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wrestling with god
becka delaney
Becka attends Mosaic at the Mayan and has recently joined Volunteer Staff. She loves reading the Bible, listening to music and writing reviews for passionate musicians who love what they do. She also enjoys good company of friends. She will start California State University at Fullerton as a junior in the fall to complete her Journalism degree. |
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Three years after I came to Christ, I was the perfect Christian in the eyes of the people around me. I attended church every Sunday, I met with a mentor every Tuesday, I went to a women’s Bible study every Thursday and spent every given moment hanging around the “right” people. Even though my actions showed that I was a faithful follower of the Lord, my heart came to a halt and began to slowly hum a different tune.
In April of 2005, I was asked to start leading the women’s Bible study I had been attending for two years. As I pondered taking on the new leadership role, I realized that the Christian life I was living felt like a cage with too many restrictions. “Read your Bible every day,” “Cut off your non-Christian friends,” “Date only Christian guys” were just a few of the rules that started to drag me down. The friends I still kept in touch with since high school reminded me of the life that I was missing out on. The more I tried to control it and block it out, the more I heard the voice that said, “Screw all these restrictions,! Go have fun! Enjoy life! You’re young.”
During this time, I constantly longed for a companion of the opposite sex. I was advised that dating Christian guys was the way to go, but most of the men I met who called themselves Christians had bad intentions. Turned off, I began to get angry. The non-Christians guys seemed more real than the Christian men. An hour before I was supposed to attend and lead the women’s Bible study, I came to a conclusion. “I can’t do this anymore,” I told myself. “ I don’t want to be pure. I don’t want to date only Christian guys. I don’t want to only hang out with the “right” people anymore. I just want to get crazy and party and play the game.”
I called my Bible study leader and told her I wasn’t going to come and that I would no longer be in attendance. I admitted to her that my heart was not in the right place. “I can’t keep going to Bible study and acting and saying all the right things when I’m being fake about it. I can’t do it and I don’t want to do it.” There was no way for anyone to change my mind. This was the beginning of my downward spiral.
I started partying and getting wasted a lot. In late October, my friend Jessica invited me to her birthday party at her house. I sat on her couch talking about my day to a few other friends when this guy, Chris, sat down next to me. He was tall, handsome, good humored and just fun to be around. In no time we started flirting, making out and then WHAM! Only knowing the guy a few hours, we did the deed at the party and when we were finished, we exchanged phone numbers and came back as if nothing had just happened. Shocked and surprised with myself, I felt ashamed. I had never done anything like that before. I was usually the one who looked down upon other people that did, but never did I think that I would be one of those people. I told my friends about it and they calmed me down saying that it wasn’t a big deal. A week later, Chris called me. I was excited and stoked that he actually decided to call me. I talked to him for awhile and suggested we go on a date. He stopped me in mid-conversation and said, “Look, I just want you to know that I am not looking for a girlfriend right now. I just want to date and have fun and just be friends.” I was disappointed and hurt. But I convinced myself that I could play the friends with benefits card and not fall for him. I mean guys did it all the time and they continued with life as if everything was normal, so I thought, “Well it’s no big deal. It won’t affect me and it will be fun.”
A few months rolled by and the friends with benefits honeymoon period started to deteriorate my emotional well being. Denying that I had any feelings for him in my mind, I decided to play the game. I thought I could be the one in control this time. I just didn’t care anymore about who I affected or what kind of effect my lifestyle had on myself.
As the weeks followed I slept with numerous people. Every time I was about to get myself in another sexual situation, I heard God say to me in a loud voice, “What are you doing to yourself? Why are you doing this? Stop doing this. Trust Me.” But I never wanted to listen. I always just drank more to drown Him out.
My addictions became out of control. One night, after one too many times of getting wasted at the bar, I called Chris and told him I was coming over. I jumped into my car, drove from Downey to Huntington Beach and stopped by an Albertson’s to pick up a bottle of whiskey. Chris only had a few sips. I, on the other hand, drank the bottle down within an hour or two. To this day, I have no recollection of what happened after I drank all that alcohol. At nine a.m. the next morning, I was still drunk when I realized how much of the whiskey I had consumed. I’m lucky I did not die from alcohol poisoning. I asked Chris what happened the night before. He laughed in my face and was convinced I was lying to him about not remembering. He knew I was never sober when we were intimate, but usually I remembered what happened.
That night I felt the most intense feeling of pain in my gut that I have ever experienced. I cried out to God saying, “I know I am destroying myself and I don’t care. I am lost, I am lonely and no one wants me. I am going to continue to dig my grave until I fall on my face. When this happens, I will talk to you then.”
God heard my prayer, and everything that I was doing to destroy myself backfired two weeks later. I started attending Mosaic during Feb. of 2006 after leaving another church; but I still wasn’t ready to talk to God, so I left. One month later, I came back to Mosaic. That night, I remember Erwin talking about people’s character. I had previously expressed to friends how out of character I was acting and that this was not me. But God convicted me. The first night back at the Mayan, Erwin talked about people’s character and how we view ourselves. I remember him commenting about how we could say, “Oh this person is acting so out of character;” when in reality, what they were doing did line up with who they were on the inside. As soon as I heard him say that, I started crying uncontrollably.
But God was right. As much as it hurt, it was time to stop ignoring Him and to start trusting that He would take care of me. I was tired of running, disgracing my body and poisoning it with alcohol. I learned that it wasn’t just about actions and restrictions, but it is about believing who God really is and why He came to die for our sins. Yes, how I act matters, but I realized that my heart needs to be part of the whole equation. If I could not trust that the Lord has my back and will come through in times of trial, then I could never reach that light at the end of the tunnel and I would never become that person God made me to be.
Since that realization I have grown a lot. I found friends within the church environment who showed me that I’m not the only one struggling. For once in my life, I found other people who can relate to me where I don’t feel like they are judging me. For me, this has been really hard to find, but Mosaic was the only place where I felt like I finally fit in and people knew where I was coming from. I found people who struggled with the same background as mine or worse, but still came out of it alive and stronger than they were before they got involved in a destructive lifestyle (whether they could help it or not). I wasn’t afraid to show people my weaknesses and vulnerabilities; it just made me want to show my wounds so that I could help others battle their past regrets and their current struggles.
It also helps that I have found friends who can honestly tell me what weaknesses I need to work on and what strengths I have developed. I’m not perfect, but I continue to work on the things that need improvement, looking ahead and keep walking toward God’s will for my life.
“You shall walk in all the way which the LORD your God has commanded you, that you may live and that it may be well with you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which you will possess” (Deuteronomy 5:33) |
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