Those who know Britta know her Minnesotan accent sometimes slips out. And to those who really know her, the endearing drawn out ‘bags and eggs’, although an easy target to poke fun, are a beautiful reminder of a journey of grace.
On the last day of high school, Britta found herself in a cabin of only girls about to break the only parental rule of no booze and no boys. Although never a fan of drinking in itself, Britta’s striving to seek acceptance and friendship through a liquid that made her life numb, left her alone and sick on the floor as her choices were exposed by morning light. In this small moment she began to wonder if this was all to life? Was a beautiful life out there that would offer more than emptiness? And if this was true, could it ever be offered to her?
Although the community known by those who follow Christ was seen through her sister’s time in college, as an incoming freshman the desire to simply find friends was greater than finding truth. The first night of college could have gone either way; into an endless scene of partying and back into the monotonous nights of emptiness or into a new community of hope, holding out purpose.
It was this first night she met the two older girls at the end of the hall with the crappy, breaking, black futon. Little did she know this futon had been bathed by prayers, asking the Father for a hurting girl to sit on it and meet Him in fullness. It was on this futon she found community in a Challenge Freshman Lifegroup, that drew her heart to know there was more.
The first couple of months of college were hard. She saw the way others around her in this community were living and the freedom they found in Christ but believing that it could be offered to her without her doing something for it was foreign and awkward. Grace was a concept for those who were cleaned up, and clean she felt not.
In the everyday choices of surrender to walk with open hands, in the late nights of processing truth on that broken futon and in the understanding that His faithfulness is greater than that of humans, the characteristics of a graceful, gentle Father was found. In humility, it was known that Britta had nothing and could offer nothing to earn her salvation. And in working through the shame of the past and replacing it with grace that was held out, He began to redefine her identity into something so much better.
No longer marked by a girl yearning to fit into the popular crowd, Britta is now a daughter of the King. A daughter unable to imagine life without this community but more importantly without resting in the arms of her Heavenly Father, who wants all of her, not just the clean and whole but the broken and dirty.
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