The Word of our Testimony...

One of my favorite things is hearing others stories. One of my favorite lines from the song "Overcome" is this -- "We will overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony." There's such truth to that line, so here's my story.

I grew up in a Christian home. I had amazing parents who gave me guidance, yet leniency. They loved me and showed me incredible support. I was outgoing and loved being a part of many activities. I was in Girl Scouts, dance and eventually in Middle School I played flute and then oboe in the band, and sang in the school choir. I was very involved in my youth group. I was always at church and had a lot of friends at church and school.

The only thing that I didn't have going for me was my weight. I was overweight from the time I was in first grade on. I don't remember getting made fun of until I was about 9 or so. I remember some kids, boys I think, at school calling me Free Willy. I remember a few years later being called Fluffy, with a lot of laughs, because that's how a boy described me when saying why he didn't like me. Everyone got a good laugh out of that. I remember going to a White Elephant exchange at church where I wanted the stuffed whale someone had brought. One boy made a comment that I wanted it because I was Shamu. I was called names often, typically from boys. I had so many crushes and so many unreturned feelings. Most of that didn't really catch up with me until my Freshman year of high school.

I had always gone to Rochelle School of the Arts from 3rd grade on to 8th. Everybody was pretty tight. I definitely was made fun of occasionally but still, everyone got along pretty well. I felt really close with everyone. In high school that all changed. I went to George Jenkins High School. There were only 4 other people from Rochelle going to my high school and I didn't have classes with any of them. By Christmas my two closest Rochelle friends had transferred to other schools because they hated it too. I distinctly remember a girl trying to befriend me (something that was always easy for me). I went to hang out with them (where all the popular people hung out) in the court yard. It's like they knew I was a nobody to them. They literally wouldn't even include me in their group. I become pretty depressed about school. I cried every morning and my mom finally got to the point where she was ready to transfer me out. As a mom now, I know how much that broke my moms heart. Still, I ended up staying there. I didn't really have any friends and I wouldn't even eat in the cafeteria.

I remained a Christ follower. I 'm sure I cussed hear and there and I know I listened to music I shouldn't have, but generally speaking I followed Christ. By my sophomore year I went away on a family trip to see some distant relatives. my sisters were there (who were a freshman and junior in college) and everybody was going to drink. That was the first night I ever drank. I had a great time. Everybody was having fun, we played "Never Have I Ever" (where I learned a lot about one of my sisters!!) and it was great. I felt a little guilt after that but I also felt huge acceptance. I don't really remember drinking or partying a whole lot that year but I know I was going down a different path. I remember some of the music I listened to then, also. It was awful. I cringe at some of the lyrics I remember. Music has the power to move you in worship and to tear you down to nothing and fill your mind with garbage!

The summer of my sophomore year I really connected with my close friend Stefanie. We went to youth camp and on a mission trip. We knew we needed to live for Jesus. It was tough, though, in high school. I quickly fell back into old patterns and picked up a new habit...smoking. I wanted so badly to have friends and more importantly attention from at least one guy that was interested in me. I got attention but it was all the wrong kind.

These patterns continued through high school. Sure, I was still going to church and honestly I never stopped loving the Lord, but nothing in my life reflected that. By Christmas of my senior year of high school I had a tongue ring and had lost my virginity. I was partying pretty often. I made a decision to go to Florida Southern College. Worst decision of my life.

It wasn't even the school. It was all the decisions I was making. I had pretty much no friends, or friends that would say they were my friend but stab me in the back. I drank 3 to 4 nights a week, listened to that same awful music, still smoked, and gave a piece of myself to a some guys that I'll never get back. I failed my first class ever (but seriously putting a freshman in an 8 o'clock Accounting class was stupid). I sank into the deepest depression. By March or April I could take no more.


I woke up one morning and cried as I drove to my parents house. I wanted out of this darkness. I was driving to tell my mom and dad about this darkness. They weren't home. On my way to my mom's office I can still remember the exact spot on 540 A near where my parents now live (at the time it was just trees and woods). I remember thinking "I could just drive off the road right now and I know I'd feel better." I finally got to her office and sat outside crying, waiting for her to be done teaching a class.

I walked into her office and told her how much I was struggling. I cried, she cried. We drove over to my dad's office together and talked to him. I knew I would get my parents support. They always supported me. Looking back now, I'm even more amazed. They weren't completely blind to who I was but loved me regardless. We worked it out for me to go to counseling.

Counseling was weird. I grew up with a social worker, remember? So I was use to all the felling words and telling me story. Still I went. It was alright but I still felt depressed. I moved back home, even though classes weren't over yet and finished the semester as a commuter student. I still drive past that campas and have bad feelings. I hated who I was that year.

