My Long Rocky Road to Truly Accepting Jesus: My Testimony

Like many Christians, my spiritual journey has been filled with peaks and valleys. I know my walk with Christ will continue to ebb and flow as I grow, learn, and continuously seek connection with God. It is wild to look back at my walk with Him and see how I have evolved. I went from questioning if I even believed to finally accepting His deep love for me and it has changed my life. For my personal journey, I had to learn to love myself before I was able to accept the love of Christ. This is my testimony and I pray that it gives hope to someone who may need to hear it.

I grew up in a home where I understood the basics of Christianity. I understood that God came to Earth in the form of a human (Jesus) and died on the cross for our sins. By no means was my family the picture-perfect Christian family (whatever that means)….We would go to church in spurts. For example, we would attend regularly for a couple of years (especially when I was young), then the following 2 years we would only go on Christmas and Easter.

I think I would've been considered a pretty “good kid” according to mainstream culture…meaning I did well in school, worked part-time to pay for gas, was on a competitive dance team, showed cattle in 4-H, and helped out at home. However, I also had a wilder side that liked to drink beer and party on the weekends to be perfectly blunt about it. I always reasoned with myself that because I checked the boxes on the "good kid" list, I was justified in my choice to drink every weekend- as long as I kept the other areas of my life on track. I started drinking nearly every weekend starting in middle school, as I hung out with older kids who were my sister's age. I focused my energy on friends and partying, but I was also able to maintain the status quo in the other areas of my life like sports and grades. 

• Who Are Russ & Elsie?

My mom’s parents were the most influential people in my walk with Christ. I consider myself exceptionally blessed to have had my Grandma Elsie and Grandpa Russ in my life. They strove to help me understand the deep soul connection we have with God. My grandpa ALWAYS reminded me that God hears me, He sees me, and He loves me. God was a friend and was easily accessible through prayer. My grandparents didn’t talk to us (referring to my sisters and me) as if we were immature children who couldn’t comprehend deeper topics. They were raw and real, even when we were younger.

As a teen and early adult, I knew when I walked into their living room and my grandpa was sitting in his chair, once I sat down in the other chair beside him we were about to have some real talk. It wasn’t like it was some scheduled thing. Most of the time I didn’t have a specific topic on my mind that I was purposely coming to him to discuss. Our conversations just unfolded organically. There was no pressure. There was no judgment. I miss those two dearly but as I grow older I cherish them more than ever and I appreciate the groundwork they laid for me as a Christ follower. My heart hurts for those who did not have this or who had the polar opposite and are currently stuck in a spiritual rut. Even though I had this foundation, I also went through a long period where I was in a spiritual rut myself, but I have made it through to the other side!

I don’t say that lightly…I was in a DEEP rut from high school until about 3 years ago. As I got busy with my priorities as a teenager and then went on to college, I believed that I was simply “too busy” to tend to my spiritual life. Going to church was basically obsolete by high school. I did nothing to connect with God other than the occasional prayer when I needed something. I didn’t have the capacity to work on my relationship with God. In hindsight, I didn’t have the capacity because I was so drained from trying to handle everything on my own without God. By the time I was in nursing school I was in full flight or fight mode and anxiety about my grades and future career were running through every aspect of my being.

• The Mental Breakdown

One night while I was in the thick of nursing school I was having what I would call a mental breakdown. I had been on the cusp of one since the start of college because of the pressure I put on myself to do well. C's are basically failing in nursing school and I had a B- in one of my tougher classes. I literally felt like something absolutely tragic would occur if I had to redo a class or if I didn't pass my board exam at the end of the program. Anxiety over school was consuming me. It got to the point where I physically felt like an elephant was on my chest and my throat was closing (on a daily basis). I didn’t express my mental struggle with anyone because I was embarrassed by it and I really didn't think anyone could help anyway. It was all up to me- if I get the grade then the anxiety will stop, if I get the job the anxiety will stop, etc.

On the night of my “breakdown,” I got on my knees in my bedroom and sobbed to God. I just said “I cannot do this- please help me. This is out of my control and I need help.” I immediately got a random urge to read a book given to me by a church member when I graduated high school. It had been on my shelf for 2 years at this point and I hadn’t thought about opening it once before. It was a book called Crazy Love by Francis Chan, an amazing Christian author and pastor. Even though I felt like studying was all I could do with my time, I knew I needed to make reading this book a priority. I followed that instinct (which of course was the Holy Spirit). It wasn’t that my life all of a sudden flipped upside down after reading the book, but my journey to Christ started with that choice I made to prioritize my walk with Christ. 

I started my spiritual journey, but I still had a long way to go. On the night I graduated nursing school my now husband proposed to me. I was pumped and I soon went into wedding planner mode. We were also simultaneously building our house (which we did about 75% ourselves and it took two years to complete). I had also just started my nursing career in a pediatric intensive care unit which was most definitely “intense” to say the least. Even though nursing school was over I now had new life events that made me feel like I was drowning- a new job, building a house, planning a wedding (oh yeah, and my Grandpa Russ passed away that year). 

