My Story (And yes, I'm sticking to it.)

This is MY story.

Way, way before I was your friendly neighborhood JRO, I was just Jasmine, the only Italian kid for about twenty miles in every direction from my predominantly Mexican ‘hood in East San Jose, California. Oh sure, we had a few black families and many Asian races mixed in, but if anyone asked, we were Latino and that was that. I never realized how this affected me until I moved to Boston and realized that I am so not white, and people really treat me differently because of the way I look. I’m used to going places with my latino friends and being given the eye. Now that hardly ever happens. Anyway, now you know, just because I’m Italian doesn’t mean I’m anglo. I love the deep culture that Latino and European nations have. The food. The music. The vivre.

But unfortunately, living in the ghetto has its downsides. Most of the young men on my street were involved with gangs and the girls all kept it quiet, occasionally dabbling in prostitution and drug dealing to “help out.” My parents were oblivious to this and since I did nothing to enlighten them they had very little concern letting me out of the house. I had to check in with them every so often, but other than that, there was no one I couldn’t hang out with or talk to.

I had my first sexual experience when I was about six or seven. It is AMAZING how much this aspect of our lives affects us, changes us and shapes our future. I had no idea what was happening at the time. It wasn’t until MUCH later that I realized what had taken place and I hadn’t felt guilty before but then it really set in and I felt like I was carrying an anvil around in my chest. Now, to say that it was all my fault isn’t a fair assessment but I felt SO guilty when I realized that I had totally lost my innocence and purity. The ramifications of those acts STILL affects me, because I was so young when it took place and at the time, the whole scope of those sins was unknown to me. I thought I was for sure damned.

You feel so dirty and alone and unhinged from reality.

My pain manifested as rage. Just blind, mindless anger thrown at everyone and everything. I could be set off so easily. If it wasn’t reasonable to be angry because someone was being hurtful, I was pissed because they were ignoring me. It seemed totally reasonable in my head to feel that the whole world was either indifferent to my existence or they hated me. The people who claimed to love me only did so out of obligation, I thought. I truly believe that they were all disappointed and disgusted with me. Although, I had no reason to suspect that they felt that way, because at that point, I hadn’t revealed to ANYONE what I had been through. Yet I assumed that the dirt and blood I felt on me was obvious to everyone. I felt so gross it didn’t seem possible that they couldn’t see on me, smell it on me.

By the time we moved to Boston when I was twelve, I was totally broken and utterly depressed. Despair doesn’t even begin to describe the state of my soul. I was all but dead. I began to cut myself just to feel a shift in the haze. It became the only way that I could feel anything. I felt like I was trapped in a sensory deprivation chamber and I felt like I was going insane. The pain was like an anchor to reality. The blood was real, it meant that I was alive.

When I was fifteen, I determined that even the cutting couldn’t bring me back to focus. I needed out. I needed to die. I even had it planned out, and then I met Shaun Hays…

The November before I turned sixteen, Shaun was the speaker at the youth retreat I was on with my youth group. It was a winter sleep-away camp and I figured it was the perfect opportunity to end my life. Nice kid, right?

The first night is usually pretty informal. It’s a chance for the speaker to get on stage and introduce themselves and kind of offer an overview for the weekend. By the time everyone gets to camp, they just want dinner and sleep, so Shaun just told us who he was and let us know that he was a chalk artist and that he really hoped God would move us that weekend. Nothing huge, but I was ENRAGED. That old familiar hum of anger set in and I remember thinking, “Who the heck does this guy think he is? He doesn’t know me. He doesn’t care about me. He cannot possibly begin to comprehend what goes on inside my head.” I didn’t realize that he had sparked something. I barely noticed that for the first time in YEARS, I could feel. So it was raw and it hurt, but I was mad, and that was so different from the numbness that was my day in and day out. I could breathe, and that was only night one.

Day two was agonizing for me. Shaun got up and started DARING us to give God twenty-four hours. He said that if we did he guaranteed our life would change. I thought that was SUCH bull. My best friends at the time, Jill and TJ were sitting with me. Jill was in my boat, she felt the same way I did. TJ, however, was my lifeline, and he kept squeezing my hand through Shaun’s presentation, which pissed me off even more. But finally I internally screamed at God, “OK, FINE! God, I know you’re there. I’ve ALWAYS known. But I HATE you and I REFUSE to make an effort if you’re just going to sit there. So I will unlock the door, but YOU have to DO something. Move me. Bust the door off its hinges and blow me away. Bet. You. Won’t.” In hindsight, I cringe at my mental spit in the dirt at God’s feet but boy did he respond!

