Growing Pains {My Faith Journey}

Growing up in a Christian home where Bible stories were read regularly, prayer was a typical part of our meal time and night time routine, and church was a regular part of the week, I am truly blessed to be able to say that I cannot remember a day of my whole life that I did not know Jesus as my Savior. I was about seven years old when I actually chose to get baptized and commit my life to Christ, but even before that, I have always known Jesus, even if it wasn’t in an “intellectual” sort of way. I am grateful to my family for this; for the legacy of faith which they passed down to me such that I have never lived a day of my life without the peace of Christ. 

This makes for not such an exciting testimony of salvation, but of course, as I have grown up and matured, as I have inevitably faced life’s challenges that come with the growing responsibility that time and age brings, I have learned to rely on God in different ways.  Much like teenagers experience growing pains, my story is about the “growing pains” I have experienced through my faith journey.

The majority of my life growing up was spent in a pool. I think I was seven when I started swimming competitively and over the next seven years the sport completely took over my life. In many ways swimming was an excellent thing for me; it kept me healthy, being good at something gave me lots of self-confidence, and my busy training schedule taught me discipline and kept me out of the kind of trouble kids get into when they are bored. On the other hand, swimming became an idol for me.  I had a singular focus in life, and it had nothing to do with God.  By the time I was in high school my life revolved around my sport.  I had practice before school, I went to school, I did my homework in the car on the way to afternoon training, I ate my dinner in the car on the way home from training, and I went to bed. With that much time and energy devoted to swimming it is easy to see how I began to identify myself by my athletic success. And you can imagine how crushing a career-ending injury was to a fourteen year old whose whole world revolved around being an elite athlete. I questioned God, why did He let this happen to me?

While taking a break from training after having shoulder surgery, I had to find something else to do with my time. I played some other sports, but mostly finally made friends with some people from school that I previously hadn’t had the time for. These friendships were wonderful for me, as having fun, loyal, and supportive friends always is wonderful. However, this little taste of popularity caused me to place more and more importance on being liked and being popular such that now instead of swimming, my social status was the most important thing to me. I always had someone with me, I always had a “boyfriend,” and always kept myself socially busy. By the time my parents announced we were moving to another state just before my Junior year of high school I was devastated because I was in such a comfortable social situation in the school where I was.  I didn’t want to leave my best friends and I didn’t want to have to start over building popularity somewhere else.  Looking back, I can see this as another attempt by God at refocusing my attention.

When I arrived at my new school I quickly made a good friend, who is still one of my best friends to this day, but I was definitely a “small fish in a big pond” and never really gained any sort of popularity. I did eventually find my place as part of our church’s youth group and in my female small group through that youth group.  God really used this time in my life when I had fewer distractions from athletics and social status to guide me towards whom He intended for me to become.  My faith was becoming my own as I transitioned from believing the truths told to me by my parents and church leaders, to spending more time studying God’s Word and really discovering biblical truth for myself.  For the first time in my life I felt God really leading me. 

As it approached time for making a college decision, I felt God guiding me towards student ministry which put a new spin on college searches since a ministry major would require a Christian college, something my parents were not too keen on given the lack of educational rigor stereotypically associated with “Bible college.” I clearly felt God’s leading though, and through a series of events including not getting into other colleges I really should have based on my grades and extracurriculars, we settled on an educationally respectable Christian liberal-arts university that had my desired major. This represented a major step in my spiritual journey; when I chose to follow God’s leading as opposed to God allowing injury or relocation to refocus my attention.

After college, I married into the military and ended up pursuing a teaching degree, which led to a more portable career than student ministry.  I felt like I had found my calling as a secondary math teacher. I loved working with students and seemed to have an aptitude for teaching and classroom management. As a first year teacher my students outperformed every veteran teacher in the department, a fact I was very proud of.  I loved feeling good at my job and like I was making a difference in the world. Again, I found my identity in my career success rather than in my position as a child of God.

Then we got pregnant and my husband and I made the decision for me to stay home with our son for at least two years.  Becoming a mother sent me into serious identity crisis mode.  I went from a job I loved and was good at to being a stay-at-home-mom. I didn’t feel like what I did on a day-to-day basis was very significant and I didn’t feel like I did it well and there really was no way to quantify success. Through many heart-to-hearts with my husband and with a wonderful group of Christian girl friends I learned that my real problem is that I have always used worldly status to identify myself {athletics, popularity, career}. As a stay-at-home-mom I didn’t have much worldly status and this led me to find my identity as a child of God, living for His glory, not my own.

I was further humbled during my second pregnancy when we moved to Singapore temporarily.  It was a difficult pregnancy beginning with what we assume was the miscarriage of a twin followed by lots of bleeding into our second trimester.  Combine that stress with the usual pregnancy nausea and vomiting, unfamiliar food in a foreign country, severe insomnia lasting 6 months, a toddler just discovering his independence, and being half a world away from our support system of friends and family, and it made for a very miserable me! There was no way I could be a decent wife and mother operating on as little sleep as I was getting {about an hour per night} with constant nausea and frequent vomiting. Until then, there had never been a time in my life when I could not do something if I just put my mind to it.  At that time, I could not.  I was so far beyond my capabilities and every day I prayed for just enough energy to take care of my son and keep it together for my husband’s sake. God provided.  Life didn’t get any easier for months, and still, every day God provided just enough love… patience… energy… to make it through.  The experience of living beyond myself and relying fully on God was one of the best experiences of my life. I would not trade the intimacy with God and spiritual growth I experienced for anything. I now have a greater appreciation and trust for God equipping and empowering me supernaturally for whatever He calls me to in life. At this time, it is being a wife and a mother. Who knows what tomorrow might bring, but I know that whatever it is, He will give me just what I need to be successful for His glory.

As I now reflect on the growing pains I have experienced throughout my faith journey, I realize that there is a singular theme, one simple, and yet profound, truth, which I have had to learn over and over again in my stubbornness, and that is that my identity and my purpose are found in Christ. So often I am tempted to identify myself by my successes.  So often I am tempted to think I can do it all on my own. But when I look back at the story of my faith journey I can see that my identity and significance lie in doing what He calls me to do, with the power that He provides, for His glory. Let me not forget it!