Retrospect

While looking at old files from my time at Tarleton, I found a testimony I wrote to share at a Bible study during my first semester. I needed this backwards glance into the Lord's work in my life. The struggle of anxiety mentioned in this speech has been excruciatingly real this past week. As I work to complete a thesis, deadlines and the pressure of what I don't yet know has been ominously intruding on almost every thought that tries to cross my mind. Isn't it amazing how persistently a certain struggle or hang-up can follow us? If you can relate, spend some time reflecting on where you've been and what God's brought you to and through. Here's my edition:

What has God done in my life this semester?

October 23, 2012- Tarleton BSM- I Am Second Bible Study

            I’m Elizabeth Casey, and I am a first semester graduate student here at Tarleton. I am going for a Masters in Agriculture. To lay out some background on who I am, part of the I Am Second Bible study material asked me to write out the story of how I changed by becoming a Christian. Well, I trusted Jesus as my Savior when I was six years old, and I know that that was when God led me to become a Christ-follower.  So instead of a before Jesus and after Jesus story, I decided to write out the story of something that has been a struggle for me throughout my life with Jesus. I have regularly struggled with anxiety about my future. Since I was little, I wanted to have a plan of action for my life. I was deciding on where to go to college when I was in the fifth grade. I’ve always been driven in school, and I put a lot of pride into where my good grades would get me one day.

            Then in highschool, I had a youth pastor and a group of Christian friends who told me to look to the Bible for guidance in my future. They said to pray and wait for God’s direction. So I started doing that. Since then, God has refocused my perspective on the future. He brought me from chasing what I can gain out of life through my planning and my performance—to how I can give up everything and serve peoples of other nations. It doesn’t make sense. God sent me overseas on mission trips, lead me to attend Bible college, and then here to study agriculture so I can help people with their crops and livestock while telling them about Jesus.  That was the story I wrote out for I Am Second.

During this semester:

            God has been constant throughout all of the change that goes into moving to a new city and starting a new program at a new school. I got my undergraduate degree in a mixture of Biblical Studies and Anthropology. I was neither a member of FFA, nor did I grow up on a farm. So needless to say, this has been a semester of many academic firsts for me to say the least.

But He is so good. I was expecting to be looked down upon in my classes since I don’t have an Ag background, but that didn’t happen. God actually connected me with a couple of Christian professors who believe in what I want to do with my degree overseas. They are now guiding me in my classes and even enjoy introducing me to things like driving a tractor and setting up crop research. Being tested over ruminants, insects, soil chemistry, and agricultural statistics for the first time in my life has been overwhelming at times. But God has refreshed and affirmed my decision to study here.

 People look at my life and think that I’m good. A girl I worked with this past year would call me Mother Theresa. And some days, I’d believe her. I start thinking about what I want to do with my life, and think that I really am a pretty good person.

But this semester, God has humbled me! He has shown me that I have very little to do with my life. I love, because He loved me first. He saved me. He matures me in His word. He has sent me overseas. He broke my heart for people of other nations. He planted a passion for science in me and has provided the means for me to study here at Tarleton. He connects me with people who love Jesus and encourage me in the faith. I can’t take credit for anything. All I really do is try to cling to Christ and daily prove that I need a Savior to guide me. So this semester, God continues to show me that the goals I have for my own future are not meant to be a reflection of me, but of Him and His work.