Hello, my Glories! I hope this blog post finds you well, and if not, honey let’s get well! In my last post, I gave my view of 2020. There were many things that didn’t go well, but there were still many positives to the year. Now, we have come into 2021! Although some of the things from 2020 have lingered, I still believe that this can be and will be a different year. A year for the better, for all of us. With us being in a new year and a new month, I wanted to know what I should discuss next. With that, I took some time to go into prayer and fasting so that I could gain clarity on what God wanted me to talk about. There were many topics that came to mind, but this one stuck out the most to me: my Christian walk and journey. Now, I know I have made mention of my walk with God and the different things that have happened to me that have shaped my faith. But with this post, I wanted to allow you all to gain deeper insight into what my walk has been like and I hope that it encourages you.
To start, I have always known of God and who He is. From the time I could remember, I was surrounded by biblical teaching that came from my parents and family. From watching VeggieTales and Baby Praise to being put in children’s church, God became a focal point in my life. So much so, that around the age of 6 I gave my life to Christ and shortly after was baptized. My childhood was filled with going to different biblical conferences with my family, listening to different sermons online or on CDs and even cassette tapes (my family was, and still is, kind of old school lol), and so on. I went to church every Sunday and Wednesday, if there was an event at church I was there, and when I got old enough, I began serving in the church nursery with the toddlers. I had been surrounded by God all of my life, but God didn’t become real to me until much later. Why? Because I felt as though I didn’t need to seek God on my own, I thought I was good as long as my parents and family were covering me in prayer. With that, I didn’t take out the time to read my bible nor really hear what my pastor had to say. Sure, I was engaged in the sermon, even took a few notes, and lifted up a hallelujah, but I set that all aside once service was over and didn’t pick it back up until the following Sunday. As I got into my teenage years, my faith in God and His realness did begin to grow. I began to be apart of the youth ministry at my church and it went on to inspire me to participate in FCA (Fellowship for Christian Athletes) at my high school. I even ended up speaking on different occasions for FCA and in my youth group, but I still didn’t fully believe in God’s realness. Honestly, I was distant from Him. Sure, I was speaking so eloquently about Him in front of people but behind closed doors, I was struggling. By this time, I had begun to feel depressed. During my freshman year of high school, I had three family members pass away within months of each other. Having to go through that devastated me and being that I wasn’t knowledgeable of the aspects of grief and mental health, I suffered in silence mostly. I did have sad outbursts among my friends, but with them being just as young and ignorant as I was, they didn’t have much to say. Then the few times I did attempt to talk about it with my parents, I felt as though they didn’t fully understand what I was going through. As high school went on, I continued to put on a brave face. Still serving in church, even though there were some Sundays I had just cried my eyes out on the way there. Still participating in FCA and portraying myself as living this “perfect” Christian life, even though I was struggling with depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, lust, and a host of other things. By my senior year of high school, I had reached my fill of it all and the only solution I thought I had was taking my own life. Yes. I, Elizabeth Winder, wanted to take my own life in January of 2016. I had gone on to write my family, friends, and boyfriend at the time letters to explain to them why I had felt that life wasn’t worth living anymore. I never got around to placing the letters away, when my mother discovered them. She was speechless, honestly what parent wouldn’t be? Your child, your daughter, who always made good grades, never got in trouble, was the “good girl” all of her life and had so many things going for herself felt the need to take her own life to cease the inner turmoil inside of her. And that you, as her parent, wasn’t even fully aware of such turmoil and didn’t know the prayer to formulate to even combat it. Fortunately, even in his shock as well, my father was able to set me aside and talk to me. That was the first time I expressed what was going on with me, what I had been feeling, and the whole time my dad listened intently. Then when I was all done, he said something to me that has stuck with me all this time, he said, “…if you die, I would die. I can’t imagine life without you in it, I don’t want to.”. Whew, it sends me to tears every time I talk about it. I think that was the moment that I got a glimpse of how deep my father’s love was for me, and even a glimpse at how God loved me.
