I awoke the morning
of June 18, 1991 in a cold sweat, screaming under my breath from a horrible
nightmare. Before I tell you the details though, I think you need to know a
little of what my life before that morning was like.
I grew up
feeling invisible. My parents both worked outside the home and when they were
home, we often spent our time together in front of the TV. I had no local playmates
until around junior high. I had three older siblings, but my half-sisters were
20 years older and my brother was 10 years older and he was the clearly favored
child. I tried to get my parents’ attention by staying out of trouble and
getting good grades, but their attention was fleeting, my achievements seemed
empty, and I was desperately lonely.
By the time I
became a teenager, I felt a need to “find my destiny.” I nearly died at five
months old of some mysterious virus. I thought my survival somehow made me
“special.” I longed to figure out what great thing I was supposed to do with my
life. The pressure I put on myself to achieve was often overwhelming. Eve ry new school year was a chance to make a fresh
start. But two weeks in, I was still the same bossy, selfish, crybaby that I
had always been. I was powerless to change myself.
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| Me in Kindergarten |
Every week, my
parents and I attended a church that gradually became spiritually empty to me.
Everything was based on “doing.” So going to church just reinforced my perfectionist
tendencies to try harder and be good. I had started seriously searching for God
from about junior high on, but I kept running into dead ends and couldn’t
really find anyone who could explain their belief in God to me that was any
better than my “everybody goes to heaven” philosophy.
By the time I
was 20, I was bullied relentlessly, betrayed by three close friends, and
broken-hearted from a bad choice of boyfriend. I started investigating New Age philosophy
(a belief mostly centered on achieving nirvana through bettering yourself), but
worshiping self just left me more confused and isolated. I often prayed to my
version of God at night, but I was never really sure He was listening.
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Confirmation Day |
Then, between my
junior and senior years of college, I met Beth, a ‘90s hippie and not the kind
of person I normally hung around with. But one night there was a tornado
warning near campus and we got talking about life. She asked me what I believed
about God. I told her that I thought God was out there somewhere and I was
trying to find a way to get to Him. I said that I thought everyone went to
heaven except maybe a few really bad people. The more I talked, the less it
made sense, not only to her, but to me! She explained how Jesus’ death on the
cross was personal – that He died for me,
for my sins, personally. She also
explained Satan and hell and quoted Matthew 12:30 – “He who is not with me, is
against me.” I knew that the way I was living could not be construed as being “with
God,” but I also didn’t like the alternative!
That night, my
mind accepted what she was saying, but my heart was not quite there yet. About
a week later, I had the nightmare I referred to at the beginning. I dreamt that
I was signing a contract with a devil in disguise. As I was signing my name, I
saw horrible things – people being torn limb from limb and vile crimes being
committed. Then I saw the number 666 being engraved in my hand in blood. I knew
that was the mark of the devil. I tried to get away, but the person the
contract was with grabbed my arm searing my flesh. The room went black and that’s
when I woke up. My first conscious thought was “I need Jesus!” I rifled through
my desk to find a pamphlet Beth had given me that explained that finding peace
with God was as simple as believing that the God who made me had sent His only
Son, Jesus to die on a cross to pay the penalty for my sins. I simply needed to
confess those sins and trust Him to take over my life. I prayed several times, begging
God to forgive me.
That was an
amazing day. I know it sounds cliché, but when I looked out my window that
morning, everything seemed suddenly brighter and more in focus to me. It really
was like God had peeled scales from my eyes and that I was seeing clearly for
the first time. That was the great turning point of my life.
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| My Baptism - October 20, 1991 |
Why am I telling
you all of this? It’s my story – at least one significant portion of it.
Everybody has a story. You don’t have to be a Christian to have a story. Maybe
you were abused as a child or survived a long illness. Perhaps you married
young, or late, or multiple times, or not at all. Have you lost a loved one?
Adopted a child? Achieved some fleeting greatness?
What’s your
story? Have you shared it with anyone? I think one of the great faults of our
American society is that we often hide our stories. We walk around making
judgments of people we know nothing about. We assume the homeless man was lazy
or the CEO came from a wealthy family or the young African-American male is
violent. Yet, we don’t know a thing about them. We don’t know that the guy who
cut us off in traffic this morning was driving his wife to the hospital so she
could deliver their first child. We don’t know that the cashier was crabby this
afternoon because she was up with a sick child all night. We just make snap
judgments about people and cop an attitude. I’m guilty of that.
Sharing our
stories would have a profound effect on our culture. We would be less isolated
and judgmental; we would be more open and far more willing to show grace to
others if we knew their “stuff”. The more I interact with people, the more I
see how much we desperately need to know each other’s stories. They encourage
us, correct us, motivate us, counsel us, and inspire us.
So, what’s your
story? Who will you share at least a piece of it with today?
Copyright ©2012 by Cherry Lyn Hoffner. You may not
reproduce this post in any form without written permission from the author.
However, linking to this post is encouraged.
