This I Believe
This I Believe
Grace
Only by Grace
By Sara Wilson
My name is Sara Wilson I am 24 years old and I am with Armored Outreach International. I am from Texas and went to Charis Bible college. The headquarters for this ministry is located in Sweet Springs, Missouri. I am here in Indonesia for 4 months, until May 14 with a team of 5 to serve and be a light in any way possible. I have really enjoyed getting to serve here at Mountainview. In Indonesia we have spoken at many schools and have been volunteering doing English clubs and serving in various prisons. I have really enjoyed serving at Mountainview. I am hoping to come back to Indonesia next year.
In your life, you have choices. Sometimes things
happen in this life that make some choices harder than others. But in reality everyone gets to decide what they believe, and that belief will pave the path to where their life will lead them. This is my story of how God taught me to believe Him despite my circumstances. At a young age life began hard, I grew up in a home where violence was the norm. My father was a raging alcoholic and nothing was ever stable. My mother was out of the picture most of my childhood trying to provide the financial stability for our home. So my father was the one I ran to for love, affection, and esteem. Due to his addiction, alcohol was always chosen over me, his own child. Time and time again this happened and it created a complex in my young childhood mind that I was not worthy and a burden. Starting at 12 years old, to cover my pain I ran to partying and alcohol. I thought at that time that no one cared; little did I know that the Father in Heaven was calling out my name and had a destiny for my life. He was going to teach me what it meant to persevere and believe His reality despite my circumstances.
At age 14, my father passed away and my world came tumbling down, and that is when I met Jesus Christ. His love crashed into my heart like a tidal wave. Hope and truth came flooding into my life and all the pains of my upbringing began to be washed away. The Lord taught me that He is a Father to the fatherless and that I never have to be alone again. He began to turn my mourning into dancing, and my gloom into joy. Though I once was in darkness He transferred me into His marvelous light. A year and a half later after receiving Christ, I lost my mother to cancer, but this time the Enemy could not pull me down. God had equipped me now with His truth, He taught me during this time how to persevere and believe His promises when circumstance tried to pull me elsewhere. Jesus gave me His armor and through that armor I could withstand the fiery darts of the enemy and take the shield of Faith and believe! Never again would I fall to the trials in this world, but through His Holy Spirit I could persevere. Through His Holy Spirit I could believe.“ O death where is thy sting?”
The Messiah revealed to me that it is not by my strength nor my might that I can prevail, but it is through His Spirit. Now, I can confidently say that I am healed from the inside out. The destruction and pain of my past doesn’ t define who I am, God defines who I am. I have learned through Christ, all things are possible. By His grace we can be filled, by His grace we can persevere, by His grace we can conquer.
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