Reckless Girl

I grew up at Central Baptist Church and I was the perfect little Central Baptist grown girl. I attended every single conference, mission trip, and event. I was overly involved in every Christmas, Easter, and 4th of July program. I was frequently listed to sing on the solo rotation. I was baptized here at the church twice: once when I was 6 and the other when I was in the 8th grade as the result of a very moving disciple now weekend where I realized that I needed to rededicate my life to Jesus. I was, and still kind of am, very well known by most everyone in the church as a very good girl who loves Jesus and was in the church whenever the doors were open; sometimes even when they weren’t. And for a really long time, I thought that all of that was enough. I thought that that was what it meant to be a Christian and to live my life for God. I’m not saying that any of that stuff is bad. It’s actually very good stuff. I love all of the programs and events that happen here. I know that they honor God and witness to others. But attending conferences and singing on a stage is not how God called us to live for Him. He called us to live recklessly, abandoning everything that we have and know for Him. 

When I graduated high school, I found myself still settling for this comfortable life I had grown accustomed to. I lived at home with my parents, attended a small community college in the area, was dating a guy that I met at church, and was still extremely involved in all things church related. Suddenly, though, I found that it wasn’t enough. All of the things I was doing… I thought they would fill me, I thought that they would make me a good person. But, even though I said I believed in God’s grace, my actions showed that I trusted in my works to save me and make me “righteous”. And it had worked for me until I was faced with temptation and I fell. When I fell, I fell hard. I couldn’t believe myself. How in the world did “little Kimmy Cusick” do something so wrong, something that I had always told myself that I would never do? Then, as it always happens, everything began to fall apart in what once had been a perfectly sculptured world. All of a sudden, this once confident girl was shaken to the core. I didn’t know who I was anymore or what I was supposed to do. I was crying all of the time, I didn’t recognize myself anymore, and I could barely even look at the bible without shaking with guilt. 

That’s when God did what only He can do. He began to re-make me. He began to make beauty from my ashes. He began to build me and mold me into the girl that I was always meant to be. I decided to make a reckless decision and move to a new state. While there at college, I made another reckless decision. I decided to give up dating and date Jesus. I received so many criticisms for both of those decisions, but those decisions have opened my eyes to so many things. I think one of the most important things was that I learned how that perfectly sculptured world that I had once lived in was really just a safe and comfortable falsity that I had built on a foundation of sand, easily destroyed and built on the lie that life was all about me. I also learned that I had made an idol of wanting a guy to love me instead of treasuring the perfect and unshakable love of the only Man who can ever completely satisfy me (God, of course). 

You see, once I began to follow God’s leading and make choices that seemed reckless to so many others, I finally began to truly live for God. Life became about Him and His unrelenting kingdom instead of me and my flimsy sand castle. There are so many things in my life that has changed since I began to let God lead me in this way: the way I look at life, the way I look at myself, the way I look at others, and the way I look at the gospel. To sum it all up in one short sentence, I learned that life and the gospel is not about me. It’s all about God. It’s all about serving. It’s all about following Him. Even though it’s hard and I have to work to live this way moment by moment, fighting my selfish desires that eat at me day and night, I never want to live my life any other way:  only, completely, and fully for Him for the rest of my days.