Posted by
Dan and Carole McClelland
We laughed, we cried, and we danced. And the whole time I couldn’t wipe the cheesy smile off my face. It was the most expensive date I have ever been on, and it was worth every cent! Jesus is the best lover I know.
On Friday, June 22nd, I got to go on a date with the lover of my soul, Jesus. He took me back to Illinois State University, my college campus, where, while attending college there, I made my faith my own, accepting Him as the Lord and Savior of my life. That was when I truly fell in love with Him.
Even the drive down from Chicago to the campus was amazing. Just me, driving a rental car, singing loudly to worship music with Jesus! I felt like I was in HS jamming with my best friend. On the drive, as I passed cornfields, Jesus spoke saying, "From the maze of cornfields to where I belong, sharing the gospel to the ends of the World". Only at the end of the date, did I really understand what this phrase meant.
On that Friday, I walked with Jesus through the campus, remembering. I remembered how He protected me and my head, when I was hit by a car my freshman year, and then we came to the place where I had a terrible fall on my roller blades my first week of school and felt I needed to change colleges because it was so embarrassing. These are places on our "date" where we laughed.
Then we went to other places, like the dorm where I said a prayer asking God to come into my heart and surrendering my life to Him. This is where we cried tears of joy for how He "brought me out of darkness into his marvelous light".
There were other places that refreshed old memories like the first time I shared my testimony in an open air evangelism event, on the quad in the middle of a busy transition time between classes. InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, the campus ministry I was a part of, hosted this event. I even remembered my first line or "my hook" that I screamed to get people's attention (and it worked), "I WANT TO BE ACCEPTED". I am making that face in the picture, because I remember how nervous I was!
Then there was a street corner where, during college, I felt Holy Spirit stop me and ask me to help a mother and a daughter looking lost on a day when I was already late for a graduate school interview. Obeying the Spirit's voice turned into an amazing testimony of me being an answer to a girl's prayer from a small Christian college. She had told God that she would transfer to ISU if she met a Christian on campus. When I stopped and asked if they needed help, I mentioned that I was a Christian, and she literally started to cry. She did transfer to ISU the next year, and I got to hook her up with a Christian roommate and she became a part of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.
The memories continued to flood in when I reached the exact place, where I did evangelism on campus for the first time, with two other people, and the first person we talked to accepted Jesus! I remember when I asked this girl if she wanted to accept Jesus and she said "YES", I looked dumbfounded like, "what do I do now?" Fortunately my Evangelism leader, Aaron, jumped in and took over, explaining the next steps to being a disciple if Jesus.
Then Jesus led me past the building where I took ASL classes and learned ASL; falling in love with the Deaf community, culture and language. Next there was the dining hall where I did evangelism alone for the first time as I felt Jesus ask nudged me to meet a girl named Maria. We became friends, then roommates my junior year, the year which she accepted Jesus. On that day in the dining hall though, I remembered being so nervous to walk up to Maria, who was sitting alone eating. Through obedience to the Spirit, I ended up being "her angel of her day" as she called it.
Then there was the rock that I would lay upside down on and watch people walk upside down, when I was having a bad day. This was the strategy Jesus gave me when I was having a day that just was not going well. Just laying there upside down watching, brought so much laughter that my whole day would change. I even would drag some of my other friends to do it, just to try. (I don’t think it was ever something that caught on. ) Jesus and I walked past the place where on my Sabbaths, I would go and just lay down and "soak up the SON (sun)".
I think the most meaningful place on our date, was revisiting the place where God spoke to me through an ugly bush on campus. It was the end of my senior year, my boyfriend had just broken up with me, and I had no idea what I was doing after graduation. Should I attend graduate school in Deaf Education, teach General Education, join IV staff, or become a missionary? I was so confused like my life was upside down.
While I was in this state of indecision walking across campus, I felt like I was supposed to stop and look at this bush on campus so I did. As I looked at this bush, it was so ugly I said, "God, why do you want me to look at these bushes? They are so ugly!" It actually got me more upset, because the bush was all mixed up and tangled. Why did God think this was important? I just sat there for a while looking at this ugly bush and God spoke. He said "I placed every branch and every leaf on this bush exactly where I wanted it, and when I look at this bush I think it’s beautiful." After a few minutes, I understood how it applied to my life. In the midst of uncertainty or while in the maze of the unknown future, God was speaking that He had placed me exactly where He wanted me, and that when He looked at the "mess" of my life, He only saw beauty.
This is where we danced. Jesus has renewed my life from a messy ugly bush into the place where I know I belong; into his presence. Into a deep relationship with him, walking out a crazy life of missions, following him as my Lord and Savior every step of the way.
After I danced I realized that this is the school that I actually did my first internship experience in Deaf Education, an elementary school on campus, Metcalf. I love the way God redeems things. While still in college, this was the place where He spoke to me through an ugly bush and now the place is completely reconstructed. In the place of the ugly bush, there is a beautiful, grown tree next to a garden. He has restored and redeemed, and has made my path straight. Through His masterful, creative hand, He has combined the three things that He introduced into my life here on ISU campus to weave the life I now live: Himself, a life of missions, and the Deaf community.
I understood His analogy. He has led me out of the maze of cornfields into the place where I belong. I belong in His presence, sharing and discipling people in the Deaf community into a relationship with Jesus.
