Other people are going to find healing in your wounds. Your greatest life messages and your most effective ministry will come out of your deepest hurts. -Rick Warren

Almost two years ago I had words spoken into my life that left me with so many questions, yet so much peace and understanding of my rough past and the fruits that it is going to bear.

 “It’s time to use your pain as your pedestal.”

 

Every fear, every anxious sense of abandonment, every shed tear from these eyes of mine, every unworthy thought of myself, every sleepless night, every single thing that has shaped who I am today, God was and is going to use. I made a promise with God that if he would put people and situations in my life that needed His redemptive love in my story, then I would tell it wholeheartedly through His grace with thanksgiving.

 We all have stories and we all have a past full of beauty and tragedies of every kind. From nightmares to fairytales. No two are the same or will they ever be. That’s the beauty. It’s our testimony. It’s the strongest thing we have when it comes sharing hope and walking through life with other hurting souls. It’s our narrative that continues to be written every single moment of our lives. And hopefully at some point along this journey, we quit taking the pen from God and let him continue to write our story the way He had intended all along.

I wavered with him in the beginning on this calling over my life. “God, I can tell some, but I don’t know about telling it all.” I quickly learned that I had to lay it all out there, because somewhere out there, one special soul, needs to hear that part of me that hurts a little too badly to say without tears. Some child out there needs to hear that she isn’t the only one going to bed at night praying for their daddy in prison. Someone needs to hear that love isn’t found in all of the false places that we look. And someone needs to hear that through my messed up, entirely broken, absolutely scarred and ugly past, that God can bring anyone out of darkness and make them whole again. If He did it for me, then He can do it for you.

Watching God move:

A few short months after we moved to Tennessee, I went through quite a dark season. A little spiritual warfare, a little identity crisis, and a lot of change. God was preparing us for big things, and the wars of the enemy began. I had left a huge and profitable business where I worked far too much and had little time for the realities that truly mean something in life- Something I realized I found my identity in. And change that I love and so welcomingly embrace most of the time, takes a while to get used to.  I can now see that God brought me here to slow me down and show me what was faithfully important and exactly where he wanted to call me out to. When I’m in dark seasons such as this, I’ve learned to fight the right way. To draw near and to be still and listen. My prayer at this time was:

God show me exactly where you want me- open doors, place my feet, and direct my paths.

 Two short days after fervently praying that prayer, John and I were driving down the road to do a new hike and my phone lights up. It was the pastor’s wife who I hadn’t really gotten to know too well yet. As my eyes began to read through the text, they also began to fill with tears:

“Chelsea, I don’t know where your calling is or where you feel like God wants you right now but we had six children get saved last night and four of them had parents in prison. Nobody knows how to really talk to them through the same eyes, but I know a little of your story and I feel like you could really help them. I just want you to really pray about this and let me know if this might be an area you are interested in.”  

I knew in that moment that God was placing my feet exactly where he wanted them, and answering a prayer that I had cried out for.

While pondering it all, one of my favorite quotes sunk even deeper into my heart in that time, “Be the person you needed at that age.” The age range of kids that I have a heart most for, were the kids that they needed somebody to pour into. I answered her with a “yes.” As hesitant as I was because I had never really worked with kids in the church before. I knew that when God boldly calls you out, obedience is where it all starts, then the fruits will follow. And little did I know, John had been diligently praying for me to find my place at church and to sink deep into letting the Lord work through me in the same ways that I had been.

For the first couple of weeks I sat and observed. I watched to try and see how things work. Tried to get to know the children and teens. And I began to see the heart that our church has for the children of this generation who may have never heard or experienced the love of God. We bus children in every Wednesday and Sunday who can’t get there otherwise. I don’t have any other way to explain it but seeing God’s love played out. It’s absolutely incredible.

A few short weeks into it, Melissa felt like I needed to share my testimony and told me to pray about it. Me… public speaking?? Absolutely not! But God said “Yes. It’s time and you know it!”

I scheduled it a few days after my 31^st birthday. It gave me a couple of weeks to pray on it and prepare for it. And weirdly, I didn’t have anxiety or fear like I thought that I would.

