Hope 3

Family '84

This is part three of a blog series on building hope through remembering faith.  See previous posts for background. 

I knelt at the altar of a camp where my youth group was retreating after an invitation to break open our alabaster jar before Jesus. At 13, I was good at soccer.  I had been asked to be on the varsity team at the local public school (though I attended a private school).  I lived next door to my loving grandparents on our family farm and had deepening childhood friendships.  I felt I had to give God my family, friends, and soccer as my alabaster jar. Not long after that, my parents told me we were moving to Alabama from Upstate New York.  Our church family, New Life, was where I first asked Jesus to “drive my tractor.”  The analogy was given by Pastor Jerry.  He was close to our family, our farm being a place where a number of people had come to straighten themselves and their relationship with God out.  We were sent by our church, a true family, to Alabama, a place of American football (they hadn’t yet discovered my international sport) and a whole new culture to adapt to. We lived in a mission center called SIFAT…my jar had been broken. I remember how the decisions God gave me to make, as stepping stones on a journey, bolstered my faith and carried me closer to God’s heart. I remember how release became rejoicing, pouring out, a redefined plenty, season after season in my walk with God.

  

Mrs. McCaslin, my first teacher and a member of our church, with other teachers that made my first year at school super special!

 

New kind of plenty, one of my students, Lydia. '21