👧🏻 TREE 606: JG – Girl and God

18

There she was in a black and white photograph. Her white T-shirt and torn jeans shining out from the sea of home-schooled gingham and sailor dresses. I begged my friend for the photograph, and I painted her shirt pink (because wasn’t it cool in pink!). When I finally met her I lost the power of human speech. She had the same effect on all the boys, even the ones who weren’t home-schooled, and she knew it. She thrilled my heart and she broke it and thrilled it again. We had some wonderful, innocent times together. Then her family moved away. And we both grew up.

19

During my middle teens I spent several months not falling asleep easily as I wrestled with the question of whether or not I wanted to follow God’s plan for my life, whatever that plan happened to be. (This kind of midnight teenage angst presupposes that you believe there is a God who has a plan for your life, which I did.)

I think the main reason this was so hard for me was that the Christian circles I was running in at the time emphasised the concept of being ‘radically saved’. It wasn’t good enough to be merely a Christian; you had to be a hard core Jesus freak if you wanted access to God’s special good stuff.

Acquiring radically saved status usually involved giving up the things you wanted. I was genuinely frightened that I would end up as a missionary in a foreign country never doing art again. Eventually I decided that if that’s what God wanted for me, then he could adjust me so that I liked it. I went for the God-directed option.

The immediate benefit was peace about my choice. I was able to fall asleep at night.

Stories for later: I did show-term missionary work in Venezuela, Russia, Wales and Hong Kong. I moved to a semi-foreign country (Wales) and ended up helping to start a brand new church. I never stopped doing art.

‘Jacob wrestled the angel and the angel was overcome’

I think there is real value in surrendering to God/the universe/life. When you let go of what should be, you can open up to what could be.

Grow slowly
Jeff