pretty quick
mind, I was confident in my ability to make a significant impact on the world. After moving, I quickly enrolled at a local
university and decided International Business was the way to go. I had always had a place in my heart for
foreigners since my father was a first-generation Greek and both of my parents
were entrepreneurs; it was in my blood. At
this point in my spiritual journey, I had come to the conclusion that there
must be a God, because I knew that body I found in the lazy boy was only a
shell of the human that had owned a huge piece of my heart. Prior to that I had denounced any belief in a
God because if there was One, He was frankly doing a lousy job. I had heard the Good News that Jesus had died
for my sins, but truthfully, I had no conviction of any sin in my life and the
people who claimed to be Christians were less moral than I was.
I was juggling a lot of balls in the air at that time:
wife, stepmom, full time employee and full-time student. But on New Year’s Eve
of 1995, when my best friend told me that she couldn’t continue our
relationship because her boyfriend had deemed me a bad influence, I could no
longer continue to make sense of things. This girl, whom I loved, had cut ties with me
simply because I suggested that she was not being treated right? The injustice of it all nearly put me over
the edge. I became completely obsessed
with the situation and it consumed my thoughts.
My husband too, was disappointed in me because the guy was his best
friend from childhood AND they happened to be born on the same day, so the bond
was strong. And here I was the new wife
from a totally different world coming in and wreaking havoc on a long trail of
how things were done around there. I
could in good conscience have no part of it.
But what could I do?
Now I realize that it was a Divine set up and I was being
prepared. In May of 1996 I was finishing
up a creative writing class where we were reading Dante’s Inferno. It intrigued me to the point that I wondered
if it in fact contained similar knowledge to what would be found in the Bible.
Being raised by a Catholic and a Greek Orthodox, I had never really explored
the scriptures for myself, but now I was being drawn to open the paperback New
Testament that Paul recently picked up at a Promise Keepers event. That is were I first heard the voice of the
Lord Jesus and It was clear. I was reading the Book like a novel. I wondered why the first three chapters were
basically a repeat. But then, I came to the
book of John and something shifted. I
reached John 3:18-21 and read these words of Jesus:
18Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but
whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not
believed in the name of God's one and only Son. 19This is the
verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of
light because their deeds were evil. 20Everyone who does evil hates the light, and
will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. 21But whoever
lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that
what they have done has been done in the sight of God.
And that is when it happened. I heard his voice plain and clear from deep
within my being and He said simply, “Nina, that is you.” And I agreed.
Chapter 2- The Spirit of the Lord
It was at that point that I became a new creation. It was wasn’t my idea. It was an appointment. Jesus said, “No one can come to Me unless the
Father who sent Me draws Him” (John 6:44). It had been on God’s calendar before the
foundations of this world had even been laid. (Psalm 139:16). I finished
reading the New Testament and I knew intuitively that every word of it was the
Truth. Truth is a person and I had met
Him in these pages and now I had the distinct privilege of housing His Spirit. I
knew that everything in the Book was True.
It had become my foundation and I believed every word of it; I was no
longer my own (1 Cor. 6:19).
So, in a moment everything was different on the inside of
me, but nothing had changed in my circumstances. I just knew I had a friend that would stick
closer than a brother and I was not alone.
The injustices of my current situation no longer haunted me, and I began
to receive instruction on how to proceed. I forgave my friend, and her “stupid”
boyfriend for being so blind. Soon she
and I were in a Bible study together and the Lord began the process of
restoration. We were studying Henry
Blackaby’s “Experiencing God” with a Godly mentor named Esther. She was the embodiment of the Titus 2:3-5
older woman and she was faithful to “urge us to love our husbands and children,
to be self-controlled and pure and to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be
subject to our husbands, so that no one would malign the word of God”. I was on fire for the Lord and was determined live
in peace with God and others. At this time, the conviction of specific sin began
in my heart.
Chapter 3- The Fear of the LORD
Up until that point I regularly used marijuana to get
through my days and to achieve everything on my to do list. Marijuana had the opposite effect on me than
most people. Instead of making me lazy,
it opened my creativity and energized me in ways I can not explain. But one thing was for sure, the Holy Spirit
began to show me that it was not something he wanted in my life. I had become a slave to it. (Romans 6:16) Being
that I am an open book and strongly oppose hiding and secretness, I did what
the Bible suggested and confessed my sin to an elder, Esther. I think see was quite surprised by my
confession based on the look on her face.
Her response to my confession was
profound. She told me, “Well, you have
to stop.” The problem was, I already
knew that. I just didn’t seem to have
the ability. I wanted to stop, but every
effort on my part proved unsuccessful and I ended up doing the very thing I did
not want to do. (Romans 7:15) So I asked the Lord,” What should I do?” He spoke to me through James Chapter 4
What causes fights and quarrels among you?
Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You
desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you
want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God.
3 When you ask, you do not receive,
because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your
pleasures.
4 You adulterous people,[a] don’t you know that
friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who
chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 5 Or
do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the
spirit he has caused to dwell in us[b]? 6 But
he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:
7 Submit
yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come
near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and
purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve,
mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he
will lift you up.
That was quite sobering.
Thankfully he didn’t stop there.
He also counseled me to call my sister in law in Texas and ask if I
could come for a visit where he informed me that “I was to wrestle”
Stay tuned for Part 2 of My Story. Follow the link for the video version of
My Testimony Part 1.
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