After attending the same church where God saved us for 17 years and we had served there diligently in service oversight for most of those years, we began feeling the need to listen to other bible teachers in order to get fed spiritually. I remember Kenny and I crossing Alligator Alley on our way to Sanibel one weekend quite a few years ago and we listened only to podcasts by Pastor Tullian. His messages were addictive as we listened to one after the other, yet something in me felt like they were too good to be true. I had mentioned that to a friend of mine who attended Coral Ridge Presbyterian. I told her that he seemed "unbalanced" in his teachings. He's always talking about grace. It almost made me mad because I wanted to believe that what he was saying was true, but I doubted. In my heart I never felt like I was measuring up as a Christian after all these years. I couldn't understand why I always had some of the same struggles and why it seemed to me that everyone else around me had it all together but I didn't. I was getting physically sicker, I had to leave my profession due to my illness, my kids were going off in different directions and I was often told that it was because of what I was or was not doing. At one point I was even told by a Christian sister that my young adult child needed a curfew. I was also told by yet another sister to never speak the words Multiple Sclerosis because I was "claiming it". I just couldn't control my life and make it better. I didn't want the burden of trying to be God anymore. Enter Pastor Tullian's books, Jesus + Nothing = Everything, Glorious Ruin and eventually One Way Love. The chains were beginning to fall off of me...I could breathe again.
After praying for the last 3-4 years about seeking a new home church, God answered our prayers. Because of my MS, I am not that mobile due to chronic dizziness and autonomic dysfunction. We had begun to watch church on-line and one Sunday I randomly decided to turn on Coral Ridge instead of our former church. Pastor Tullian started his series on Romans that very day. I was hooked from that day forward. Everything about the experience made me want more, the worship, the message and the gospel being preached in a way that made my spirit re-awaken. I felt like a starved person getting a free meal at an endless buffet. After watching on-line a few times, I took a screen shot of some of the lyrics to the song "From the Depths of Woe". I just had to hear that song again. Kenny searched for it and found it on-line and he ended up downloading it onto his computer. I walked in his office one day and it was playing through the speakers. I said, "that's the song I fell in love with!". I couldn't listen to it without weeping every time. From that day on, I told Kenny that no matter how bad I felt physically, I had to get to Coral Ridge Presbyterian to experience it live and in person.
Our very first time attending, Zac Hicks and the worship band played that very song. Without sounding like I'm over spiritualizing, I felt like God had said to me, "this is your new home and church family". We never looked back and God has kept me well enough to attend every Sunday since. We heard about the New Member Meeting and we were determined to go. Little did I know that right before the meeting, after having MS for over 12 years, I would go completely blind in my right eye. I had to do a 5 day course of IV Solu-Medrol which makes me feel like absolute death when I come off the drug. The New Member Meeting was held on a day when I felt my absolute worst physically. I felt like I should have been driven to the hospital instead of the New Member Meeting but I was just so determined to be there. I had my bad eye covered like a pirate so I could see better out of my good eye. As Pastor Tullian was listening to everyone's testimonies in the room, my heart was racing because it dawned on me right at that very moment that God had allowed me to go blind physically yet spiritually, I could see better than I ever had before! I have so much gratitude & thankfulness for Pastor Tullian's passion to deliver the true message of the Gospel in all it's fullness to ALL who will listen. I felt compelled to thank him for the huge part that he played in my life as he helped to set yet another captive free! I told him that I was blind but now I see!!! New light has been brought to the words of my Savior...
Luke 4:18-19 English Standard Version (ESV)
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”