I pushed through senior year, got through prom and graduation, and began to prepare to go to Southern Miss that fall. By this point, God was just a life jacket to me. Only useful in the most detrimental situations but not a part of my daily life. I still struggled with the same issues that I had in high school, but I had just learned to mask them better than what I once did. But as my freshman year of college went on, I saw the unaddressed things in my life raise their ugly heads. There were numerous nights where I couldn’t sleep, crying on the phone with my parents, started failing classes because I couldn’t focus, and by the end of the first semester I was exhausted and on academic probation. I felt like God was punishing me for all the sins that I had committed and took interest in my suffering. But those feelings were short-lived once I got back to campus for my second semester and things started to improve, I got to a point where I felt like I didn’t need God. But I quickly found out how much I really needed Him as I approached the end of my freshman year. By May of 2017, I had a cousin pass away unexpectedly at the age of 18, my boyfriend of almost two years broke up with me, and my uncle had a massive stroke. Talk about a whirlwind of emotions. I was still attempting what I always did mask the pain and push God out the way because I felt I knew better. Until August of 2017, when I was looking at going into my sophomore year of college, I broke down. I remember it being a Saturday evening, I had just come back home from a back-to-school event that my church hosted, and my family was praying. During that time of prayer, I felt God’s presence for the first time in my life. I began weeping in my mother’s arms and I felt myself let go of all the pain and angst that I had harbored in my heart for the past 4 years. I finally felt like I could breathe again and take on another year of college. But my revival was short-lived because once I got back to USM, God became an after-thought. I had totally disconnected myself from all that I had experienced prior to going back to school, only doing enough to make it appear that I was Christian but not enough to have a true relationship with Christ. I thought that busying myself through campus involvement, attempting to go to parties and kickbacks, and getting myself in “situationships” (temporary dating relationships where there is no title given and usually last anywhere between two weeks to a month) would work. I went on to do all of this up until the fall semester of my senior year, and well you all know a little bit of what came next. I found myself still dealing with depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts as I had my freshman year, only this time it was worse. It got so bad that even getting out of bed was a great feat for me to accomplish, and I found myself crying out to God asking Him why did it feel like He had forsaken me. Finally, I laid everything in my life down. Everything that had been plaguing me. Everything that I had been worried about. Everything that I was still angry about. Everything that I felt like I had lost. I laid it all at the Lord’s feet and questioned whether or not He could still use me. But as I began to start counseling and coming back to God, I realized that I could still be useful to God’s kingdom. That I had my flaws, but God was greater than those flaws. That I had sinned and made many mistakes, but God was bigger than those. That I felt like I didn’t deserve anything positive to happen to me, but God still deemed me worthy. And when I finally accepted God and His realness, I began to see my life transform into something so beautiful.
Up until November of 2019, I didn’t feel like my life was worth anything. That even though I had everything from the outside looking in, with being at my dream school, being involved on campus, gaining some popularity with students and faculty, making good grades, I still felt like my life was meaningless. That no one that was as broken, sinful, and lustful as me could be used by God. It wasn’t until I decided to fight for my life, I realized that there was so much that was worth fighting for. Fighting to be here so I could see my nephews grow up, fighting to be here so I could have more memories with my friends, fighting to be here so I could spend more time with my family, and fighting to be here because God wasn’t finished with me yet. And maybe you are in a similar situation, with the pandemic and so much uncertainty looming, you may feel as though it’s all too much. Or you feel as though you have sinned too much to ever go back to God for forgiveness, let alone acceptance. But just like how in Luke 15, when the prodigal son decides to come back home to his father, you can do the same thing. You can come back to your heavenly Father and He will welcome you with open arms. He will forgive you for everything that you have done and allow you to come back home. You deserve to be here. You are needed here. You are loved here. And I love you. Be encouraged today and continue to hold onto God’s promises.
Exude love and light,
EVW <3
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