I told my parents that the only request I had was not to have a curfew. I started going to church and to my surprise had support from my friends from whom I'd been very distant from. I reconnected with God in a huge way at that time. I didn't have a lot of close friends so I know I had more time to think about life, God and how he fit into it. I remember walking into Sunday School one morning with the college group and telling them that just the same way you know you've found the person you're going to marry I knew, without a doubt, that I was connected to Christ and I was never going back to my old lifestyle. Everything was great but I still struggled a lot with depression.

While we were on a Mission Trip that summer I still dealt with these things. We all went around the room one night and had to pray that God would prepare us for the next day. I was in a bad funk so I remember praying something very basic about God, please let me be ready tomorrow. I woke up...no such luck. I still felt miserable. I went and had some quiet time, reluctantly, and God used what I read in a bigger way than I could ever imagine. The verse and devotion was about Christ coming to the cross. The verse was Jesus talking to God saying that God did not bring him to the cross to deliver him from it, but through it. God spoke to me that morning telling me he was not going to rescue me from my depression but bring me through it. I didn't love that message but now I do.

You see, I ended up getting on anti-depressants. They did really help out but it was more that it was a process. I had to learn to sort through and move out of shame and regrets. I think God used that depression to shape me. I had to learn to cling to him. I had to learn that he loved me more than any man ever could.

I ended up at Southeastern University (woot woot) where my mom was a professor, for my sophomore year. It was free, so that certainly didn't hurt anything. I loved it. I loved praying before class and the element of Christ in everything. Yes, even World History and Journalism. That year was great. I even got a dog in January, much thanks to the epic fail of owning to rabbits and my parents saying I could get a dog if I got rid of the rabbits. Introduce Dixie! By spring I was really itching to go to a secular college. I had Christ living in me and it beamed out of me. I needed to be around people that didn't know him. I was accepted and planned to go to Florida State ( another woot woot) by the fall of my junior year. But something never felt quite right. I really felt God gently trying to get me to stay. I didn't have a lot of close friends and I did want to experience so much more but finally I ended up staying. I was a youth intern that summer which was awesome but tough too, because my church was going through a split. By the end of the summer my amazing youth leaders seemed to be on their way out of the church. I visited Church of the Highlands with one of my friends. It was a very modern church. When I left I told her that it was amazingly a lot like youth camp!

We went and visited their college group one Sunday and went back to the leaders house with a bunch of the people there. He was a young guy. He had a roommate. His roommates name was Bryan Stiverson, an intern at the church. I played some sort of Cranium game with him that night and fell in love with his sweet spirit and kindness. Matter of fact, I got in the car that night and told Stefanie I could marry him. I started going to Church of the Highlands and loved it. It really solidified my decision in staying in Lakeland. By November Bryan and I were dating. By the first week of December we were talking about marriage.

I really though I was going to have to wait a long time for the right guy. After a lot of boy crazy years I read an amazing book through my time of just me and God. It was called "Lady in Waiting". It put rest to that unrelenting desire and helped me focus on God a little more. I knew God would bring the man for me in his good time. I fully expected later because I could not stand how the guys my age acted. But here was Bryan, age 29, me age 21.

We were engaged the following August 31st and married on March 11, 2006. I eventually went of the anti-depressants (mainly because I had no insurance -- yikes!) Don't ever go off of anti-depressants cold turkey. That was miserable. Ever since then depression is not really a part of my life. I do have a natural tendency to get into small funks hear and there but nothing like that.

We've got our two kiddos - Jason and Ellie. Things aren't always perfect, but I'm always moving forward. When things get tough you just have to press on. I don't always like everything now, but I know that God's holding my hand the whole time. I don't really care if I don't know the latest song that everyone loves now. I guard that part of me closely. Music was a big hang up for me. I'm getting to a place where I can have a drink and it's not such an issue, but I'll always be careful with that too. Drinking had such a negative effect on me through my choices and those of some of my family members. There's no black and white. It's about grace and freedom in Christ. I love that. I think He has it that way for a reason. It keeps me on my toes wanting to stay connected with Him to know what he wants for my life.

I have a God who loves me intimately more than I could ever understand and I am truly blessed to have the husband that I do. He challenges me daily to be more like Christ. I feel a blog about BStive coming on soon! My kids - icing on the cake and a picture that I can finally start to grasp at of Christ's love for me.

God is Good!/ Stage 3C

The other night at band practice one of the guys was talking about a recent cancer diagnosis in the family. The diagnosis was made through a mistake, actually. The woman he was talking about found out she had breast cancer because the doctor's had to go in and clean up an infection that they had basically caused. He said something like this: Can I just say something? It kind of bugs me when people say, "I'm not sick anymore. God is good!" or "I got a job! God is good! God is good all the time. I want to see someone post something like "My sister has cancer. God is good." Even though we were aggravated with the infection God was still good. And the infection still let us know that there was cancer.

Of course I quickly checked myself thinking, "Oh great, have I typed something like that recently?" It doesn't really matter whether I did or didn't or whether you have or haven't. I know God is good all the time and I love that he shared that. I need to make sure it is always known that my God is good ALL the time.

