Hello,
This is Ariana from 2023, ten years after many of these posts were written. A few years ago I went through a time, where in a desire to please God, and out of fear of displeasing him, I took a lot of posts off of my blog and reverted them to drafts. However, I am going to prayerfully begin reposting some of them, because, both for memories' sake for myself, but also because not everything that was removed, needed to be. This is one of those posts. I hope it edifies you and draws you closer to Jesus.
Originally posted on March 23, 2013
(Warning: this is a very long, but good post. So if you have a short attention span, beware!)
Sometimes life changes gradually. There's one great moment of transformation, revelation, and the aftershock changes follow you in the months to come, when all of a sudden, you look at yourself and you realize that you are completely different. The things that used to cripple you, they are gone. Of course there are always battles to be fought, but the change is still real, tangible.
That's where I am, right now, right in this almost-the-end-of-the-semester-nineteen-next-week time in my life. But the clincher, the catch is that I never NEVER in a million bajillion years could have done any of it, God, with His amazing huge heart, didn't give up on me, broke me and gave me new life, and is shaping and molding me today, this second, as we speak, into the person He always meant me to be.
There's a story to it all. There always is. Every person you see walking by you, brushing past you in Walmart, sitting near you in the campus library, running on the same track as you, they all have stories, joys and sorrows like photographs and scars on their hearts, but we can't see. Like that wise man Samuel said to Jesse, King David's father--"The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." (1 Samuel 16:7) God can see the map of their lives, every emotional landmark and all that is in between. He can see the joys, successes, tragedy, and pain that make a person who they are. But unless we humans dig deep into each other's souls, we can't see those things. You wouldn't have seen it in me. But now you don't have to, because I'm going to tell you my story.
I won't start in the wee early years of my life, when I spent the majority of my time either playing outside with my brother, or inside with my dollhouse and sizeable collection of barbies. I won't start in the awkward late elementary school, early middle school years when I had stopped going to private school and started homeschooling, and had in the process, grown unfortunately lonely, though my mind thrived because I was constantly reading and writing. Although those times all matter, and all play a role in the story, if I were to include them, the story would be far too long for this blog, and for your patience. So I'll start in the years when the scars were the deepest, and lasted the longest, where my chains were solidified and became so strong that not only were they put on me, I was putting them on myself. I'll start in high school.
I was a fifteen year old girl, homeschooled, naïve, with only the uncomfortable knowledge that I didn't have very many friends, that I wasn't the most gorgeous individual on the planet, and I really had no idea what I was doing when it came to dealing with God, or trying to deal with guys, or trying to keep my relationship with my father from completely falling apart. I decided that the summer of 2009 was when it was all going to change for me, I was going to go on a missions trip, and God was going to change me, make me better, and maybe I would make some friends along the way. So, heart in my throat, I signed up for a Teen Mania missions trip, to Dallas. Very unfortunately, this experience did change me, but almost completely negatively. Having a nature that was prone to self criticism and withdrawal, that's exactly what happened. Although I did make a few friends, that trip was mostly spent in tears, wondering why so much of the group didn't like me or reach out to me, why other girls were so pretty and so good at sports and I so wasn't, why God couldn't just fill up the loneliness inside me and let other people like me. That wasn't to say I didn't make friends who reached out to me and were kind on that trip, but my heart was always longing for more, more more, affirmation, love, and acceptance.
When I came home two weeks later, I made a conscious decision, one that followed me all throughout high school and into college until God grabbed a hold of me--that it was my fault people didn't like me, and I was going to change whatever needed changing so I would never experience that kind of rejection again. And I did.
I started running, and quickly, my obsession became losing weight, so much so, that for a brief period, I had a mild eating disorder. Luckily my parents noticed quickly enough and talked and prayed me through it, but that needing to be in shape, needing to be skinny, never left me, even if the medical disorder did. I had this ideal in my mind of what I wanted to be, without realizing that biologically, because of how my body was built to look, I would never be able to achieve it. Nevertheless, in true form, I blamed myself, and my body for not fitting that standard.
The next part of the story is hard to explain, but it left such huge, huge scars on my heart, but to outsiders, it doesn't usually sound like that big of a deal. My acne flared up and became horrifying, taking over my whole face, and quickly ruling my life. I lived and walked in shame, I couldn't look people in the eye, I felt sorry for people because they had to look at my face, I spent countless nights crying myself to sleep, and on top of it all, I was fighting with my Dad all the time, and questioning whether or not he loved me at all. God was completely distant, if anything, I disliked him, because He made me this way didn't He? I told myself lies that have held me captive so long.
