Sara
A better me
I’m Sara, I’m really passionate about the love of God. I know that He wants the best for His children to live in His fullness, and to love with everything He has for us.
I’ll never forget, when He first talked to me, I just had my 20th birthday and He just said, “I love you.” Like along the way, He’s been so kind to introduce Himself to me in stages, whereas I may have ran from Him, if He showed me His fullness at once. He’s taken all the pain in my life and He’s used it as a place where He could get to know me. And then in turn, I get to know Him.
I love to write. So like, I literally write what He says and then I usually rebuttal Him and tell Him that He’s wrong. And so a lot of my writings would be us arguing. Almost like Him like, “No, no, no, like, you are really awesome. Like, I made you.” [I would say,] “Oh, no, no, my parents told me that I was actually like, unplanned.” Like, my parents actually told me that like, two, they could handle, you know, but three, three was too much. You know, my dad, he was saved right before I was born. I would say I am the sibling who had the healthiest beginning and first three years of life because the other ones were before me and they were raised in a very, more traumatic environment, because my dad had not accepted Christ. And so I had the ‘church every Sunday,’ kind of [childhood] where they were trying really hard. Then my dad just gave up and left.
And so I always thought, like, I could have been better. I could have done better, you know. Was I really supposed to come, you know? And so I struggled with my birthday until I was 25-26. And I umm, I called a woman at church. I said, “It’s my birthday week and like, I hate it.” And so I was just in prayer, asking Him like, “What’s, what’s wrong, basically. I don’t know. I don’t know why I hate my birthday. Surely I can remember a lot of bad birthday parties. Is there someone that I haven’t forgiven? Like, is there, is there something I’m bitter about? Did I get the wrong toy?” Like, you know? But it wasn’t that. It wasn’t that. It was truly that I thought that like I wasn’t supposed to… Like, I thought that I was really an accident. So that day when I was asking Him, “Just help me. I’m tired of being miserable.” And He just said to me, who I was. Like, “Sarah, you were a C section. You came out and you had the roundest head, the most beautiful olive skin, all the nurses came and looked at you. Your brother sat on your mother’s bed and asked, “Can we keep her?” It was a joy. The day you were born was a joy.” And He said, “Not everyone knows how to care for a good gift.” And after He told me, now I party on my birthday. I love it! I love that. I was born into a family that didn’t know how to accept a good gift. And that’s okay.
Something I was thinking of sharing, that just came to mind, was whenever I was pregnant with my second daughter. My little one was two; my Vera and she’s very sensitive. And like she’s been speaking things from the Lord since she could talk. And so it was one Sunday morning. We were getting ready for church. A lot of times there’s a lot of strife in our marriage. So Sundays would honestly be our worst day. – I know that sometimes happens to other families.– So I would go like, above and beyond. I have a servant’s heart anyways and sometimes that can get a little out of control and pleasing people. And so I would always like, make my husband breakfast and like, bring it to bed or like, make him coffee and set it on the counter when he was in the shower, or just always tried to serve him in a way that would equal a result of peace on Sunday. And that usually didn’t work because I was looking for an action in response to what I served him with and it was just a mess. That day, I was heading up the stairs and Vera is in front of me. She’s two, I’m pregnant and she turns around, and she says to me, almost there was like, this beautiful glimmer in her eye, “Mom, you didn’t eat.” And I was carrying her father’s food up the stairs, but I had not taken care of myself. I had taken care of her. You know, I was always so good at taking care of everyone that I would forget about me.
The Lord has really just been bringing me to this place where He’s been showing me how I’m made. It’s okay to be me. It’s okay to take care of me. And ultimately, if I allow Him in, let Him love me, then I’m actually a better me. Like, a waaaay better me. And the best part is, I still get to talk about how lost I was without, without like, having to hide it. I want…I like, I love the ‘woman at the well.’ Like, I love her. I, yeah, I just relate with her so much. The way that the… See, I know like the old me, if Jesus would have sat down with me at the well and been like, Oh, by the way, like this, this, and this…you know. I would have been like, Forget You. You’re not gonna sit down, ask me for something and then tell me everything about me! Do You want water? That’s not the way to get it. You know? But humble Sarah, like full of, full of love, it’s different. Whereas, He can come to me and be like, “Hey, you were rude to your husband. Or hey, you need to do this better.” And I’m just like, “Oh, okay. How do I do that?” And then like, when I see another mom doing it, like I can truly say – out of love – “Hey, like, I used to do that and it was actually really hurtful for me and for the other person. And so I can invite them into that story, just like she did. How she went into the town. She literally said, Come meet the man who’s told me everything I’ve done. You know they came. So she used her junk. And I think so often, that our junk is actually very attractive. As we live in identity and then we’re permissioned to share our junk with others, then it’s that come and see mentality that you don’t get apart from identity. Because without identity, you’re still hiding your junk.