• When I Started Questioning My Belief

Anxiety was still rampant but down a little compared to how it was while in nursing school. I was filled with a lot of negativity and I started to doubt my belief in God. I wasn’t mad at Him or blaming Him for my stress and inability to cope, but I was just so overwhelmed and unhappy that I didn’t have the capacity or insight to believe He was real for a while. I hated this feeling. I would research “proof of God’s existence” and try to read books to help myself believe again- clinging onto some hope that these atheists who turned into believers were telling the truth- that He is real. It was an awful lingering conflict straddling between belief systems like that. I desperately wanted to believe, but I was very honest with myself and God about my doubts. When I allowed my mind to go into this uncomfortable truth, I was scared that I was going to hell, to be honest. Yet I also felt some comfort knowing I was trying to talk to God about it instead of hiding from what I was feeling. I also did not share this with ANYONE because I was ashamed of myself.

Fast forward a few more years and I have been creeping along in my walk- reading the bible and Christian books, listening to pastors online, going to church some, and doing a few bible studies with close friends/ family which I initiated. Around age 26 we were expecting our first child, I got a new job with lower stress and better hours, we started going to church regularly, and I stopped drinking every weekend. I had arrived at this new “level” of spiritual growth where I did believe again. However, I was still hung up on this weird belief that all the other Christians “had their sh*t together” more than I did. I perceived that they were more spiritually aligned than I was and I assumed their sin was in check.

• If I Work Hard Enough I'll Be a Real Christ Follower

*I do believe that people reach various spiritual maturity levels at different times... However, I was falsely accepting that we earn our way to these maturity levels through goodwill and good works. I was overwhelmed by the amount of work I had ahead of me and I compared myself to everyone else which was draining and stunting my growth. I saw myself as the troubled young woman trying to get myself spiritually “cleaned up” so I could be in the club.

This seems to be a very common false belief for many people who have grown up with a religious framework that follows the “good works” based approach (i.e. you haven’t earned God’s love until you’ve done x,y,z). Spoiler- that is the opposite of what Christianity is. Obviously from reading about my own experience, the devil can creep in and also speak this false truth to those who have not grown up with a negative framework. 

• Gaining Clarity

As I spent more time in the church and started attending smaller, more intimate adult Sunday school classes, I began to realize that all these people did not in fact have all their stuff together. They struggled with things I did and they were human- just like me. I began connecting with God on a much deeper level and finally started to understand what my grandparents were saying. God listens, He is present, and He sees me as an individual child of His. I also started to understand that my spiritual connection to Christ does not have to look like others, which helped with my comparison habit. I don’t need to meet a certain "level” to have deeply spiritual connections with Him through prayer, meditation, or signs.

I have claimed to be a Christian all my life, yet it took me almost 30 years to realize you don’t earn God’s love (even though that was preached at my church and explained to me by family). I just was not in a state to fully receive it and sometimes it's a more complicated, involved process for some of us to accept His love. Jesus' death on the cross is the prime example of His love. The entire story of salvation through Jesus Christ rests on the fact that we cannot earn God’s love or our “ticket to heaven.” We believe and receive what He has offered, which is His love for us. 

• Loving Yourself to Accept His Love

A key aspect of embodying His love is to know that if HE loves you, then YOU must also love YOU. 

He thinks you are worth it. Do you believe you’re worth it?

He wants joy and peace for you. Do you feel you deserve that?

We must have love and compassion for ourselves sometimes first in order to accept His love. That is what it took in my own personal journey. Just saying "Yes, Jesus loves me" was not enough. I worked with a coach who helped me realize some destructive thought patterns I had that made it impossible to love myself. I also read a book called Mind Change which helped me heal old wounds that were not serving me. This book addresses the power of the subconscious mind and gives you the tools and steps to unlock this power. I believe the Holy Spirit is a key part of our intelligently designed brain and this book helped me experience the Holy Spirit as a true part of myself. You can buy it here if this seems helpful to you. I earn a small commission if you purchase through the provided links above. Christ resides in us which means His power is within us. If we can make shifts in the mind and put full faith in His ability to produce happiness, peace, and joy in our lives from the inside out then I believe that is how we live aligned in Christ. I believe He works through others on this Earth and I am not ashamed that I needed some extra "help" to get me where I am today.

I reflect back on the countless times my Grandpa said “God wants a personal relationship with us. We can talk to Him like a friend and He loves us.” I smile, but I also cringe knowing there are people out there who may be in the same boat I was in. They are hearing this, but not actually receiving it and allowing it to take root in their heart. Maybe you don’t even know if you believe. Maybe you believe but feel anxious- like you aren’t meeting the “expectations.” My heart goes out to you. If that is where you are please know that there is hope in Christ. Continue to fiercely seek Him and His goodness in your life and it will come to you.

Mathew 7: 7-8

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

Feel free to reach out to me if you have questions or comments. I am not an expert. I just have my own experience and I feel that it is valuable for someone out there, so that is why I'm talking about it. There’s hope for you! Believe that and you will see it unfold without much effort on your part other than being open to the possibility that He truly does love you and He is for you. 

With love,

Elaina