“God cannot grow you if you are not willing to be broken.”
I mentioned in one of my post that God broke me. So how did He break me? This past school year at Oakwood University (OU), I was the Chaplin of Voices of Triumph Gospel Choir (VOT). Honestly, I never really wanted to be Chaplin, I just wanted to be on the board of the choir. Originally I was planning on running for outreach coordinator however, God had other plans for me. Instead of being outreach coordinator I became the Chaplin. During that summer break, I started planning for the semester and figured that being Chaplin would be easy. When the school year started I learned very quickly that being Chaplin wasn’t easy.
Public speaking is a scary thing by itself so add talking to your peers about Christ and you will see how nervous and scared I was when I first started being the Chaplin for VOT. At first, I was nervous because I was speaking in front of my peers however, my fear changed to a feeling of failure. I felt as though I was failing the choir spiritually. I remember it was a Friday night after practice I went back to my room and got on my knees and told God I thought I was failing the choir. I poured out my heart to God about how I was feeling, the disconnected I was experiencing and then I asked God to help me to be the person that He wanted me to be especially while I was Chaplin.
Then the breaking the started.
God started breaking me, starting first with my lack of trust. I do not like to trust people and even God. God used my lack of trust by causing situations in my life to happen so that I would run to Him and trust Him. Then God broke me of my unwillingness to surrender. This was the hardest part because surrendering is letting go and letting God. Certain things would happen where the more I tried to keep it together, the harder it got or the worse it became. I clearly remember a Wednesday night where I was like God I’m done, have this situation, I surrender it to you. No sooner had I prayed that prayer the better I felt and a peace overcame me. God also broke me of some relationships, people, and habits. He taught me how to depend on Him and others through a knee injury.
All of the breaking that God did of me helped me in being a Chaplin and helped my relationship with God. I can say that being the Chaplin for VOT helped me grow spiritually. It was because I wanted to be genuine with the choir that God gave me worship thoughts through lessons I had learned through the breaking. It was through the prayer request of the choir and how God answered their prayers, that I started to truly believe in the power of prayer. When I physically or emotionally could not share a worship thought with the choir, God gave me the strength to share and gave me word for the choir. I am so thankful for the breaking that God has been doing in my life. I cannot wait to see what the finished project will be when God is completely done breaking and shaping me into the woman He has called me to be! I hope and pray that you allow God to break you because the end project is a happier and better you!
Until next time,
Elyse
