When God Shows Up: Real Stories of FaithНамуна

Valerie*

"...But Jesus spoke to them at once. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “Take courage. I am here!” Matthew 14:27, NLT

“The first time I smoked marijuana, I was ten years old.” Valerie’s first experience with drugs led to a relatively casual use of marijuana and methamphetamine. But her addiction escalated after her father’s death six years later. “I looked up to him,” Valerie says, “and he was a drug addict.” Following her father’s footsteps, Valerie got involved with a gang, sold drugs, and was eventually incarcerated.

Reading Matthew 14 from the beginning, we realize that the disciples' experience on the boat “immediately” follows the death of John the Baptist and the feeding of the 5,000. How often life goes this way: periods of calm followed by days and weeks where big, sad, or surprising things happen. Grieving a death opens us, and we choose what to let in. For Valerie, her father’s death marked the beginning of her season of crime and addiction that led her to “rock bottom.”

In April 2011, while sitting in a holding cell on lockdown, Valerie prayed for the first time: “Lord, if you are real, I need you to show up.” Days later, Valerie received news that her additional sentence would be shorter than she expected. “That was my sign that God was real.” In total, Valerie served about five more months, “but I was changed.”

Her prayer life continued to grow. After praying for a Christian bunkie, Valerie was assigned to bunk with Tamra, one of the most outspokenly faithful women in prison at the time. Tamra* introduced Valerie to Stand in the Gap’s Rhonda Bear, who was teaching her first Women in Transition class at the time. Valerie remembers sitting in the class, hearing Rhonda tell her story of addiction, incarceration, faith, and Stand in the Gap. “I knew that if she could change, I could change. And that gave me hope.”

Today, Valerie is a wife and stepmother. She is pursuing her master’s degree in social work and has been sober since 2011.

Valerie experienced (and continues to experience) what happens when God shows up. In each of our lives, “strong winds” and “heavy waves” will arise. When they do, look to the God who walks on water.

Imagine yourself in the boat. Are you, like Valerie, able to hear Jesus say, “Take courage. I am here!”?

*Names changed to protect privacy