Sarah's Journey Home

My parents are cycle breakers. They grew up in totally different lifestyles. My dad grew up Adventist but lived in a home that felt two-faced. You know, following God with the lifestyle and the way they treated each other didn’t quite match up. My mom grew up in a Catholic home with her grandparents, over 7 kids, and they were too busy nurturing. But everyone was thankful to have an education built on the hard working backs of their grandparents and at least a roof over their heads. But as the kids got older, everyone did what was right in their own eyes after they left home.

After my parents met and began having kids, me and my brother, they turned their whole lives towards God. Implanted in their hearts was a deep desire to give their children something better than they had had. Thankful for what they did grow up with, but wanting to improve the next generation. My dad worked hard while my mother left her profession as a nurse to homeschool my brother and I. We had a garden in the backyard where we grew carrots and sunflowers and she taught us all she knew about English, mathematics, history, and art, and all the rest. Spanish was the primary language in our home while Dad was at work so that we could be armed with a bilingual education. But all of this paled in comparison to her diligent effort to make sure that we knew the Bible well, that we had our own personal time with God as little kids, and learned to love and respect him. She taught us the discipline of memorizing scripture, taking up roles in church, even before we were teenagers. And they always made sure that Sabbath was something we could look forward to by making it special with delicious food, Bible games, and gathering with community. My parents poured over our little souls to make sure that we had everything we needed and that we were taught to love and honor God.

We had a great childhood, perhaps 1 that many would covet, but Satan wasn’t going to let this little God-fearing home go without trying his hand at destroying it. Through my teen years, our faith community had become really legalistic, unfortunately. My brother and I were judged harshly for even putting a little cheese on our plate. The feeling of being forced to spend time with God cast a dark shadow on my early experience with the divine. I was sad, sad that most Christians I knew were miserable. I was anxious and miserable and addicted to coping mechanisms as a kid. But my good childhood and some better friends and parents who tried to meet us in the middle kept me afloat in the process.

A couple of years went by and my peers began leaving home, slowly and perhaps somewhat delicately leaving the church and the spirituality behind. They just inched away. The grief and hopelessness that swept through my parents and many other parents was too much for me to bear. A friend and I tried to be the good ones to make up for the anguish that the others were causing by leaving, but it became too much for us to bear. 1 day, I decided to leave too. None of this was working for me anyways. Months and years went by. I was lost in abuse. I was suicidal and alone. But all through that heavy time I did what my mother had taught me to do. Just pray. Just say it to God. He’s always listening anyways.

My dark days were my parents’ dark days. If I’m honest, I don’t know how she and my dad made it watching me suffer, not wanting anything better for myself either. Later, I’d find out that she fasted, prayed, contended with demons that tried to suffocate her as she was begging for my liberation. My dad was always a present help when I needed a kind man to lean on. He bore the family burdens with composure. My parents were ready to offer wisdom when I wanted it. What helped was that they let me know if they didn’t agree with my actions, gave me warnings as they saw fit, but they didn’t push past that. They decided to do what they were called to do and leave the rest to God and allow me to choose for myself. I’m so thankful they leaned on God the way they did to get through this tough time while also not suffocating me and what they thought I needed to be doing. They placed boundaries around what they allowed in their home and what they needed and I respected them for it even though I didn’t like it at the time. They always expressed that they loved me and missed me and wanted the best for me. They were always there for me day or night when I couldn’t handle the panic attacks or the abuse anymore. They were just so present and wanting to talk and work out our disagreements. They wanted to understand.

I can’t emphasize the value of hearing that my mother and my chosen sister’s mom were prayer warriors together. My chosen sister and I were brought even closer together knowing that we were prayed for and that our mothers gained the victory through Jesus as they saw us forsaking what wasn’t good and their prayers began to be answered. In the midst of my wandering, I did have my family. They were the present help. They were always ready to make repairs. They were the friends I needed even when I wasn’t a friend to them. The boundaries helped me to understand they were there, but I also needed to respect them and not walk all over them with my issues.

Toward the end of 5 years in misery is where I truly can place my name in this episode’s key text.
Now when Sarah was in affliction, she implored the Lord her God and humbled herself greatly before the God of her fathers and prayed to Him. And He received her entreaty, heard her supplication, and brought her back to Jerusalem into her kingdom. Then Sarah knew the Lord was God.

I was in so much misery that I’d rather return to the previous misery that I was in than continue in this. So I begged God for rescue and He did. I wanted to believe that there was a God of love that existed, so I decided to humble myself and begged for the God of love to show up in my life and to show me who he really was. During this process of recovery, leaving my ex, leaving abuse behind, leaving my old spirituality behind, I moved back into my family’s home. Their arms were open wide to receive me, and I went through recovery and got back on my feet while being in that safe nest. God landed me in a beautiful church community where I was loved, supported, Where survivors of abuse taught me about the God they knew, what his character was like. And that’s when I realized that somewhere along the way, Satan had injected lie after lie until his character was placed perfectly over God’s character of love, and I fell for the lie. Believing Satan’s lies led me from darkness to deeper darkness. But God’s rescue and the revelation of His love, through a myriad of ways I don’t have time to tell here, helped me to deep-root myself in God, and those deep roots have kept me abiding in God since.

The people at the church who would become my church family didn’t blink for a second at my ex-boyfriend, my jewelry, or my worldly behaviors. I never once felt judged. I was loved. I was embraced. And by being in a circle of people who welcomed me and taught me without judgment was what I needed to let my guard down towards God again. I felt safe. I wondered if God could be safe too. As I entered into ministry a while later, I realized so keenly that being a godly friend is the greatest gift you can give anyone who is wandering or searching. Let me put it this way, someone who isn’t connected to God feels a deep vacancy whether they realize it or not. I believe so deeply because I’ve experienced it, that being someone who is grounded and hopeful in God, being someone who is not intimidated by appearances, and being someone who has open arms and is loving, forgiving, and can be a true friend is worth gold. We all need someone to walk alongside us, to journey with us, to be that source of wisdom and guidance when we are lost. When we’re not open to receiving God’s presence, at least through a friend we can receive His guidance and His wisdom.