“How Did I Arrive at this Juncture in My Life?”

Eden Burch, a beautiful mixed baby born into the Seventh Day Adventist church in November of 1989, has lived a simple life overall. One filled with the small things that make life special and one that would crumble to non-existence without the ever presence of her strong, independent mother. Her father, being addicted to drugs since age eleven and going back and forth to this day, was never in her life for more than a sporadic “day out of three year”  experience or a once in a decade “I’m alive and well, Surprise!  May I take you to the zoo?”  Her mother had to take on the mommy and daddy role and persevered admirably in the stead of sole bread winner, spiritual head of household, and woman of God. She raised her up along with two siblings that resulted from a second marriage as she had been divorced since Eden was a baby. How did Eden, a child fundamentally fatherless since birth, arrive at her current juncture in life? That is a question that embodies many small puzzle pieces and spans over 20 years of trial, error, and encounters with her creator. Now she will tell you a little more about it.

“You know that no matter what, regardless of your father, I will always love you and be there to support you?”  The theme of this simple statement from my mother’s mouth is largely representative of my entire life. It was just me and my mommy until I was about seven years old and she married the nightmare known as my step father. Although the man was a miserable being I was blessed with two of the most wonderful siblings a girl could ask for from the ordeal… blessings born out of a looming marital curse, the only two things that made the horrible marriage worth it for my poor mom, and worth my toleration. Before they were a part of our lives mom was, as I said, all I had. We slept together, shopped together, ate out together, cooked together…we were buddies, and the friendship, support, and unfailing, loving, motherhood she provided me with up until her remarriage and even until now, are foundations laid so strong that nothing can separate me from loving my mother.  She was there when I needed her most and dealt with my feelings of desertion and low self worth resultant of being a fatherless daughter. Most importantly she raised me to love and respect my Creator God and to honor ALL of his laws to the best of our ability. We honored every Sabbath together since the day I was born and we tried to make household worship a habit.  Eventually around the age of nine, the relationship my mom had with Jesus led me into a personal relationship and impressed me to be baptized for the first time. With all my little heart I was convinced that my life was to be His and in my innocence and determination I was submerged and brought back up into my own personal journey with Him. This is where it truly started, although my later life was to be riddled with failures and shortcomings, the ultimate desire and longing of my heart never changed. At theend of it all my life was to be His one way or another. Up until age fourteen, my mother’s decided path for my spiritual life was generally the one I took (or acted out at least) and I wasn’t truly able to begin true character development until I took off for academy.

Shortly before leaving my hometown for school l was impressed at a Revelation of Hope seminar by Mark Finley to be re-baptized, five or six years after my first decision. I was older and now truly understood what a relationship with God required of me and I was ready to, in sickness and in health, truly and finally devote my path to Him. Little did I know that shortly after emergence my greatest adversary would throw anything into my life he could to snare my soul while it was young and tender, to keep me at all costs from doing the will of Jesus, even if deep down it was always the essence and desire of my heart.

Upon arrival at Platte Valley Academy in dry, boring Nebraska I began what was to be my adult life. After that day, Iwas never again to truly live at home. For all intents and purposes I had left the nest and would only return on some of my home leaves, holidays, and summers. This new relative freedom (relative because Adventist academies are chock full of stringent rules and regulations) bred different forms of subconscious rebellion. I never, not even during that period, forsook God, or pushed Him away, but I certainly allowed many bad things to intermingle with my spiritual walk. In between going to church weekly and talking to my school mates about God when it came up, I had a sailor’s mouth and got more involved with the boys than I ever should have as a woman of God. This time was truly dichotomous in nature because although I was doing things I had no business doing, I was in an environment conducive to spiritual growth and never went totally off the deep end. After a summer and a semester at PVA I transferred to Sunnydale Academy in Missouri in a frantic attempt to escape the torturous work of the dairy farm and the dean I disliked so strongly. This school was the first place that held a very specific bearing on my spiritual walk.

During my few semesters at Sunnydale I was still playing footsies with the things I had gotten tangled up in before, but the change in atmosphere began to do a steady work in my heart.  It helped me begin applying the desire in my heart to serve God with decided efforts and actions in my daily life. Gradually my language cleaned up and I wasn’t so crude and vulgar’ my nature seemed to shift in general. Although I still made many mistakes, God had begun taking the authority given at the decision I made in the water, and worked on me slowly and steadily from the inside out. By the time I graduated from high school foul language, secular music, and vain justification of my physical wrongdoings no longer consumed me. They were no longer a part of my overall lifestyle…from that point forward they were only to manifest themselves sporadically over the years but along with much guilt and repentance. This was the marked change made during my high school years. God had truly wedged His way into my heart to stay.

Almost as if we had an unspoken deal, my life was His but I still had some infidelity issues at times, I would occasionally slip up and stumble over His moral laws, but He was not going to leave or forsake me. He was patiently chiseling away at my heart tiny piece by piece, preparing me for what He was going to ultimately do with me.

