Testimony Challenge: Eileen’s Story (How God Healed My Heart)

Introduction

Today’s testimony challenge discusses grief, depression, anxiety, and God’s grace and love which are strong enough to heal our hurting hearts. If you’d like to find out more about Eileen check out her blog: The Write Stuff.

Before Jesus

I was eight years old when Jesus became more to me than a character in a Bible-Story book. Before that time, my parents and church family had taught me with scriptures such as 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 how Jesus, the sinless Son of God, had died on the cross to take the punishment for my sin, was buried, and rose again so that I could enjoy eternal life with Him. But I had not yet received Him. You see, my heart was closed, blocked by sin and self and sorrow.

My older brother lay bedridden upstairs and died shortly before I turned five. I then experienced fear, angry outbursts, confusion, feelings I didn’t know how to put words to at the time. I remember playing with my dolls and feeling this sense of darkness that I now know was depression. Leaving my parents, even to enter first grade, produced a lot of anxiety. At the same time I started school, my older sister started college, which further intensified my anxiety. Panic gripped me at bedtime. Mom would leave the light on the hallway, but it wasn’t enough. I wanted her presence. I needed a presence.

Encountering God’s Grace and Love

Ultimately, it was a song and sunlight that opened my heart to Jesus. One typical Sunday morning I sat beside Daddy during the church service. The sun was streaming through the window. When Pastor Lehman finished his message, the choir director led us in a hymn, titled “Jesus, I Come.” Suddenly, my eyes riveted to the words.

Out of my bondage, sorrow, and night,
Jesus, I come! Jesus, I come!
Into Thy freedom, gladness, and light,
Jesus, I come to Thee! . . .
Out of my sin and into Thyself,
Jesus, I come to Thee!

It was as if God faxed those words through the sunlight, just for me that day. Without saying a word to Daddy, I left my seat and ventured down to Pastor Lehman. I told him I was taking Jesus
as my Savior.

After Choosing to Follow Him

The most immediate change I saw was I no longer wanted to live for myself. I wanted to love and live for Jesus. So, the next day at school, I tapped my friend on the shoulder and told him I’d received Jesus. He said he’d done that too.

When I was 15, I sat in the woods one day at camp and flipped through the Psalms. When I came to Psalm 46:10, I lingered, pored over the words. “Be still and know that I am God, I will be
exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in all the earth” has followed me through the years as Jesus has unpacked and continues to unpack that scripture for me in ways I never dreamed at
age 15.

My healing journey through grief and obsessive-compulsive personality formed during those early years has taken much longer to work through with Jesus. But He has been my presence, my Light, daily delivering me from darkness according to Psalm 27:1 and
Colossians 1:13-14. He’s shown up through multiple encouragements from the Body of Christ. But the most powerful deliverance for me has come through scripture journaling.

Psalm 139 reassures me of God’s ongoing presence and light in my life and tells me that He’s obsessed over me with thoughts that outnumber the sand on the seashore. So, one of the best things I can do is turn my obsessive thinking into thoughts about who He is and
what He has done for me. One that’s been a faithful travel companion for so many years–Luke 1:78-79: “Because of the tender mercy of our God, with which the Sunrise from
on high will visit us, to shine on those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” And my capstone scripture based on Christ’s resurrection promise is 1 Cor. 15:54-58, in short, that “Death has been swallowed up in
victory. Therefore, I can stand firm in my faith and share with confidence the story He’s given me.

What’s your story?