Jessica Mudger, Servant of ChristJessica was called by the Lord to serve as the content developer for the Refiner's Fire column. She is a wife and mother of three and desires to help women know and live out the truth of Christ and to go forth living out what it is that He has called them to do.
Meaningful VersePhilippians 4:13, NIV
“I can do all this through him who gives me strength.” |
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Jessica's Life - His Testimony
When someone asks me to give my testimony, my first thought is, “Which part?” To tell the story of everything the Lord has done for me, how He has blessed me, what He has taught me, and how He has proven His love for me over and over would fill a library. So if we are ever meeting for coffee and you personally ask me to tell my testimony, pour yourself another cup and settle into a comfy spot. We are going to be there a while. For today, though, suffice it to say that if there is anything good in me, it is only because you’re seeing the reflection of my beloved Lord Jesus.
I was sixteen when I met Jesus for the first time. I had heard stories and had lots of ideas of who I thought He was, but my sixteenth year marks that spiritual rebirth in my life. Because of the invitation of a dear friend, I was attending a Christian youth conference with a bunch of girls I knew from school. One night during a worship experience the speaker gave an altar call, and I knew it was more than the speaker calling me forward. As I raised my hands in the air in surrender to Jesus as my Lord and Savior, I felt Him smiling at me the way a proud parent would smile at their child for doing something great. That moment has stayed with me all these years. How could Jesus be so happy about me? That was a question He was determined to answer for me in innumerable ways for years to come.
Though I left the conference on a spiritual high, it would be short-lived. When I arrived home, my dad’s car was not in the driveway. My parents were splitting up. I could never remember a time I would have said they had a good marriage, but the reality that they were divorcing was still a hard hit. The next several years for me were a rollercoaster. I had an amazing support system of Christian friends and I was taught solid Biblical truth from a loving church family. However, knowing the truth and following the truth are two very different things. I was known for being a good kid, but I definitely made some very stupid mistakes, especially when it came to dating. Learning the morals of a perfect God while living sinfully left me riddled with guilt. There were times I felt God would be tired of my messing up and just reject me. The truth that God was loving, forgiving, and slow to anger was something I believed, but not necessarily for myself.
All my life, even after giving my life to Jesus, all I ever wanted was to be accepted. I wanted someone to tell me that I was good enough to be a part of their club. I wanted to be worthy of being sought after. This was a God-shaped hole in my heart that I constantly tried to fill with accomplishments, popularity, and boys. I often dated boys I didn’t even like just because they were showing me attention. I tended to run after those who didn’t want me, and push away the ones who did. Looking back I can see how I thought that if I could make someone love me enough, then I would feel valued. This never, ever worked.
In all of this, Jesus never left me. He never forsook me. Time after time He would pick me up again when I fell. One particular time, I happened to be praying while in Chemistry class. (Yes, I definitely should have been paying attention, but maybe I still get some credit for praying rather than just daydreaming…) As I prayed, I confessed that I had been choosing boyfriends for all the wrong reasons. In a moment of true repentance, I asked God to give me a boyfriend who would point me toward Him. He took that mustard seed prayer, turned my head, and in that very moment He opened my eyes to see the boy sitting in my class just one row to my left. He was a boy that I knew from church. He was a friendly kid who was smart, funny, and kind to everyone. I knew how much fun he was in class. I remembered the time he went to school the morning after his grandma died just because he knew that’s where she would have wanted him. And most memorably, he was the first person to hug me when I came soaking wet up out of the waters of baptism. I was looking at someone I should finally date for all the right reasons. I was looking at my future husband. Of course it would be years before I knew that, but what an important moment in my faith walk all because of a genuine prayer from my heart.
College marked another important, much more challenging milestone for me: the introduction of anxiety and depression. Maybe it was living away from home for the first time. Maybe it was the difficulty of a long-distance relationship. Maybe it was the college-level work load. Maybe it was the location of the college in a poverty stricken, crime filled area. Whatever the reason, anxiety and depression were chains I could never quite shake. Believing they would disappear with my circumstances, I finally decided to transfer to a college closer to my home after finishing my freshman year. “Home,” I quickly discovered, however, was a mirage. My mom was getting remarried and moving to another state. Of course I was welcome to come with her, but I had only just transferred and re-established myself. At this point, I was also convinced that Jake was the man I would marry. Moving three states away from him was not an option in my lovesick heart. I had no choice but to move in with my dad, a person I felt I was really just meeting for the first time.
