Will you cover your heart when you see what I've done?

Well hey guys, thanks for giving up your Sunday night to be here, some of you after an 11 hour day here nonetheless. And thank you Kindra for thinking of me when they gave you the assignment to find someone to give the devotional this evening, it truly is an honor to be able to be up here in front of so many incredible people and get the chance to share some of my heart with you. And before I get started, let me reiterate that point. Every single person in this room and every single client that we serve is an amazing human being created in the image of God, deserving of love and respect. Office staff, you help make Jill’s House run smoothly and are doing things behind the scenes that many of us will never understand, whether that’s improving upon the program we already have, connecting with new and current families, raising the money we need so that we can keep doing what we do, or managing us, the CCS. Part Time CCS’ almost all of you have something going on outside of Jill’s House that takes up quite a bit of your time, be it a full time job, school, a family, or all the above, and yet, weekend after weekend, you show up here, ready to serve, and ready to love these kids. My fellow full time staff, school nights would not happen without you and your lack of sleep, consistently leaving here after the clients are already in bed, and then coming back the next morning before they’re awake, or working the beloved double 6am-10 and 1pm-9, or sometimes a combo of both a double AND a morning shift the next day. And fellows, my dear fellows, you willingly gave up an entire year of your life to be here. And we rewarded you by asking you to do nothing less than eat, sleep, and breathe Jill’s House, be it the 44 hours a week minimum we require of you between CCSing and the office, the social outings, bible study, recruitment trips and whatever else we give you to do. And let’s be real, if the fellowship didn’t exist as it is, we’d be sending kids home on Saturday night instead of Sunday evening. All of you are sacrificing quite a bit to be a part of the story of Jill’s House and that is worthy of recognition. Now that’s not to say there’s no reward or blessing for doing so, there certainly is, and I will get into that a little bit later, but that doesn’t deny the fact that it can be extremely difficult, and for all of those sacrifices, I thank each and every one of you.

As some of you know, I like to think of every aspect of life in terms of their overarching story, and so I specifically used the phrase “the story of Jill’s House” because I want to dwell on that for a moment. Jill’s House exists because God gave Lon Solomon who’s the current but transitioning into former Senior Pastor of Mclean Bible Church a daughter with special needs 25 years ago January 26^th. And from the difficulties the Solomon family faced while raising her and the difficulty they had finding respite, God put it into their hearts to figure out a way to serve those families who were in similar situations. And so a little over 6 years ago, after climbing through some incredible God sized hurdles, Jill’s House opened its doors, and its story began. But the really cool thing is this story is built upon a culmination of stories. Every single Family we serve has a story on how they found Jill’s House, and every single one of you and every single volunteer has a story on how God brought you here and developed you in such a way to perfectly fit into the life of this place, and on top of that there are stories of how God is using your time here to further conform you into the image of His Son.

With all of that in mind, I want to take this time to share just a piece of my story in hopes to bring some encouragement to you, because a big part of my story involves Jill’s House, and therefore you.

For starters I grew up in a Christian home, my Dad was my Children’s Pastor and my mom was highly involved at whatever church he was working for. I remember at the age of 4 being pulled into the back room of the house and being told the Gospel by my parents and at that point saying the sinner’s prayer. Who knows if I actually believed at the point but that gives you some context to my life. Other than that moment, I never really remember discussing the gospel with them outside of what I learned at church and watched them live out daily. It was around the age of 12 that a friend of mine introduced me to Pornography and Masturbation and to this day that is something I continue to battle with off and on. Because of that though, by the time I was 14 I finally came to an understanding of my own sinful state and the double life I was living and fully recognized my need for a Savior. So the summer after freshman year of high school I rededicated my life to Christ during my youth groups yearly summer trip to the beach and was baptized in the Atlantic Ocean by Dale Sutherland who at the time was the youth pastor for Mclean and currently a teaching pastor. I only mention him to briefly highlight the faithfulness of God, because get this, way back when Dale was a teenager, my Dad was his youth pastor and baptized him. That summer I not only had a revitalized faith but God brought some important people into my life then as well.

My sophomore year of high school was a really hard time, with my newly refreshed faith I was having difficulty fitting in. I was noticing the hypocrisy of the kids who would be my friend at youth group but not even recognize my existence at school. I was facing flack for stupid things like the fact my Dad was a bus driver for the school. While I was on the JV football team, I was still having difficulty connecting with anyone, let alone the fact I lived outside of the school’s zone so besides football I never had any real opportunity to do so. So I recoiled to the habits that defined me pre-Christ and it was at that time I realized something needed to change.

