You Still Will

A testimony is a story of belief. It’s that fork in the road where you took the path that spread your wings of faith and met your God. But I hide from that word, because I can’t drum up a grand telling of a moment when a lightbulb flickered and I decided to make a sharp right turn toward God.

I used to worry that meant maybe I was one of those boring Christians. The ones who just simply are.

But then I remember the little girl in a nightie, sitting on her grandma’s bed. Eyes squeezed shut, mouth pursed, praying.

Dear Jesus, I’d begin.

And as the days and the years went on, I’d begin again. And again, and again.

The words flowed from my innocent mouth the way a little one cries out for her parent. I was coming to know him. I could talk to him. Learn about him.

So I step outside of that memory and wonder where to sift the testimony.

I imagine the little girl. Was it the first time you prayed? When you memorized a verse?

And years later, when your heart has been crushed, your dreams feel like they exist only on the other side of a nightmare, and the future looks foggy, you still will whisper…

Dear Jesus.

The name you’ve called upon since you were a little girl.

The relationship that doesn’t depend on whether you say the right thing. The one who doesn’t toss a breadcrumb of love or break promises.

See, there’s something in you that knows, not just trusts, but knows that he has been there all along and will always be. So even when you curl your lip or cry in desperation, thinking life’s just not fair, a glimmer of hope whispers somewhere deep in your heart that it’s really all going to be okay.

A spirit you’ve known since your hands were tiny and clasped at your chest in prayer. It started pure. And even when life has rolled in like a beat-up car, spattered with mud around its rims, it still is. Pure. Holy.

So when that little girl looks to the sky and talks to God, believing He is her father—there’s a grown-up version too who may have creases around her eyes and a few scars within her heart.

But she looks up and talks to the one who knows her soul. Like the comfort of home after a long journey.

Maybe if I could say one thing to my younger self, it wouldn’t be that you’d make it. Or you’d grasp that dream, or become that woman. It would be that, when you pray to the Jesus of your youth, one day…

You still will.