Learning to raise my white flag.

Surrender: To give over or resign (oneself) to something.
Submit: To yield or SURRENDER (oneself) to the will or authority of another.

These are 2 words that have been on my mind for quite some time. What does it mean to surrender? And is surrender a negative thing? Well by definition surrender means to give up. Most people see giving up as a negative thing, but it depends on what you are GIVING UP and what you are GAINING. When I became a Christian I gave up the ways of the world, but I gained an unfailing love and a heavenly Father who would sacrifice His only son just so I can be with Him. Wow, I gained more than I started with. I always saw surrender as a sign of weakness, but then I have come to learn that sometimes when you surrender it is for the greater good. I am a sinful human being and I can't survive this world on my own. I am in need of someone stronger than myself to help me through this crazy ride-- that would be Jesus. All throughout scripture we see that God is all-knowing and full of wisdom. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight." Proverbs 3:5-6. We as humans fail each other every day, but God is perfect and he will never fail us. We may not get exactly what we want, and that is because God has a plan for our life and he knows exactly what we need and what is best for us in the long-run. To surrender to God is to actually gain eternal life! As a Christian we are called to go and make disciples, but if we want to make disciples we must first be a disciple. How do I become a Disciple? Mark 8:34 "Then he called the crowd to him along with his  disciples and said: "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me"." The key to being a disciple is following Jesus. Striving everyday to be more and more like Him is what makes someone a disciple. It's not about whether you are a leader or not, it is about who you are following. I definitely have followed the wrong things before. I am selfish, and many times I have turned from Christ just because I wanted satisfaction at that moment instead of waiting on His time. I have to wake up everyday and surrender my all to God because of my sinful nature. I am imperfect; so I have to work hard to be like Christ. The road of a Christian is not easy, but in the end it will be well worth the bumpy road. Surrendering is the easy part, in my opinion. It is the next day that it becomes difficult. The moment you surrender to the Lord the devil has already began working against you. At moments after that surrender it feels like the entire world is against you, it is pretty insane! God never promised we would not be tested, and that is truth! "Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." James 4:7. Ah, the Bible always has the answers we need. :) As we submit daily to God, He protects us and doesn't allow us to struggle with anything to big for us. We are stronger than we think; I know this for a fact. If you are born again then the Spirit of the Lord is dwelling in you; therefore, you are pretty stinking strong! 

I am still learning how to surrender and submit to God daily. So my prayer, until my next blog, is that as we journey through life we will continue to hold onto the truths the Bible has for us. 

Raising my white flag,
Hannah T.

Testimony

Well I decided to begin blogging, so this is all new to me; however, I am excited to stretch my weak points. I figured that my testimony would be a good place to begin. (So here goes)
I am 19 years old. I was born February 17, 1993 in Amory Mississippi. I am an only child, my  mom has a lot of health problems so it was a miracle she even had me. My mom has Brites disease, which is a kidney disease, and she has to depend on a machine to live because her kidneys do not work. I did not grow up being forced to go to church. in fact my parents did not go very often...my aunt would invite me to come to events such as VBS or church trips and that was about the only time I remember being in church regularly. I got saved when I was 8 years old at Meadowood Baptist Church a local church in Amory. However, even though I got saved I did not regularly attend church. I went to a public school called Hatley High School. I was always a good kid. When i was about 9 or 10 the years are kinda blurry to me...I was sexually abused by my cousin. he was 16. I can remember feeling nasty even though I was young I felt like I had done something wrong or that it was my fault. I didn't tell my parents till I was halfway home (this happened at a family gathering in a town near amory) my dad was so angry..my cousins parents just got on to him, he did not receive the punishment I thought he should have. A week after this happened I was over at my grandmother's (dad's mom) house and I told her what happened, and she got on to me for not defending myself. She told me it was my fault the boy had done the things he did to me. I don't remember much between then and junior high. The summer before high school I lost my great grandfather and then 2 months later I lost my other grandmother (mom's mom). My family and I had been living with my grandmother taking care of her and when she died my mother's older sister kicked us out of the house so we had to relocate and we moved closer to my school. So I faced a lot of change going into high school including the anger and shame i had built up from my abuse. Once we moved closer to town my family and I started going to Meadowood and attending regularly..so I began to pick up in my relationship with Christ. At the time the church did not have a youth minister, but Jennifer Best, who was the associate youth minister  invested time in me and began to mentor me. I began to grow in faith, but I hid my abuse from everyone and pretended it never happened and for the longest time it felt like it hadn't. I didn't feel like it was a part of my life and that if I pretended it never happened then it would just go away. So I continued to shove it in the closet of my past, and went on with my life. In my 10th grade year of high school I felt God calling me into ministry and I answered his call. I went before my church and told them how I felt God was leading me and asked for prayer. I'm sure many people thought I was crazy because I was just 15 years old; even I thought I was a little crazy. Life was going great and everything was good...until my uncle shot himself and I had to go to the funeral home and there is where I had to face my "family". My cousin was not there, but his parents were and they tried hugging me and being all nice like nothing had ever happened, but on the inside I was burning with fury, and I just wanted to be sick at the sight of them. This is where my life began to take a turn; I began to be sad and depressed all the time; always negative and trying to find ways to relieve the pain. I had a lot of nightmares and began hurting myself. Until finally my mom said ENOUGH! You have got to see someone so she took me to my pastor's wife, and I told her what had happened and she began helping me with the healing process. Slowly I began to forgive my cousin for what he did to me. I started praying and asking God to take away my anger, and for me to just give it to Him. I prayed for peace and that I would understand he has a bigger purpose for my life than the pain I experienced, and so my journey began to healing. I thought that it was ok now and that I would be able to move on, but I did not feel like I should share this with anyone because it was embarrassing. I didn't want people to think the same thing my grandmother did. The summer of my 11th grade year, I was at a camp called Super Summer (a leadership camp). Well in my school we had to share our testimony, and to even go to this camp you had to memorize so many verses and you had to stand before your church and tell your testimony. So i had already shared what i thought was all of mine, but not until at this camp, a girl I met stood up in front of my school ( which consisted of 300 people) and told how she had, had sex before marriage and how now since she turned her life over to the lord she was going around speaking on abstinence and the importance of it. Well I began to cry because I knew that I was leaving out a very important part of my testimony that I knew God could use. So I came home from the camp, and I told my youth minister I needed to speak and be honest. So I called every single one of my friends, believers and non-believers to come to my church to hear what I had to say. I stood up in front of them that night and i poured my heart out and told them what had happened to me.My life has not been the same since. I have experienced a lot of pain and hurt in my life, but God has gotten me through everything. My life has been far from easy, and I doubt it will ever be easy but with God on my side I know I will make it through. I am now in college where I attend the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. I am still pursuing my call to ministry. As of now I am planning to serve in Africa and just share the love of God with the people groups there. I could keep going, but I think this is all for now.


Blessings,
Hannah T.