Remember the sufferings of Christ, the storms that were weathered... the crown that came from those sufferings which gave new radiance to the faith... All saints give testimony to the truth that without real effort, no one ever wins the crown.
--Thomas Becket
I first got saved when I was five years old. It happened one day while my mom was attempting to take a nap, and I was lying down a pile of blankets next to her bed keeping her from succeeding in that goal. She tells me we started talking about Jesus, and then I got saved. She even gets all misty-eyed when we talk about it. She says I went around writing "SaVanna is a chrischin" on every flat surface I could find for the next week.
For the next... oh, thirteen years or so, I coasted by on that old Baptist stand-by: "once saved, always saved." Yeah, I went to church, but not willingly. My parents pretty much had to drag me out of bed on Sunday mornings, and listen to me grumble all the way to the church house. And yeah, I was active in my youth group, but that was only because my friends were active in my youth group. I was a very socially motivated child.
The closer I got to that moment that all high school students pine for--graduation!--the further I fell from God. I vicariously ignored all the blaring neon signs that pointed straight to Him, chalking them up to well-timed coincidences. When the tumor on my Mom's ovaries up and vanished? Oh, that was freakin' awesome, but it wasn't God. When our house (on the Mississippi coast) was untouched by Hurricane Katrina? Well that's the good thing about having a house on a hill, even though our neighbors (also on hills) all had at least four inches of water in their houses. When the tumor in my sister's ear turned out to be a calcium deposit that looked like a tumor? Boy, that was lucky. When my car miraculously swerved to the right when the driver's side (and consequently, MY BODY) was headed straight towards a flatbed truck? Well that's easy. When my car slid off of the ice and on the grass, that's when I was able to regain control of it. It was all me.
All of these blatantly obvious miracles pretty much meant nothing significant to me. I could find nothing that connected them all together; they were just... instances. Just things that happen to people. Just random sequences of events that had no meaning in relation to the others.
It all came to head a when I started dating this guy my senior year in high school. He was playin me and about ten gazillion other girls from the very start, and the relationship was doomed to failure before it even came to fruition. But I was blind to all of this because I was a typical girl and because it was my first "serious" relationship and because he bought me nice things and because he talked the talk. I had just recently lost thirty pounds and it was the first time in my life I was getting so much attention from the opposite sex and I was just basking in it. I thought I was hot stuff.
So me and this guy, we date for about three months. Those three months significantly loosened my moral standards in terms of what's appropriate and what's not. He encouraged me to lie and to cuss and to deny God, and I was just barely hanging on to my 'virgin' status. And the worst part is that I chose to be that way. He may have talked me into it, but in the end it was all me. I could have stopped myself, but I didn't. Back then I thought I was a strong person.
I didn't know just how frail I was.
The guy cheated on me. I'm pretty sure I cried myself to sleep for three or four nights after that, but I couldn't muster up the gonads to leave him. I should have left him. My family told me to leave him. My friends told me to leave him. Somewhere deep down, I knew that our relationship wasn't going to last.
But I didn't leave him. I gave him another chance, and at the time I thought I was being Christ-like and merciful, and I felt like a martyr and a hero for giving such a jerk a second chance with me. I was just being stupid. And he took advantage of me again. I still didn't leave him. It was becoming a vicious cycle, spiraling out of control, until I pulled out my last-ditch effort to make him love me: I had sex with him.
And things were okay between us for approximately a week, and then he started sneaking around again. Something inside of me snapped, or maybe something clicked. I wasn't sure what it was at the time. I know now that it was the first stirrings of Christ inside my heart. Courage. I left him, finally, in a not-so-Christlike manner (this was definitely before I stopped cussing)... but the worst was over. I felt like I could breathe again. I couldn't keep a smile off my face the next day, and I still wonder to this day why I didn't leave him sooner.
Then I started to feel empty again. I liked being single for about a day or two, and then it started to hurt again. I hate to sound cliche, but there was a God-shaped hole in my life and I was trying to stuff a boyfriend in it. I started hanging out with this guy from band, and flirting with him in fast-forward and doing whatever I could to get him to like me. And I could tell it make him uncomfortable and I knew that I was being stupid but I couldn't stop. I had become a monster. A man-eating, God-deprived, inconsiderate monster. He's a graceful guy, though, and he invited me to church and politely put an end to my madness. We're still friends. Somehow. And I'm very thankful for that.
So after about two weeks of a few of my friends from band talking me up to going to church, I finally caved and went to a Wednesday night service. They had told me it wasn't like a normal service, so I wasn't really sure what to expect. I drove up to the huge, menacing Temple Baptist Church, parked around back by the small wedding chapel where the college students met, took a deep breath, and got out of my car.
I was ushered in with a flock of other students, but I sat by myself until one of my friends with a tendency to run late joined me. It was dark inside, and quiet. People who talked were reprimanded. It was dark, but as I scanned the small ocean of faces I saw some bored, some thoughtful, some passionate, some tired. I was probably the only wide-eyed, frightened one in the whole building. The band started to play--pianos, and bongos, and acoustic guitar. The singer's voice was soft and reverent.
He is jealous for me,
Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,
Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy.
When all of a sudden,
I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,
And I realise just how beautiful You are,
And how great Your affections are for me.
I cried. Bawled, actually. I left everything in the church that night. I felt lighter than air and heavier than lead. Rededicating my life, though, was a slow process. I struggled with guilt over losing my virginity. I struggled with loneliness because I had been so involved with my ex-boyfriend that I hadn't really made very many friends. I struggled with school because I was tired and stressed and I couldn't sleep at night. My family was really supportive of me, though. They even bought me this little True Love Waits pamphlet called "When True Love Doesn't Wait." It was kind of hokey, talking about a second virginity in Christ.
I know I'll never regain my virginity, but I have regained my purity. God has forgiven me and I have finally forgiven myself, and since then I have been falling in love with my Savior more and more each day. It's like an adventure. I used to think my life was boring, but since I regained my faith I've realized that my life is my testimony. It's my story, and it's gonna touch people. That's not boring.
And yeah, I've got a lot of work to do. I'm imperfect and I sin daily, multiple times. And darn if I try not to, that's when I'm tempted the most. I still struggle with guilt, but I've never been happier in my life. I'm broke and clumsy and socially awkward, but when I feel God on me, around me, in me... I'm rich. I'm graceful. And I'm loved.
--SaVanna
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