I have been invited to share my story at church on Easter Sunday.

What an honor! And at the same time, a little intimidating.

I decided this was too important to try and “wing it.” It took me a while to write out what I wanted to share that will fit in the time frame I’ve been given. Here’s what I’ve settled on:

Hello. My name is Krista.

Let me tell you about my Jesus!

Before I knew Jesus, I knew loneliness and heartache. I felt like I was always on the outside, watching everybody else live happy lives. Having grown up in a home with dysfunction and turmoil, with a family carrying around their own emotional baggage, I chose self-destructive ways to cover up that pain.

It began with alcohol at the early age of 12. Alcohol became the gateway to marijuana which then progressed to stronger and harder drugs over the years.

While I had no real example of Christian living in my home, I did have a grandma who made sure my siblings and I were in church as often as she could get us there. I wanted to believe there was a God who loved me, but I don’t remember anyone in the church being authentic about their own struggles with me, so I didn’t share my struggles, either.

I carried all that pain and emptiness into my marriage, still using alcohol and drugs to deaden it. My husband didn’t fill the void and was unable to love me in the way that I needed to be loved. It should be no surprise that it resulted in what for me was the ultimate failure – divorce. I wanted to protect my son from the ugliness of divorce, but drugs and alcohol could not fix what was broken inside of me.

I just wanted to be loved.

It was through the hopelessness that came from that divorce that I chose to go back to the church I had visited since I was a baby. Jesus was drawing me to Him.

One Sunday morning I responded to a sermon about sanctification, which is the process the Holy Spirit uses to change us to be more like Jesus. I knew that was what my heart longed for, so I went up to the altar and prayed.

After that prayer, things really began to change in my life. For one thing, I no longer felt alone. I could sense Jesus’s presence in my life. And I couldn’t get enough of God’s word. I was diligently searching the Bible to find out how I should live. I misinterpreted it frequently, but I kept searching and God would reveal things to me a little at a time.

After I met Jesus, things were still difficult. Jesus said that His yoke is easy, and His burden is light. But sometimes it didn’t feel like that was true. I wrestled with doubts, as we all do. And I made things harder than they should have been by doing what I thought I should be doing instead of trusting Jesus to lead and guide. And I struggled with shame and guilt because I was still trapped in so much sin. I had given up drinking but hadn’t yet been able to walk away from what had become an addiction to meth.

It seemed like everyone else in church was either good and pure or hypocritical, living two different lives – one inside the church and a completely different one outside. I couldn’t bring myself to share my huge sin struggles with the former group and didn’t want to be like the latter. So, for a little while I struggled in silence.

And yet, I continued going to church.  My Jesus is so compassionate. He patiently leads and guides us through the messy process of transformation. He knows the struggle is real, because He came to earth as a man and knows what we feel and how we hurt. We need to be Jesus to others by loving them the same way.  He is the answer for sin in everyone’s lives. If people aren’t coming to church, they probably aren’t being exposed to Him.

It was difficult and took a little while, but Jesus did indeed free me from the meth addiction. And over the years God has done so much to bring me healing – spiritually and emotionally.  He showed me over and over again how very much He loved me. And not just loved me but desired me in a way no one ever had before. Can you even imagine a God big enough to create the entire universe and yet longs for me to come to Him, to spend time in His presence? This was what I had been missing all those years.

Twenty-seven years later, He has transformed my life, and my marriage and our kids. He has brought quite a few Christians who truly were the hands and feet of Jesus in my life. I am blessed in my relationships with other believers in my Sunday class and in my Life group here at Cornerstone, as well as the wonderful women in the Oaks ministry. And I am following Jesus’ command to share the gospel and make disciples by teaching a Bible study that helps other women find healing for past wounds.

The Bible says in John 21:25 that “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.”

I feel the same way – there are so many incredible things that Jesus has done in my life that there’s no way I can share it all in just a few minutes, so God has called me to write a book to tell others about all the ways that He has miraculously provided for my needs! God gives each one of His children gifts, sometimes in the form of artistic skills and creativity, to be used to glorify Him, just as He gifted Bezalel and Oholiab in Exodus 36 to build God’s beautiful tabernacle according to His instructions

And that’s all I want – to tell as many people as I can about my Jesus.