That I was cursed, that I would always be ugly, untalented and unpopular.
That God had purposely made me ugly.
That I would rather not have been born than to live in the pain and shame I was living in.
That my body was a trap I would never be able to escape.
That no one would ever truly love me if they saw what I looked like without pretty clothes, without makeup.
That I was fundamentally different from everyone else, I would always have to work harder to try to be normal, to be liked, to be beautiful.
That being physically beautiful was the key to everything, to being popular, to getting guys to like me, to being normal.
I, on a regular basis, told myself that I hated myself, that I was worthless, that I would never amount to anything, that no one would ever love me, that I should just work harder, push myself more, to be beautiful, to be perfect, that it was either my fault or God's fault. I couldn't see anything good about myself, I didn't understand the point of my being created, if I was to be created with no beauty, no talents, no chance in life.
I thought the battle was won when I finally cleared my skin two years ago, and while my acne was beaten, the emotional war was still far from over. I started dual enrolling at the University of West Florida, and that just pushed me even farther away from God. My whole world was wrapped up in fitting in, in looking good, and I developed some bad habits during that time. Nobody who went to my church could have known how far away I was from God unless they were making the effort to discern where I was with Him. I sang on the praise team, I attended church every Sunday, I even tithed every once and a while. But God was a million miles away from me, and I didn't really know how to truly connect with Him on a personal level. I knew though, and Christmas two years ago, I decided that I was going to get my life on track, and make God proud. I was going to make straight A's and have a bible study and try to be a better person. During that semester, I bought a book: 'Lady in Waiting' which was one of the major points that started the ball rolling in my transformation. It had me doing a regular quiet time, and inspired me to do some kind of missions or volunteer work that summer, in an attempt to grow closer to God. My dad had mentioned YWAM to me before, but I had dismissed it. With renewed interest, I looked it up, and discovered five month Discipleship Training Schools, where one has an extended period time of training and learning about God, before going out on the missions field.
For the first time in my life, I felt pretty confident that this was something God wanted me to do. I was still pretty scared that it was going to be like Dallas where I felt out of place and alone most of the time, but I felt pretty sure that it would be a good experience. Nothing, NOTHING could have prepared me for the complete life change that was ahead of me. Because the very first week there, I met God for the very first time. I was just learning that God's voice could be heard, that he spoke to people, but I wasn't expecting Him to speak to me. My heart was still in such unfamiliar territory, the love the Father hadn't touched my heart yet. But Wednesday night, the very first week of DTS, during worship, I just started crying and crying and for the very first time, I heard the voice of the Father. And do you know what He said? "I love you, Ari, I love you, girl" strong and tender like a father, like He saw me and everything I was and He loved me. That was the night when everything started changing, because all of a sudden, I couldn't live without the love of the Father, and he was real to me, He was alive and He spoke to me.
I can't begin to describe all of DTS, it was an experience of joy and pain, stress and release, fear and boldness. I was working through the complicated mass of chains that bound me, I was breaking the lies I had said over myself, I was growing closer to the Father. In the very last week of DTS, I had an amazing experience where, at a DTS conference, the spirit moved through me and through praying things out onstage, God finally gave me freedom. That was the moment when He transformed me, and though I have to renew my mind every day, I will never, ever be the same.
In the words of one of my heroes, Kim Walker "If you haven't encountered the love of God, and you would know, you would know, because you would never be the same, you would never be the same again." God revealed his love to me, and I was never the same again. I walk in freedom, not perfectly, but I do. Insecurity and fear is falling off, chain by chain, to the glory of the Father. Things that used to make me so nervous, don't anymore. God creating me wasn't a mistake or an accident, He made me who I am for a reason, and He made me beautiful, and He made my spirit, he made my mind ever active and analytical. He has given me a voice, a message to shout out to the world.
No matter who you are, or who you think you are, no matter what you have been through or what you have done or who has wronged you--the love of the Father CAN change you, can transform you, and it is always, always there. He loves everyone so much it breaks His heart every day, but He does it anyway, because when that one lost sheep returns, nothing could make Him more happy. I was that lost sheep, I was so lost, but now I am found. Found by my God, my Father, My Husband, my Beloved, my Best friend. Nothing could ever make me go back.
That's my story. Of course yours is different, but I hope God speaks to you through it, because He is the central figure, He is the hero of my story. The One who loved me when I didn't deserve it, and restored when I didn't think it was possible. He's my savior, my God, and if He isn't already, I pray He may become yours.