Upon graduation I proceeded to enroll at Oakwood University, the school I had joyfully planned to attend for the past year or so. I was ready for a shift in atmosphere both spiritually and culturally and embraced the opportunity to step out on my own. By the grace of God the transition was fairly smooth and my days at Oakwood were marked with much less trouble than those in my high school years. Sure I slipped up here and there, but the authority of God in my life controlled my overall path and set limits on the level of waywardness I could reach. Through powerful  AY’s and many personal reading experiences my standpoints and conclusions have strengthened and the pressing feelings of God’s imminent coming have motivated me to allow God to do a much sharper work in my life. Something beyond the surface…true character development by His law and power. Through Him I have begun the ultimate mission to eliminate all things that are contrary to Him both in action and entertainment and to make His principles and love the meditation of my mind daily.

 Along with this growing relationship and increase in conviction my heart began longing even more than before to spread God’s love to others. All throughout my life He has infused my heart with tearful empathy to strangers’ woes but this grew in intensity to a point where my complacent peace was taken away on the matter and the constant longing of my heart was to DO something for Him and to bring fruit into His kingdom…to please Him. After praying for Him to manifest His voice in my life more strongly and clearly He impressed me to begin doing literature evangelism. So I did, for spring break and half of the summer. All I can say is that period of time was one of the most intimate in regards to clearly differentiating His voice in my mind and being overwhelmed under the amazing feeling one receives while being directly used by God for His purposes. Canvassing served as somewhat of a culmination of my development process and helped me to reaffirm all of my convictions and spiritual realities. So much so in fact that nothing felt the same when I returned home and a painful process had to begin, but not truly until a half a year later.

A removal of certain dangerous influences from my life. This dangerous influence is a friend of mine I have had around for almost three years; he is the second person that played a significant role in my spiritual walk. He unfortunately represents my sporadic downfall and not my uplifting. My entire experience with this individual has been marked with a sinister overshadowing theme. He is in the church by birth so he’s close enough for comfort in ways, yet so detached within the heart that he can do nothing but pull one away from God. He seemed to literally hold the office of my personal Satan in the flesh, there to physically tempt and taunt in times of weakness or to try and make me question my beliefs and convictions so vigorously that he brought me to tears. The ironic thing about it is he is supposed to be an Adventist himself, so the entire picture resembles the stories I’ve heard of the devil planting people within His church to cause His followers’ downfall. At my highest spiritual moments he’d be there to persistently coax me until I’d give in and sin against my newly strengthening morals (the problem was I enjoyed it). If not to chip away at my morality he’d be there to bash down my love for the Creator  as if it was a joke or attempt to confuse me on His doctrines and laws and pull me into a very liberal Godless worldview. The saddest part about it all is that these battles took place right after I would be newly convicted on something from God, and also sadly after I came back from canvassing my summer. It is almost as if he is the one person in the world that knows enough about me, how my mind works, and how l respond to life to place his influence in at his convenience and yield results. The devil won’t put something grotesque in your path to cause you to fall. I found he will use someone you trust and are attracted to, and possibly even have a certain amount of feelings for to pull you from the salvation of Christ’s sacrifice. This is why most recently I have decided that I need to completely rid my life of this influence. Something so influential for bad can be stopped in no other way besides complete removal. That is the hard part. Once people have ingrained themselves within the fabric of your life, it takes more than scissors to take them out because they are in your heart and mind…bound within your memories.

How did l arrive at this juncture? Through downfall and uprising…tears and smiles…struggle and victory…guilt and repentance.  God has indeed brought me a long way, but there is a long way to go before I am living up to His heavenly standard.  I still must submit on a daily basis and allow Him to point out and change my shortcomings. I also must more strongly uphold my duty to witness for Him and bear the fruit characteristic of one transformed by God. I still have things to sacrifice for Him and evil still abides in my heart as it does within all ofmankind. But one thing is certain my love, my will, my life, my desire, my future, and hope are entirely His and anything I must do for Him in order to become more like Him I will do as He reveals it to me. There is no hope besides Him and no light within this filthy world besides that which pulsates from His word. My prayer is that by His grace and with His daily presence I can overcome myself, rid my life of the negative influences remaining, and march forward unto

Victory so when my Master comes in the clouds and looks me in the eyes my countenance will outpour celebration, excitement, and a feeling of victory, and shame will be far from me. This assignment was immensely beneficial. I never realized the clear cut pattern of my ups and downs in correlation with spiritual warfare as I have at this moment. God is battling for my soul on a daily basis and the evidence is striking. Reflection on how far God has brought you brings such a feeling of gratefulness and humbleness. Almost like a person who loses 200lbs and holds their fat pants yet again, realizing that they have truly made a change in their lives and that everything is new! But just as the bearer of the fat pants knows, the initial victory isn’t sufficient for sustenance. Just as they fell victim to obesity before, they are subject to falling into the same trap…IF they let go of the things they have learned, and turn their path away from the one they succeeded on. This makes me really ponder, even at times when I have felt spiritually impenetrable the devil had an attack tailor made for my mind frame, and I was still able to fall. Ultimately, without moment to moment communion with God and prayer for deliverance from temptation I will always have the same problem. Just as the newly transformed person is on guard, monitoring and being careful to keep the junk food out of their kitchen, and exercising daily that which they have learned and experienced to work…I now know what I need to do in order to keep the extra weight of sin far from me and eliminate my propensity to succumb to sneaky temptations. Thank you Jesus for your covering blood and deliverance, draw us nearer to you daily as we struggle under the weight of our own filth and cleanse us. Even so come quickly, Lord Jesus, we are waiting for You, and love You, Amen.