Let Them Know They Are Loved: Julie's Faith Journey- Part 2
Hi friends! Today we begin part 2 of Julie’s story. I love how God planted such an important seed in her heart at such a young age. It would be one that would truly guide her over the years. Enjoy!
When I was younger, I used to love watching those long infomercials with Sally Struthers. Remember those? It was with Christian Children’s Fund. The infomercial showed kids in Africa laying there pretty much starving to death. You could see their bones and flies landing on them. Then you heard Sally say something like, “For 50 cents a day you can give this child a nourishing meal and clean water to drink.”
The infomercial was long. It lasted about 5 minutes. My parents and siblings wanted me to change the channel, but I was captivated by it. I resisted and said, “No! I want to watch it.” It just moved my heart.
I had a desire to go rescue those kids. I did not understand where their mom was and why they could not eat. Why wasn’t someone giving them food? I decided that those were the people I was going to find and help.
I had it set in my heart that I was going to have an orphanage. So, when I was 12 and received the news that I was not able to have kids due to my cancer treatments, I was unfazed. It did not matter to me if I had biological children, my heart was that those suffering kids in Africa were going to be my kids. I just wanted to hold those babies and let them know that they were loved and wanted. That was when God planted that seed, a deep planted seed, to go out and do things to let others know they were loved.
As I got older, I realized how difficult the logistics were to get to Africa. I could not just drive a van over and pick up those kids. At the time, my aunt and uncle were trying to have kids and I tried to convince them to get one from Africa instead. For myself, in middle school or high school, I began entertaining the idea of joining the Peace Corps as a way to get to Africa.
Then life played out. I met a boy in high school and my dreams began to be replaced with new things to do. Those dreams were still there, but they were moved to the back burner. My senior year of high school, my parents got divorced. I was not angry with God about the divorce since I knew God was love and He did not cause bad things. However, when my parents divorced, they stopped going to church. Soon after, I stopped going to church as well.
My teenage brain just began living for the weekend and what my boyfriend wanted me to do. He did not want me to go to college. As a result, I did not try to get better grades since I did not really need to. I was going to get married to my high school sweetheart. I quit softball, cheerleading, and volleyball for him.
When I finally broke up with him, my plans changed as I returned to my dream of being a nurse. However, by that point I had not pushed myself to do my best academically in high school. I wondered what I was going to do. Would I be able to get into a college I wanted to go to?
I applied to Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) in Murfreesboro, TN because they had an amazing nursing program. The Bachelor of Science in Nursing had a two-year nursing curriculum that followed the undergraduate degree. Ultimately, those in the program graduated as an RN and BSN.
Thankfully, Tennessee made it mandatory for all high schoolers to take the ACT, so I had already taken that college entrance exam by the time I needed to apply. It was enough to get into MTSU with the stipulation that freshman year I had to take refresher math and English classes. The first week of class there was an opportunity to “smarty out” of the refresher courses through a placement test and I passed. It gave me the ability to take regular classes from the beginning, and I did not feel delayed because of my choices in high school.
I had a great time in college and loved it. I met a guy and we hit it off. We got engaged and were married when we were both still college students. I was a junior at the time. We had this sweet church wedding that was awesome. I really missed church and hoped this would launch us back in to going, but it did not quite come together.
Despite what my childhood doctors had told me about being infertile, I became pregnant and had my daughter, Kendall, during my senior year of college. My mom had moved to Murfreesboro and babysat our daughter when I started doing rounds for nursing. I got up, took our baby to my mom’s, and then went back to school. It was the most stressful thing I had ever been through at that point in my life.
My husband and I were both young parents and were still extremely immature. We both loved Kendall immensely, but it was hard to be an adult when we were still at the stage of being college kids. We separated after a couple of years and then divorced after three years of marriage. We were great friends and have remained great friends. I always wanted Kendall to know good things about her father. Every young girl needs to know her dad to be the best.
Although we recognized that we were not each other’s “forever” person, the divorce process was still difficult because it was extremely hard on my faith. I knew that God did not want divorce for His children. I prayed over it and sought guidance about it. The people I initially spoke with told me that if I got divorced, I could never reconcile with God. My connection with God would be cut off. I could never go back.
I was miserable at the thought of not having God in my life. I was suffering. I dropped to about 100 pounds and I was so sad. Nothing made sense. Each day I shifted my focus on what I had to do the next day, and I busied myself with nursing school and my child. In some ways I felt like I had shut off my feelings.
Finally, I encountered someone who spoke spiritual truths to me. They reminded me that our relationship with God had nothing to do with what we did, it was about what God did. That conversation encouraged me to go talk to my mom about what I was going through. She poured into me and walked me through it. Long story short, although I did get divorced, I grew so much.
Over time, I finally got the courage up to go back to church. The first day I went, I was sitting in service with my daughter Kendall right beside me. I felt so good and happy to be back in church. At one point the pastor paused and said, “Hey, is there anybody new in church today? Raise your hand!” I was not going to say anything. Then this lady behind me started tapping me on the shoulder. She exclaimed, “You’re new!” So, I admitted that it was my first time there.
The pastor then said, “Hey! Alright, can you stand up?” Internally I did not want to, but I stood up and said, “Hello.” He said, “What’s your name?” I told him Julie. He then said, “It’s nice to meet you, Julie. Who’s this little cutie you got?” So, I picked up Kendall, who was about a year and a half, and told everyone her name. Everyone smiled and told her how cute she was. Kendall cheerfully waved. Then the pastor asked, “So, where’s your husband?”
There it was. All the history of thinking I was never going to be good enough to be back in church because I was divorced hit me. I began saying, “He’s, um, he’s not here.” I did not know what to say. I sat down quietly feeling so embarrassed. I thought about those people who had told me if I got divorced I was separated from God and church. In that moment, I believed that they were right.
To be continued.