As the Wednesday came, I was sitting on my bathroom counter getting ready. I had music on as I always do, and I heard a little voice that said, “Turn the music off and just sit with me.” So, I did. I sat and I listened. I usually have trouble listening but for some reason this particular afternoon, I didn’t at all- it was pure intimacy. And clearly, I heard, “There are people in that room tonight who are holding weight and burdens that they were never meant to carry. Just like you did and do.” My eyes filled up with tears because I literally felt the heaviness of that. I felt the heaviness of the weight that I carried for sooooo many years. Weight that held me down and held me back that was never meant to be that or do that to a young girl’s life.

With a room full of people in the church and my sweet John sitting in the back, I began to tell my story. I cried, a lot. Sad tears because it’s real and it happened, but joyful tears because of His sweet and precious grace throughout every moment in my life. From the day I was born to standing at that pulpit on that February night, I shared my story for the first time ever. The messy, the ugly, the redemption, and the beauty that came from ashes. Not for my sake, but for His.

I showed the three pictures that I have with my father, and explained that the abandonment that he left me in defined me and crippled me for so many years, until God revealed to me one day that I had a father all along. I shared the complete freedom that I gained from forgiving a man who deserved forgiveness, just like we all do.

At the end of the night, we had an alter full of kids and adults- not because of me, but because of God’s words and works through me. Because of my brokenness from broken humans, and because He loves us enough to pull us out of those very places. We had sticky notes and wrote names that needed forgiveness and left it at the altar, forever. Lay it all down. That was my prayer.

At the end of the service, we asked for all of the children and teens to come to the back who had a parent or parents in prison. And the heart-wrenching part, is about 1/3 of the room stood up and joined us. As we joined hands and prayed for their hearts, not a dry eye stood there because for the first time for many of us, we realized we weren’t alone and we were vulnerable in the reality of the pain. I knew in that moment that God does have big plans for my brokenness. There are so many things I’m not proud of. And I mean copious amounts of things. But there is nothing too messy or broken for Him. My pain wasn’t a waste nor will it ever be. It made sense on that night. And I’d endure every broken promise, every moment of abandonment, every bad decision, every insecure thought again, just to be able to help children the way God is using me today. Nothing is ever by accident.

I’ve had a few girls that God has placed me with divinely. They are my ones. I hug them tighter and say more prayers for them than many of my other prayers because I know when they go home the pain that they are enduring. I know when they cry in my arms exactly what they are feeling because that was me and still is a part of me. And my prayer is that God will use me to make a little bit of a difference in their life. I feel like my faith over their lives is as small as a mustard seed with hopes and prayers for God to move mountains in their lives. For them to become everything they thought or were told they would never be. To make them feel loved when they don’t feel loved at all and to let them know how precious and wonderfully made they truly are.

On May 8^th, 2019, I got to see fruits come out of letting God use my rechid past. One of my “ones” came and got me for the alter call with a smile on her face and said she was ready to be saved. She said to me “You know when you stood up and gave your testimony and talked about you not having a dad, I thought we could be friends because my mom is in jail just like your dad. I want to be everything that my mom isn’t. And most of all, I want to go to Heaven.” So, she did it. She got saved!

God hasn’t blessed us with children yet, but I am faithful in His promise that He will soon. I know for now that God has given me the precious opportunity to love on children who need extra love. Who need to feel worthy and precious in someone’s sight, most importantly in His. I’m so lost when it comes to all of this. I trip over my words and I don’t have the answers to all of their questions but just like Peter when God called him out of that boat, I will just keep my eye on Him with my hands held out. Here I am Lord, use me.

No story goes to waste, ever. I share this not because of anything that I’ve done, but because of everything that He has done in me and through me. I’m still broken and healing and there isn’t a day that I won’t be. I know that my heart is whole again only because of His love. I urge you, no matter how messy or sticky your story is, to share it, to be vulnerable and open up your heart to someone who needs you. Be that person you needed. You never know the mountains that seemed impossible to move, that you could see moved before your very eyes, just by saying “Yes!”