I cried in the Lennox AMC movie theater parking lot last night…

Sounds dramatic, right? That’s probably because it was.

My day started off with a discipleship group that I meet with every Friday. On this specific morning, I told this wonderful group of women how God has worked in my life to get me to the point that I am at now. It wasn’t the first time I had told my story in a booth at Panera, and it wouldn’t be the last, so I went on autopilot and talked through the timeline. I had lunch with a friend and then went thrifting and relaxed in the sun with another friend that always does an amazing job of showing me God’s love and letting me discuss how difficult raising financial support for my internship is.

It was such a normal day full of good things and attempts to love others to the best of my ability. But as I drove from Hilliard to Columbus to see a movie with some girls from my Bible study, a Matthew West song that I’ve heard a million times called Broken Things came on the radio, and the first verse hit me like a ton of bricks.

“If grace was a kingdom, I stopped at the gate. Thinking I don’t deserve to pass through after all the mistakes that I’ve made.”

After being a part of a collegiate ministry at a huge university for four years, I have talked to a lot of people I don’t know about what they believe spiritually. Some don’t believe in a God at all, others believe in God but think that as long as they go to church occasionally and treat people relatively well then everything will turn out OK, while others believe in a harsh God that demands perfection and creates strict rules to be followed.

The list goes on and on.

And then there are those who believe that God does exist, that Jesus died on the cross and was resurrected to save us from our sins, but not for them. The belief that they have made too many mistakes and have done too much wrong to be forgiven and loved by the creator of the universe reigns in their life.

And I started sobbing in the Lennox AMC parking lot.

This is not the first time that God has stopped the world around me and shattered my heart for those who do not know Jesus as their Lord and Savior, and I pray that it won’t be the last. I have been on autopilot the past month — forcing myself to continue reaching out to others about building my ministry support team, giving the “right” answers during Bible studies, praying for people in my life who ask me to and leading a group of students in worship every Monday night. My heart has not been in it.

I’ve been waking up in the middle of the night almost every night in tears because my anxiety about raising support for my internship has been paralyzing. I fear rejection and financial instability. I don't place my value and insecurities in the Lord's hands. I’ve been complaining to friends and family about how hard it has been and how I have to raise this support.

But the truth that knocked the air out of me Friday night in that parking lot is that I get to raise this support.

I have the privilege of talking to men and women about how much I love Jesus and how much my heart breaks for those who don’t. Through my internship with Reliant and my church, I am able to surrender everything to the Lord and ask others to join me in this amazing journey that God has set before me.

I can’t wait to pursue my passion for sharing the Gospel with college students and showing them what it means to be a disciple of Christ. I still can’t believe that God uses broken people like me to be a vessel for His light and love. I can’t wait to tell students about God, an amazing Father who loves them so much that He sent his son to die on the cross and forgive them for all of their sins. To tell them as many times as it takes to sink in that they are forgiven, redeemed, made new and loved more than they can even comprehend by the creator of the universe.

I have a tattoo on my wrist that reads “saved by grace”, and yet I still forget that it is not about me. It is about Jesus and dedicating my mess of a life to sharing His love. It is about telling everyone I possibly can that,

“God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved — and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is a gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
- Ephesians 2:2-9

I never want to become numb to the power of the Gospel.
I never want to forget why I chose ministry.
And I never want to forget that God calls us to spend our lives sharing His message of love, peace, forgiveness, redemption and salvation for a reason.

This message is for everyone.

The Gospel is for everyone.