My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer last August. She was, at first, told it was Stage 2B. I remember sharing this on facebook and my last line of the post said "God's got this." As we continued on the journey, the doctors would find cancer in more lymph nodes and upgrade the cancer to stage 3C. I was brokenhearted but my "tag line" was still "God's got this!"

During that time I remember a couple of times where I felt like God was really moving in my Spirit. It was hard to say it out loud but I felt Him saying "Jenn - I do have this but that can go a lot of ways" I knew my mom could be completely healed but I knew her journey on Earth could come to an end. Either way God is the ultimate Healer. After all, we are just pilgrims passing through, right? I found it difficult to pray. Of course I wanted healing for my mom, but I also had an overwhelming sense of God's ability to handle all situations.

Romans 8:28 says "And we know that all things work together for good to those that love God - those he has called according to His plan."

Done deal - God does have this - whether we understand it all or not, he does. I have a stepsister who passed away at the age of 26. It's been 12 years now and I still don't understand but am I suppose to? I rest in the fact that God most definitely used her in her time on Earth and that she is running down streets of gold instead of being laid up in a bed with the disease that wreaked havoc on her body for the last year of her life. Watching my parents go through that was hard but I've been inspired by their faith that presses on.

I think the hardest thing for me to hand over to him is my kids. I will lay in bed with crippling thoughts of bad things happening to my kids. I then find myself (almost desperately) saying, "They're yours, they're yours, they're yours." Some people find great difficulty in saying this and trust me, I do too. But wouldn't you rather Him be the one in control anyway. Just as much as my money and my car are his, my husband and kids are His too. He trusts me with them and I trust Him with them. It's still a battle for me because I know I'd be devastated if anything ever happened to Ellie or Jason, but Romans 8:28 says ALL things work together for the GOOD. I don't have to know all the answers, I just have to trust God.

I hope this hasn't been too terribly depressing! God is good -- all the time -- and just like He is Lord over the dark things we deal with, He is Lord over the most amazing things as well. He's just bigger than we'll ever comprehend...this side of Heaven anyway!

One Me

I've tried blogging before...pretty half-heartedly but I've been wanting to get back to it. I don't know why it's such a task even coming up with a blog title. I mean who really cares? But that's just it...we're all so quick to judge everyone else that I was scared to put something too boring or too heady and heaven forbid I put something "super spiritual"!! So here it is...One Me...I am Jennifer Stiverson with so many flaws but loving that my sweet Savior is truly captured by me. I'm an imperfect wife to Bryan and mother to my amazing kiddos, Ellie and Jason. But they love and accept me. I teach third grade and I'm probably mediocre, but I try to love and teach them. I struggle with pride and apathy, but I'm working on it. The whole point is that we are all a work in process.

I read an article today about how your kids want just you as their mom. They don't care how you dress, how you decorate the house, who your friends are, if you can carry a tune, what your job is...they just want you to be their mommy and love them. It was so simple but what I needed to hear. I love all of those crafty Pinterest kind of people out there...truly...and some are even my best friends but I use to look at some of those pictures and think, "Does anyone expect me to be doing that??" I was pretty sure the answer was no, but still!

So I'm going to do the one thing I do love to do. I love to write and I love to share my story and hear (or see) others share theirs. I love my kids and husband quite a bit so I'm sure you'll get to hear plenty about them too, but really, I just want to share my heart. Too many women...and men for that matter....never really get to the heart of the matter. We find it so hard or uncomfortable to REALLY get to know someone. Or we just don't want to be hurt...again.

I'm going to close this one out with some of my favorite reminders from the Author of us all that reminds me of who I am....

I know what I'm doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for. Jeremiah 29:11

Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out; you formed me in my mother's womb. I thank you, High God—you're breathtaking! Body and soul, I am marvelously made! I worship in adoration—what a creation! You know me inside and out, you know every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something. Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before you, The days of my life all prepared before I'd even lived one day.
Psalm 139:13 -16

Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9

I am my beloveds and His desire is for me. Song of Solomon 7:10


Because I can never resist a good lyric in a song -- one of my favorite lyrics from Christ Tomlin's "Our God is Great" is this: "And if our God is for us than who could ever stop us and if our God is with us than what can stand against?"

My God is greater than _________________. What is it for you?? I know mine's a big, long list...
my fear of failing as a mother, my pride, my fear of failing as a wife, my disdain for my own body, my fear of what others might say about me, what others really do say about me, my apathy, my complaining, my inability to get up in the morning and spend time with Him, my fear of trusting others, my failed relationships with family or friends.

Spend some time with me this week praying that God would help remind you that He's bigger than all of that junk that we carry around. Be YOU....don't be who everyone else thinks you should be, or better yet, what you think everyone else says you should be. God made you, He bought you with a price, and you are HIS!