Students Transformed.

Anna is a Freshman in Engineering.

Christian Share Large Group was held in April. Anna chose to share her story with a post:

One Friday in the beginning of October, I decided to take a walk in the rain. I wore a jacket, but I left my hood down choosing instead to get immersed in the rain. I walked the streets of Urbana, not having a clue where I was going, and I decided to spend that time with God. I prayed about going to Urbana ‘09, and I prayed for the future. As I walked, I got the music, but not the words, to the song “How He Loves” stuck in my head. We had sung the song in Large Group a couple weeks before, and I remember very clearly thinking that the song was extremely strange, and I really did not like it. But as I walked, the music to it was stuck in my head, and I could NOT figure out what the song was. When I got back to ISR, completely soaked, I talked with my mom about going to Urbana ‘09, signed up for Urbana ‘09, and then I tried to find out what that song was.

I have no idea how I found the song or how I remembered that the song was “How He Loves”. I think I might have remembered the line, “heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss” because I thought it was very very strange. As I tried to google the bits of lyrics that I remembered, I found the lyrics on a blog that talked about the reason why John Mark McMillan wrote the song. I managed to find the full version of the song, and I cried when I heard it. I began slowly realizing that every word in that song is true. God captured my heart through that song, and I have since listened to the song many times. It remains one of the few songs that I can currently worship God through, and I even had a dream a few nights ago in which I sang the song in full out worship to God in my dream.

Why this song? I honestly believe that God speaks to me through this song. The lines that particularly speak to me now are: “You met me between my breaking. I know that I still love you God despite the agony. Some people want to tell me you’re cruel, but if Stephen could sing, he’d say it’s not true because you’re good.” (If you’ve never heard this version, I strongly encourage you to listen to it at least once.)

This past year has been one of the hardest years of my life thus far, but it has been one of the best in terms of my relationship with God. First semester culminated with Urbana ’09 (see my other note for that). I felt so close to God, and I was completely on fire for God. I was completely on fire, and at that time, I could sing without hesitation the line “Yeah He loves us! Whoa how He loves us!”

But I believe that God instead chose to strip down the healing from an event in my past to show me something. I’ve realized that I tried to heal myself from that event. I thought I was successful until I was presented with somewhat similar circumstances this semester. I have begun to realize that (metaphor time) what I did was put a Band-aid on a wound which was not done bleeding. Because of these similar circumstances, the Band-aid was ripped off, and bleeding began furiously. I realized that I have for years been masking internal bleeding in a sense.

This semester has been one of the hardest times of my life only topped by the months surrounding the event in past. I have spent many nights crying, and many nights desiring to be alone yet to not be by myself. I spent nights praying to God only to get a door slammed in my face. (Not quite literally, but almost.) I felt completely alone and distant from God. What made all of this worse was that I had recently felt so close to God. To go from feeling His love immediately to feeling like God had completely left me was not easy. It made my situation even worse.

I remember the night of All Campus Worship this semester. I left Foellinger extremely confused, upset, but realizing that important steps needed to be taken.

I had a rather difficult conversation a few nights later in which all of my walls came crashing down. Somehow, in that moment, I was able to completely trust a friend, and God worked in HUGE ways through him and I mean completely HUGE ways). If it weren’t for the conversation that happened…

God still does not make sense to me, although I know He never will. I don’t understand why He is allowing me to go through this, but some wounds from my past are actually beginning to heal the proper way…through God. God has used so many of my friends in such powerful ways. God has used my friends to let me know that He is still here and that He has not left.

I am experiencing God in a much different way right now. I am broken. But I know that I still love you God despite the agony. And You have met me between my breaking.

I have learned through it all I can sing “How He Loves” in the most powerful worship that I can have at this moment.

And I know that these words are true. “If grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking. So Heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss, and my heart turns violently inside of my chest. I don’t have time to maintain these regrets when I think about, the way He loves us.”

How He love us so.

-Anna Wetherholt