I wrote this long, heated, angry, vicious letter to Shaun, spewing out my venom. I told him what had happened to me. I almost bragged that my cuts were so deep, that I couldn’t feel, that I wanted to die. It was like “take that!” I had my friend Jill deliver it, so I could watch the exchange from a distance. I didn’t think Shaun would read it right then, but he did.

He was late getting up on stage, and when he did, I felt another familiar sensation – guilt. Shaun looked totally beat. He looked upset. And as much as I felt it was a little bit narcissistic to assume, I just KNEW it was because of my letter. I tried to feel smug, but I felt really bad for him. Here the guy has a message to deliver and I just made it really hard for him. I mean, he looked like he was about to cry. Every molecule in me was telling me to run, but it was like I was glued to my chair. I was paralyzed.

It was only later that night when I went and personally spoke to Shaun that I found out that he was actually happy to get my letter. Before he read it, he really questioned God’s purpose for him at that retreat. He’d felt like there was really no one there that was reachable. And then he read what I had to say. Before I mustered the courage to talk to him and apologize for my outburst, I had CRIED for the first time since I could remember. Then when I was talking with Shaun, I cried some more. He wasn’t afraid of me and that was SO nice. I felt SO good. He read Jeremiah 29:11 to me and I just remember feeling like God himself had put Shaun in my life, had stopped me from ending my life because He has a reason for me to exist. God wants me to be here, needs me to help his people.

Shaun and I have been close ever since. He knew when I met my husband. He knew when I had my kids, and he has been privy to my ups and downs as I grow in my relationship with God.

I am NOT a perfect person. I am NOT a perfect Christian. But I am PASSIONATE. I desire nothing more than to lead people to their salvation in Jesus Christ. To plant the seeds and if I’m very fortunate, to watch and help them grow.

And I am so excited to watch this team come together, to help my brother make this a reality. 

A Very Good Sermon I would Like to Share

Hello everyone!

This morning, my pastor gave an awesome sermon and I would really like to share it with you. This is the combination of his notes, and also what I wrote as he spoke.

The title of today’s sermon was “The Parables of the Kingdom, part 3: Opposition to the Kingdom.” Reference: Matthew 13:24-43

1.    The Parable of the Wheat and the Tares (24-30, 36-43)

a.   The illustration (24-30): Among the good seeds were scattered weed seeds, planted by the enemy. The weeds have someone sewing them as well, they don’t spring up by accident. If the weeds are planted with the seed, the seeds have to be fully grown before it is safe to remove the weeds. They have to be mature.

b.   The interpretation (36-43): The tares are the offspring of the wicked one. They grow in strength as we do. There are only two kinds of spiritual seeds, and Satan is the master of imitation, but there is no “gray area” to God.

2.   The Parable of the Mustard Seed (31-32) – The mustard seed is the tiniest of seeds, but it still grows into an impressive plant. So big, even, that birds can take refuge in it. Positive interpretation: With even the tiniest amount of faith, we can do great things that others can learn from. Negative interpretation: Satan doesn’t have to use a lot of force to get our sin to snowball and take others down with us.

3.   The Parable of the Leaven (33): In almost every reference to leaven in scripture, leaven is used to illustrate evil, and Jewish tradition before Passover was to remove all yeast from the home as an outward symbol of removing sin and impurity from one’s life. This parable shows that even the tiniest amount of leavening affects the whole batch of flour.

It strikes some as odd to say that Satan has a strategy. They mistakenly conclude that because our enemy is sinful, he must be equally stupid. Such reasoning has been the downfall of many in the church. He does not act haphazardly or without a goal in view. – Sam Storms

“… and the gates of hell shall not prevail…” Gates are DEFENSIVE. While the enemy certainly does act proactively, the point of this illustration is that we ought not wait for hell to come to us, or for evil to come knocking on OUR door. We are to GO to IT/THEM. The church is on the offense, moving against the devil and sin.

Also, it is important to remember that Jesus spoke in parables to conceal the truth from those who openly (or privately) rejected God’s teaching, and to reveal it to those who were hungry for understanding. Only the disciples were privileged to hear the interpretation from Jesus himself. But today, WE have the very word of God before us, we have his words. And not just what HE said here on earth, but everything God wanted us to know since the dawn of man! And we don’t have to wonder what the meaning is, God is always available for us to ask. We ought not dismiss the power of prayer in our lives. We have the ability to commune with our heavenly father on a daily basis, an hourly basis, a minute-to-minute basis. Let us pray without ceasing. We can have the answers. God wants us to have them. And he has made the way for us. We should be celebrating our privileges as Christians, worshipping our savior with abandon, and LOVE everyone unconditionally. Will you choose to do that or with you bemoan the “burden” of serving your Lord? It is a daily choice. God will not make even a single one of us follow him. If we do, it should be because we are glad to, because we love him. Because we KNOW that  HE loves US and we do not deserve it!