When my parents divorced, I felt like I was done with my dad. That’s hard to type, but it is true. The reasons are much too complicated and numerous to list. To sum it up, he was an alcoholic who was miserable with himself and with everyone around him. As a sixteen-year-old kid, I was none too thrilled about hanging out with my dad on the weekends. I wanted to be with my friends, and my friends wanted to be at church. As the Lord would have it, if my dad wanted to hang out with me, we were going to church. It just so happened that the pastor of my church had also just gone through a divorce. He and my dad connected immediately. It was not more than a year later that my dad was being cleansed in the waters of baptism. The Lord had given us a second chance at our relationship. Today I can’t believe we were ever distant at all. My dad now means so much to me and I am ridiculously proud of the man he has become. His testimony is part of the reason I believe in the transforming power of God.
Though it never went away, the anxiety and depression seemed to be manageable up until after I started having children. I came to a point that I realized failure to get help was going to cost me my marriage. I don’t even know how God held me together during that time. I started seeking out counseling and medication to dull the suffering. It helped, but the mental suffering became part of the background of my life. It may not always be crippling, but it was never fully gone, either. I had resigned to the thought that anxiety and depression were always going to be a part of my life. I took the attitude of Paul, who prayed for God to remove the thorn from his side, but received the answer that God’s grace was sufficient for his need. I knew that as I worked with other women who struggled with anxiety and depression, I would be better able to minister because I knew their pain on a deeply personal level. Though I continued to pray to be released, I never truly believed I would be free from that bondage. Little did I know the suffering was all part of God’s plan to make me stronger than I ever could have imagined.
All that I have shared so far feels like just a scratch on the surface of the depths of God’s transforming power in my life. By His grace, I have seen healing and redemption with both of my parents, in my marriage, in my ministry, in my relationships, and even within myself. That just about catches us up to the present, except to say that despite my wonder at His work in my life as a whole, the most spiritual growth in my life has miraculously occurred just over the past year. A year ago I never could have imagined the depths of which I have come to know God today. It’s very arrogant to admit this, but I really didn’t think I would be growing in my faith to this degree twenty years in. I know God more intimately, trust Him more fully, and follow Him more closely than I thought possible. I actually hear from God. Like, we actually communicate in prayer. It’s not just me spouting out a list of wants, needs, and apologies. It’s reciprocal. That might be hard for some people to take, but I promise you, it’s true and it’s available to anyone who will seek Him. As I said in the beginning, the ways He has loved me could fill a library. Maybe one day I’ll contribute to that library with a book of my own. That remains to be written, though, as does the rest of my story. Only He knows, so I will keep following Him.
info@thefruitfulwomen.org
I was sixteen when I met Jesus for the first time. I had heard stories and had lots of ideas of who I thought He was, but my sixteenth year marks that spiritual rebirth in my life. Because of the invitation of a dear friend, I was attending a Christian youth conference with a bunch of girls I knew from school. One night during a worship experience the speaker gave an altar call, and I knew it was more than the speaker calling me forward. As I raised my hands in the air in surrender to Jesus as my Lord and Savior, I felt Him smiling at me the way a proud parent would smile at their child for doing something great. That moment has stayed with me all these years. How could Jesus be so happy about me? That was a question He was determined to answer for me in innumerable ways for years to come.
Though I left the conference on a spiritual high, it would be short-lived. When I arrived home, my dad’s car was not in the driveway. My parents were splitting up. I could never remember a time I would have said they had a good marriage, but the reality that they were divorcing was still a hard hit. The next several years for me were a rollercoaster. I had an amazing support system of Christian friends and I was taught solid Biblical truth from a loving church family. However, knowing the truth and following the truth are two very different things. I was known for being a good kid, but I definitely made some very stupid mistakes, especially when it came to dating. Learning the morals of a perfect God while living sinfully left me riddled with guilt. There were times I felt God would be tired of my messing up and just reject me. The truth that God was loving, forgiving, and slow to anger was something I believed, but not necessarily for myself.
All my life, even after giving my life to Jesus, all I ever wanted was to be accepted. I wanted someone to tell me that I was good enough to be a part of their club. I wanted to be worthy of being sought after. This was a God-shaped hole in my heart that I constantly tried to fill with accomplishments, popularity, and boys. I often dated boys I didn’t even like just because they were showing me attention. I tended to run after those who didn’t want me, and push away the ones who did. Looking back I can see how I thought that if I could make someone love me enough, then I would feel valued. This never, ever worked.
