Testimony: “He Makes All Things New” by Lisa Bridges

He Makes All Things New

Lisa Bridges

“I’m here at the edge of the Ocean, I’m scared but I want to jump in. I’m frozen by the tongues of men, just want to feel the water on my skin. I wanna dive, I wanna swim. Just to sink in the water deeper than I’ve been! I want to lay back against you and drown in your love! Father you are enough!”

These are the words of the beginning verse and chorus to a song I wrote in 2012 at a Worship Intensive.  As I sing and type these words even now, they take me back to the time before I knew who God truly was.  Sure, I went to church every Sunday, which was not an option in my parent’s household, and I am thankful for that.  I knew of God, but I didn’t know Him.

So many things surrounded me as a child, but in the midst of it all, I always felt that I could never measure up to who I thought my loved ones wanted me to become.  Isolation was a close friend of mine during my pre-teen and teenage years.  By the time I reached college, I felt the need to make up for the time I had lost and made several wrong decisions.  I was searching for something to make me feel whole.

Before I came to have a relationship with Christ, I tried to drown all my pain and emptiness in things such as alcohol and smoking.  It started with alcohol and it was a dangerous road that quickly became an addiction.  I can still remember the night I came home from celebrating my upcoming graduation and feeling the entire room spinning. Although I still didn’t feel great, I didn’t stop.  The momentary feelings of relief were enough to help me get through my days, which were consumed with work and thoughts of what my drinks would be that night.

I soon learned that trying to numb my pain with alcohol was not enough.  Not long after graduating college I started working and moved out.  In the midst of all of my pain and transition into my new career, I met Christ at a conference with a busload of amazing women.  That weekend at the conference, they loved on me with the Love of Christ in a way that made me desire only Him.  I surrendered my life to Christ that same weekend. A few months later I participated in a church wide fast for twenty-one days.  By the end of the fast I no longer had the desire to drink and within another month the desire to smoke had left as well.

Fast forward to this past summer of 2015, when I went to the doctor for a routine checkup. I didn’t really tell anyone, because I never want to be a bother.  After I received my first call back for a test, I sought prayer from close friends.  It was hard to share my journey with friends, because my natural tendency is to do it alone and be self-sufficient.

The first test results were great, but the day was approaching for me to receive the results from my blood work and ultrasound.  A friend who is more like a sister texted me the night before asking for the address and time of my appointment.  On my way to the doctor’s office I came upon a huge protest, and I immediately felt somersaults in the pit of my stomach.  Later, as I sat waiting in the doctor’s office, I had forgotten about the previous encounter.  When the doctor called me back, he briefly went over a few results, but he really wanted to focus on the results from the ultrasound.  I thought I was ready, but I was nowhere near prepared for what he was about to say. He proceeded to tell me that I had several non-cancerous tumors in my uterus which, combined with my age, reduced my possibility of having children to zero.

I immediately thought I was going to lose it, but thank goodness my sister had demanded that she come.  She gently rubbed my leg, and I knew she was saying “It’s going to be okay,” but in the pit of my stomach it didn’t feel like it would.  I tried to listen to the rest of my results and hold it together; I did pretty well until the nurse tried to console me and I lost it.  I wrestled with the thoughts of never being able to have kids, but knowing that God had placed that desire in me. I could hear the enemy saying, “Yup, you gave up your one chance.”

Years ago, while believing the lies of the enemy and listening to an irrational mind of my own, I made the horrible choice to have an abortion.  It was a horrific day that I will never forget.  I was alone, and therefore, I could not be asleep for it.  So as I killed my baby, I was awake the entire time, and felt all of it.  I drove myself to fill my prescription and barely made it home, where I wept nonstop.  I don’t speak about this lightly, and I have asked God and my child to forgive me.  He has, and it is because of that alone that I can even speak about this.

I didn’t realize that in the midst of that moment in the doctor’s office, where I thought my dreams were being shaken, that God was doing a deeper work inside of me.  As we left the doctor’s office, and my sister prayed the most beautiful prayer over me,  all I could hear was the enemy. He was taunting me in a new way with the same pain.  I didn’t even feel that I had a right to ask people to pray for me and my healing.  I thought that this was my lot.  Of course God was saying “No daughter, it’s not”, but who can hear that when a wound has the scab yanked off of it?  How could this be good God?  But what I didn’t realize was that as I began to speak the truth in safe places, that He was healing me.

The healing did not come from just one thing.  God began to open up the rooms and spaces of my heart and go in and replace lies with His truth.  One of the rooms that God began to open and heal concerned the time that I was raped right after college by someone who I thought was a friend.  It was a traumatic event, but over the past few months, not only has He been restoring how I see myself, but He has healed me of the panic attacks that I used to experience.

God has had me on this journey of facing the pains from my past.  Every place that has a scab still hurts to touch.  It hasn’t been so He could hurt me, but because He has wanted to bring healing in several areas of my life.  I love how we think our acts of obedience are taking us to our promise, but really they bring us to the desert where we have the opportunity to be alone with God, to truly heal and overcome the obstacles that would keep us from walking in the fullness of His promise.  During this process, I finally talked with God about the day I was raped, and it was then that He showed me and filled me with more love for Him than I ever thought was possible.  It was the choice to dive in and lean back on Him that brought me to this place.

Proverbs 24:3-4 says, “By wisdom a house is built, and through understanding it is established; through knowledge its rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures.”

The rare and beautiful treasures are the places where God has gone in and taken the pain and the shame of my past and brought healing, redemption, and restoration.

The second verse of my song says, “I’m here at the edge of the ocean, where fear no longer has a voice, now that I’m free from the tongues of men, Father Your love is rising again.”  In the midst of this journey, of stepping out in the ocean, diving deep into all that God has for me, I have found His love and it’s such a deep and beautiful love. So even though I may not have felt like a rare and beautiful treasure, I know that I am His treasure. He makes my heart go pitter-patter.

About the Author: Lisa Bridges

Lisa Bridges is passionate about young adults aging out of Foster Care. She is an active member of The Rock Family Worship Center. She enjoys creating new healthy recipes, exploring new cites both near and far, and discovering new musical artists. She is employed by U.S. Army Contracting Command.

Tags: God In Our City, Lisa Bridges, made new, testimony