The first money I ever earned was from dusting my grandmother’s furniture. Several years after my eight-year-old self carefully removed dust from every surface and figurine on Nanny’s end tables, I found myself dealing with a different kind of dust. This dust clouded my relationship with God and made me question his very existence.
Why couldn't I relax and enjoy life?
I had a tender heart toward God at an early age, but when I was ten years old, my family moved to a different state. I did not adjust well. I missed my friends, and couldn’t understand some of the difficult things my family was facing. I soon allowed the bitterness and uncertainty to become that thick layer of dust I mentioned, blocking the way to the God I could once see so clearly.
On top of that, I soon found myself facing questions I couldn’t answer: Why couldn't I relax and enjoy life? What if something horrible happened to me? Would I ever be able to sleep at night without feelings of terror?
Things got better for my family. We bought a new house and I got the baby sister I had been praying for. But the dust in my vision was still there.
Where was God?
Was he even real? Where was the hope I once knew? The meaning of life? These were huge questions for a twelve year old. It wouldn’t be long, though, before I found the answers. When I was thirteen, I gained a precious godly mentor. After talking with her for the first time, I opened my heart to Jesus. I was honest with him about my doubts and simply asked him to forgive me of my sins and show me he was real.
Jesus took furniture polish and a rag and wiped away the dust that clouded my spiritual vision.
He did. At that moment, it was like Jesus had taken furniture polish and a rag and wiped away the dust that had clouded my spiritual vision for three years.
Life has not been perfect. Even moving back to my home state did not make it so. But that was okay. Because I have Jesus and my spiritual vision has been restored.
To this day, I struggle with what I now know is Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Anxiety. I continue to work through these issues with the help of Jesus. He is the one who clears the dust, one step at a time, so I can walk in daily in his light.
Having godly mentors in my life has made a world of difference. Through having an online mentor, you too can become one step closer to the wholeness that Jesus offers.