Two, I think it was Wednesday. So a couple days ago, I woke up and I’m very introspective. And so I’m always looking for –Okay– cuz I love healing. Like, I love the way that Jesus can take us back to the moment, heal us, and then we’re like, we’re truly good after. I love that part about Him, that’s probably one of my favorite things. I was abused really early on as a kid. So I had a lot of shame and I’m always like, kind of trying to trace things back to that. So I woke up Wednesday, and I just felt so heavy. And I just laid there and I was like, I started to introspect, like do that to myself. Like, “Oh, is this from…?” And then I just heard Him say Psalm 63. It was like, He was just like, “No. Like, you just need Me. I’m your dad. Like, you just want to wake up and you want to hear Me say, Wow, you’re awesome.” And so whenever I opened my Bible, and I read what He was saying over me, it was, “Oh God of my life. I’m lovesick for You in this weary wilderness. I thirst with the deepest longings to love You more with cravings in my heart that can not be described. Such yearnings grip my soul for You, my God. I’m energized every time I enter Your heavenly sanctuary to seek more of Your power and drink more of Your glory. For Your tender mercies mean more to me than life itself. How I love You and praise You God. I daily worship You passionately with all my heart. My arms will wave to You like banners of praise. I overflow with praise when I come before You. For the anointing of Your presence satisfies me like nothing else. You’re such a rich banquet of pleasure to my soul.” And so it’s like He said to me in that moment, like, “This is who you are and just be okay with it. Like, you love Me, and I love you. You take pleasure in Me, and I take pleasure in you, like, just be with Me.”
For years, I did not get it. Like, I did not get it. I kept coming to Him like, Okay. Like that, that children’s song that you sing. “I’m in the Lord’s army. Yes, sir!” You know? And so I’m like, “Yes, sir. Yes, sir! Come on! Like, what are we going to do today? What do You want to do? Who do You want me to forgive? Is there something in my past, I need to be cleansed of? Like, show me. Just show me. I don’t want it. I don’t want it. Just show me.” You know? And so He’s just like, really been teaching me like, “You belong in My house.” Like when you get to the door of your house, you never knock. You never ring the doorbell. You just burst in. It’s your house, you throw your stuff down, you know, you have a place to put these things. So He’s like, been telling me, “You belong in My house. Like, just burst in. Come running to Me. Is it? Is it? Whatever it is just, just tell Me. Just tell Me. I’m not mad at you. I’m not the least bit dissatisfied by your presence. I love you.”
As, as He taught me to release myself from that drill sergeant mentality of always needing to be approved of, needing, needing, needing. “Hey, am I? Did I do good enough today? Did I? Like, do I, do I deserve Your love today? Like, do You know that I was super rude to that cashier? Like, I’m sorry, I did that. Are we okay?” It’s to this place now, where I have such an identity in Him that I know when I make a mistake, I can truly like, turn and repent. And His countenance never changed. Where before I would have a weight to feel approval from man. Or like, I would also find identity in my children and what they were accomplishing. You’re constantly seeking approval of man and then it’s like, it never adds up. It never, you can never be good enough. You can never be kind enough. No conversation can ever go exactly perfect for you to feel good enough. That, it’s just like, a big lie.
One mom taught me to put note cards in places and read the scripture verse. They said, “Put it in a place where you can say it every day.” And so I put mine in our cup cabinet because my kids constantly were needing drinks and so I put it up there. [It says,] “As a deer pants for streams of water. So my soul thirsts for You, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God, when can I go and meet with God?”
And I would always answer Him: “Always.”
I have such an identity in Him that I know when I make a mistake, I can truly like, turn and repent. And His countenance never changed.
