At the end of 2017, I started attending a program at church that helped me overcome the hurts that I had experienced with my grandparents and friends. I went to counseling about the fear that I was living with because I was terrified to stay in my house alone. My counselor told me, “Elizabeth, you are no longer that eight-year-old little girl. You are a grown woman who can stand up for herself.” I told my counselor that I wanted to make peace with my grandparents because I was tired of living in fear. I started praying that if it was God’s will to mend that relationship, He would open the door. In March 2018, my maternal grandma asked us all to go to dinner together, and for the first time I felt at peace with seeing my grandpa. It had been more than ten years. I told my grandpa that I loved him despite my earlier fear and anger. Never in my life did I think that day would happen. I once looked more forward to his death than I did reconciliation. Now, we started mending our relationship and going out to eat together. I still didn’t want them at my house because I wanted to meet them on my own terms, where I could get away if needed. It was also during this time that I started collecting testimonies for my new book, the book you are holding in your hand. Story after story landed in my inbox. I started reading, and my heart crumbled. My head would fall into my hands as tears fell down my face and onto my keyboard. Paragraph after paragraph of individuals pouring their hearts out to me. Stories that have never been told, details that only their spouses knew, and shared memories that they wish they could forget. However, they were willing to share if it could help one person who might be going through the same thing or have a similar story.
My mind couldn’t comprehend it though. How could someone go through such traumatic realities and then believe in God? How could they trust God when they had experienced such terrible things? I have been in church my entire life. I knew the Bible from front to back and knew all the stories throughout the Book. Yet, this didn’t make sense to me. I knew about God’s love, and I knew about His truth. I had even written a sixty-day devotional book that talked about God and His Word. I’d been overseas and stateside on mission trips. I thought I knew everything there was to know.
After each story I read, I wondered, How could someone go through awful realities and believe in God? Months went by, and the question stirred in my soul. How did this not make sense to me? I knew all about God, yet my heart couldn’t comprehend someone trusting a sovereign God after experiencing such awful things. God was using testimonies I had never heard to reveal my disbelief in Him.
On a late July night in 2018 in a Wednesday Bible study, surrounded by teenagers from the small group I led, the Holy Spirit convicted my soul. The pastor that night said, “Paul’s conversion was not just a moment; it was a life-changing experience.” I knew in that moment that I was lost and on my way to hell. It didn’t matter if I grew up in church, led people to the Lord, knew the Bible front to back, went on mission trips, or lived the Christian life. I was lost. Our pastor always reminds us that we have to get lost before we can get saved. That statement never made sense to me until that night. Before that night, I thought my sins weren’t as bad as everyone else’s. I thought because I was a good girl, that was enough, but it wasn’t. I sat there worried about what people would think of me. I had lived the Christian life and done all the right things. No one would have guessed that I wasn’t saved. My flesh was fighting hard not to surrender to God. I got up, grabbed a friend of mine, and left the room. I needed someone to tell me what I had known for years but only had been between God and me. I tried to make sense of the conviction I was feeling. But no head knowledge will ever be able to reason with a sovereign God. I knew what I needed to do. I fell to my knees and repented of my sins. That night I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior. Early in August 2018, I was baptized.
I had never completely recovered from my rib and stomach pain, although the essential oils brought much relief. In October 2018, I was to accompany my aunt on her business trip to Hawaii. As I drove to her house, God met me on Interstate 65. My anxiety began to take over. I was worried about the flight since the pain in my ribs and my stomach issues continued to bother me. In that moment, it seemed as if the Holy Spirit whispered to me. He seemed to offer to take my pain and sickness from me completely if I were willing to let go of it. As tears fell down my face, I surrendered the pain and sickness to God, and in that moment, my pain was gone.