Enter in the friends God brought me that summer camp, I reached out to them and realized they all went to the same local Christian school. After facing many obstacles, God continually opened doors including bringing on an anonymous family friend that covered something like half of my tuition to go to this school my junior and senior year, by the way I never found out about until AFTER I graduated. Those 2 years of life were very formative. Not only was I able to build solid Christian friendships both with the teachers and fellow students that are still here to this day, but it was then I realized my interest in reading and took it upon myself to learn about my life and faith outside of school and church. And if you know anything about me, you know I haven’t stopped reading since.

It was after graduation though I experienced my first serious fight with depression. Just coming off of the high of those incredible 2 years all of my new-found friends headed off to College and because of the lack of funds due to going to Trinity I had to stay behind and go to community college. I felt like God had abandoned me and so did my friends. So I recoiled into myself, began taking any class I could online, and worked a bare minimum part time job so I never had to leave the house, and seeking out fulfillment any way I could by rekindling old sins and habits. On top of it all, during the breaks in between semesters I would visit with friends who were home and pretend that everything was A-ok.

Once again God brought me to the end of myself and once again He opened a door for me to be pulled out of it. After my 2nd year I transferred to a Christian college out in Southern California, where I developed even more Godly relationships, learned even more about my faith and continued to grow.  Because of changing majors and not taking full loads at NoVa I spent 3 years out there. And once again it was absolute bliss. The summer between my junior and senior year was where I worked a summer camp here at Mclean Bible Church simply because I needed a job and was introduced to the world of special needs. I fell in love with it, and determined to do the camp again after graduation.

But as all of you know, we are creatures of habit, and old habits die hard, even when we are living in light of the Gospel. And if some of this sounds familiar it’s because it is. After graduating college in May of 2013, and working the summer camp for a second time in July, this time in a position of leadership, I was pulled back into the deep dark world of depression for the 2^nd time in my life. Leaving those friendships behind, moving back home to the east coast, no real job prospects in line, and a sizable student loan staring me down, it was just too much for me to handle. Despite recognizing the faithfulness of God in my life up until that point it was still so hard for me to trust Him. And so the darkness came sweeping in, taking hold of my life, and telling me a lot of lies that I chose to believe causing me to run to old habits of extreme laziness and old sins instead of the light and truth that is found in Christ, which further perpetuated the problem instead of facing it. 

Come October of that year, still no job, and no real hope, my parents gave me the idea of applying to Jill’s House. They knew I loved kids with special needs, and they also knew I needed a job as my first loan payment was due the next month. And here is another point where God’s faithfulness shines brightly despite my attempt to run from it, literally within the hour of sending my application to Jill’s House they asked me to come in and interview the next day. At the time this was for a part time role on the weekends, and after walking out of the interview feeling pretty confident, someone from my church gave me a call and offered me a part time job during the week in the office at a construction company. In a matter of days I went from no work to 2 part time jobs that added up to full time.

Over the next year and a half I began taking on more hours here and less at the construction company until I became full-time in January 2015. A year later starting in January 2016, I faced my 3^rd major battle with depression. But during that year, there was a fellow that some of you know who was also facing her own demons to the point that she had to leave the fellowship early. And being able to come alongside her during that time even in the midst of my own struggles, watch her face it with such grace and continually point it all to Christ and hold onto His promises instead of running away, she became a great encouragement to me and it finally enabled me to open up about my own life. For the first time I was able to bring it up with my pastor, friends, and family. And while there have been brief spurts of difficult and debilitating times since then, being single in my mid 20’s with a crushing student loan and anxiety about the future brings about such thoughts, by the Grace of God and because of my time here at Jill’s House I no longer am afraid to face it.

All of that said you can see why Jill’s House has such a special place in my heart. Not only did God provide me with a certain personality and set of talents that allow me to excel here, but God has continually used this place and you people to pull me back outside of myself and bring me back to himself. Because of my time here, I am more and more coming to recognize that I am not my depression, and I am not my sinful habits. I am a child of God who is fully known and fully loved by Christ and He has given me a Church family both through my local church and my family here at Jill’s House that I can turn to and lean on in times of need. And when this time comes to an end, this is something that I will be forever grateful.

Thus I want to encourage you with this, never be ashamed of the story that God is telling through you and allows you to be a part of. Yes, some of you may have an incredibly dark and traumatizing past that you can at times regret, you may be going through an extremely difficult period right at this very moment of your life, or that difficult time may be yet to come, but take heart. God is faithful and is going to bring you through it. And God is going to use to it be a comfort and encouragement to others. Listen to this passage in 2^nd Corinthians chapter 1 starting at vs 3 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.”

As we go through trying times, God is going to bring you comfort in, during, and through those situations, and use them to allow you to bring comfort to others who are going through their own difficult times, all for your good and his Glory. Nothing in this life is wasted.