So apparently this is how cf does blogs now, in a completely seperate forum from before. Wow so much has changed since my sabbatical. Anyway, for anyone who is interested my old cf blog can be viewed here. In the mean time a new introduction should be made since I am a very different person from who I was when I first joined cf almost eight years ago.
My name is Cassie, I was raised Christian but that had nothing to do with my salvation. Christianity is not a religion, it's a relationship with Jesus, as I was rightly taught but that became me religion growing up. I had faith in Jesus, and my faith was that I had faith in Jesus. I knew that sin seperated me from God and although I knew that you couldn't lose your salvation (as I learned from Romans 8:38-39, being the perfect AWANA/sunday school sweetheart that I was) but it could damage your relationship with God so I followed Jesus in a very religious way.
Around the age of eighteen I began to rebel from that perfect life. Things were too religious for me at home and I just wanted my freedom. I ran away from my home in Washington with a boy I met on cf and we lived in Florida with his family, got engaged, and then spent about a year bouncing back and forth between Washington where my family lived and Florida where his family lived. Finally we got tired of the long distance relationship and attempted to secure our relationship by eloping.
Things went downhill from there. Sure some of it was happy, otherwise I wouldn't have stayed with him as long as I did but there was a lot I went through that I wish I could forget. I was still involved on cf and somewhat involved in a church because I was afraid of falling away from Jesus but in a way I had. I was binge eating, binge drinking, and we basically did what we wanted. He was financially unstable and emotionally took it out on my by neglecting me, ignoring me, or just failed to take care of me. We were bouncing around from living in his parents home, to living with a friend of his who would often take advantage of us, and at one point we were living out of the back of a GMC Jimmy. It was almost as if he felt that he didn't need to try to touch my heart anymore simply because he won it over.
Almost two years into our marriage I had finally seen where I was. Through cf I found a ministry called Setting Captives Free and decided to take their course titled "the Lord's Table." On what I believe was the sixth day of the course I was reading through a passage in John where Jesus declares "I am the bread of Life. He who comes to me will not hunger." At that moment God opened up my heart and spoke loudly to it, "You're still hungry." I realized then that I had been lieing to myself my entire life. My faith had been in the wrong things: church, my prayer of confession, faith in the fact that I had faith in Jesus. In short, I found a way to make my salvation about me and not about Jesus.
Jesus rescued me from sin that day, but it didn't stop there. Jesus saved me from gluttony and alcohol abuse and then started a chain of events that turned my life around.
My husband joined the navy, giving me an opportunity to go home, enjoy my family, and serve Jesus at my old AWANA club and then spend the summer as a camp counselor. While I was away for the summer God hardened my husband's heart, and he walked away from me. It's been a long process to heal from the emotional, spiritual, and financial abuse but I firmly believe that Jesus saved me from that situation.
Fortunately, Jesus put a wonderful friend in my life who brought me to the church I now call home saying, "This is a message you need to hear." She was right and Jesus has blessed me in so many ways since coming to Mars Hill Church.
Jesus made it possible for me to move from my parents' home to the city of Seattle so I would have the ability to be in community with the people at Mars Hill and so I could get more involved. I now lead there as a stage manager on the productions team and hope to someday get more involved as a Christian counselor. I love where Jesus has brought me.
My name is Cassie, I was raised Christian but that had nothing to do with my salvation. Christianity is not a religion, it's a relationship with Jesus, as I was rightly taught but that became me religion growing up. I had faith in Jesus, and my faith was that I had faith in Jesus. I knew that sin seperated me from God and although I knew that you couldn't lose your salvation (as I learned from Romans 8:38-39, being the perfect AWANA/sunday school sweetheart that I was) but it could damage your relationship with God so I followed Jesus in a very religious way.
Around the age of eighteen I began to rebel from that perfect life. Things were too religious for me at home and I just wanted my freedom. I ran away from my home in Washington with a boy I met on cf and we lived in Florida with his family, got engaged, and then spent about a year bouncing back and forth between Washington where my family lived and Florida where his family lived. Finally we got tired of the long distance relationship and attempted to secure our relationship by eloping.
Things went downhill from there. Sure some of it was happy, otherwise I wouldn't have stayed with him as long as I did but there was a lot I went through that I wish I could forget. I was still involved on cf and somewhat involved in a church because I was afraid of falling away from Jesus but in a way I had. I was binge eating, binge drinking, and we basically did what we wanted. He was financially unstable and emotionally took it out on my by neglecting me, ignoring me, or just failed to take care of me. We were bouncing around from living in his parents home, to living with a friend of his who would often take advantage of us, and at one point we were living out of the back of a GMC Jimmy. It was almost as if he felt that he didn't need to try to touch my heart anymore simply because he won it over.
Almost two years into our marriage I had finally seen where I was. Through cf I found a ministry called Setting Captives Free and decided to take their course titled "the Lord's Table." On what I believe was the sixth day of the course I was reading through a passage in John where Jesus declares "I am the bread of Life. He who comes to me will not hunger." At that moment God opened up my heart and spoke loudly to it, "You're still hungry." I realized then that I had been lieing to myself my entire life. My faith had been in the wrong things: church, my prayer of confession, faith in the fact that I had faith in Jesus. In short, I found a way to make my salvation about me and not about Jesus.
Jesus rescued me from sin that day, but it didn't stop there. Jesus saved me from gluttony and alcohol abuse and then started a chain of events that turned my life around.
My husband joined the navy, giving me an opportunity to go home, enjoy my family, and serve Jesus at my old AWANA club and then spend the summer as a camp counselor. While I was away for the summer God hardened my husband's heart, and he walked away from me. It's been a long process to heal from the emotional, spiritual, and financial abuse but I firmly believe that Jesus saved me from that situation.
Fortunately, Jesus put a wonderful friend in my life who brought me to the church I now call home saying, "This is a message you need to hear." She was right and Jesus has blessed me in so many ways since coming to Mars Hill Church.
Jesus made it possible for me to move from my parents' home to the city of Seattle so I would have the ability to be in community with the people at Mars Hill and so I could get more involved. I now lead there as a stage manager on the productions team and hope to someday get more involved as a Christian counselor. I love where Jesus has brought me.