In all of this, Jesus never left me. He never forsook me. Time after time He would pick me up again when I fell. One particular time, I happened to be praying while in Chemistry class. (Yes, I definitely should have been paying attention, but maybe I still get some credit for praying rather than just daydreaming…) As I prayed, I confessed that I had been choosing boyfriends for all the wrong reasons. In a moment of true repentance, I asked God to give me a boyfriend who would point me toward Him. He took that mustard seed prayer, turned my head, and in that very moment He opened my eyes to see the boy sitting in my class just one row to my left. He was a boy that I knew from church. He was a friendly kid who was smart, funny, and kind to everyone. I knew how much fun he was in class. I remembered the time he went to school the morning after his grandma died just because he knew that’s where she would have wanted him. And most memorably, he was the first person to hug me when I came soaking wet up out of the waters of baptism. I was looking at someone I should finally date for all the right reasons. I was looking at my future husband. Of course it would be years before I knew that, but what an important moment in my faith walk all because of a genuine prayer from my heart.
College marked another important, much more challenging milestone for me: the introduction of anxiety and depression. Maybe it was living away from home for the first time. Maybe it was the difficulty of a long-distance relationship. Maybe it was the college-level work load. Maybe it was the location of the college in a poverty stricken, crime filled area. Whatever the reason, anxiety and depression were chains I could never quite shake. Believing they would disappear with my circumstances, I finally decided to transfer to a college closer to my home after finishing my freshman year. “Home,” I quickly discovered, however, was a mirage. My mom was getting remarried and moving to another state. Of course I was welcome to come with her, but I had only just transferred and re-established myself. At this point, I was also convinced that Jake was the man I would marry. Moving three states away from him was not an option in my lovesick heart. I had no choice but to move in with my dad, a person I felt I was really just meeting for the first time.
When my parents divorced, I felt like I was done with my dad. That’s hard to type, but it is true. The reasons are much too complicated and numerous to list. To sum it up, he was an alcoholic who was miserable with himself and with everyone around him. As a sixteen-year-old kid, I was none too thrilled about hanging out with my dad on the weekends. I wanted to be with my friends, and my friends wanted to be at church. As the Lord would have it, if my dad wanted to hang out with me, we were going to church. It just so happened that the pastor of my church had also just gone through a divorce. He and my dad connected immediately. It was not more than a year later that my dad was being cleansed in the waters of baptism. The Lord had given us a second chance at our relationship. Today I can’t believe we were ever distant at all. My dad now means so much to me and I am ridiculously proud of the man he has become. His testimony is part of the reason I believe in the transforming power of God.
Though it never went away, the anxiety and depression seemed to be manageable up until after I started having children. I came to a point that I realized failure to get help was going to cost me my marriage. I don’t even know how God held me together during that time. I started seeking out counseling and medication to dull the suffering. It helped, but the mental suffering became part of the background of my life. It may not always be crippling, but it was never fully gone, either. I had resigned to the thought that anxiety and depression were always going to be a part of my life. I took the attitude of Paul, who prayed for God to remove the thorn from his side, but received the answer that God’s grace was sufficient for his need. I knew that as I worked with other women who struggled with anxiety and depression, I would be better able to minister because I knew their pain on a deeply personal level. Though I continued to pray to be released, I never truly believed I would be free from that bondage. Little did I know the suffering was all part of God’s plan to make me stronger than I ever could have imagined.
All that I have shared so far feels like just a scratch on the surface of the depths of God’s transforming power in my life. By His grace, I have seen healing and redemption with both of my parents, in my marriage, in my ministry, in my relationships, and even within myself. That just about catches us up to the present, except to say that despite my wonder at His work in my life as a whole, the most spiritual growth in my life has miraculously occurred just over the past year. A year ago I never could have imagined the depths of which I have come to know God today. It’s very arrogant to admit this, but I really didn’t think I would be growing in my faith to this degree twenty years in. I know God more intimately, trust Him more fully, and follow Him more closely than I thought possible. I actually hear from God. Like, we actually communicate in prayer. It’s not just me spouting out a list of wants, needs, and apologies. It’s reciprocal. That might be hard for some people to take, but I promise you, it’s true and it’s available to anyone who will seek Him. As I said in the beginning, the ways He has loved me could fill a library. Maybe one day I’ll contribute to that library with a book of my own. That remains to be written, though, as does the rest of my story. Only He knows, so I will keep following Him.
info@thefruitfulwomen.org