Secretary
Tanya J. Musick
I鈥檓 not sure if you are going to be bored to death or horrified. I was born in 1950 so I have had a lot of time to do some very stupid things. I was born in Fort Smith, Arkansas, spent some very important years from 15 to 32 in Oklahoma City, with a three year excursion back to Fort Smith (see I told you about boring). My three sisters and I grew up in a very dysfunctional setting. My mother tried to keep us in church and teach us right from wrong, but our alcoholic father led us all to have some very major self-esteem issues and skewed ideas of what family life was supposed to look like.
At twelve, I felt led to follow my mother down the aisle when she joined South Side Baptist Church in Fort Smith. I thought I had given my heart to Jesus, but I didn't really understand what that involved. Needless to say, I spent the next 18 years living a miserable existence. After high school I involved myself in all things decadent, including 鈥渄rugs, sex, and rock 鈥榥 roll.鈥 For a time I was a hippie, including panhandling and partying as hard as I could. Then I became a disco queen. Basically I followed the drugs and the men. My friends and I strove to be as decadent as we could. It was all flashing lights, loud music, and emptiness. The harder I tried to fill that Jesus shaped hole in my spirit with all the wrong things, the more miserable I became. I tried everything, including a few attempts at suicide.
But God is good. He protected me from myself, remembering that promise that I made when I was 12, even though I didn't. He let me spiral downward, but protected my life. I finally got to the point where there was nowhere else to look but up. Life had become like the inside of a gray cardboard box. There was no color, no depth, no meaning. Something had to change.
One night, bored and desperate, I flipped through channels on a television. I paused to laugh at this funny looking woman with mounds of hair, absurdly long lashes, and a simpering little girl voice (Later on I found out that her name was Jan Crouch - what a blessing she was to me). I stayed to reach Jesus Christ as my Saviour. She had something I lacked. The other people on the set had something I needed. The man who preached showed me something I wanted. Jesus Christ. It couldn't be that simple. There had to be more to it than just accepting Jesus Christ as my Saviour. What was the catch?
The catch was that I had to let him into my heart, surrender to His will, and let him (through the power of the Holy Spirit) guide my life. Then He could give me the abundant life and eternal security for which I yearned. Life is so different now. Birds sound sweeter. The air after a rainstorm smells so fresh. Kittens and puppies are so much cuter. The sight of the Grand Canyon is so much more majestic.
It still amazes me that Jesus wanted me, that God protected me, and that the Holy Spirit is willing to put in the time to make me a different person. I have a LONG way to go, but I do know this, I鈥檝e come a long way. God鈥檚 mercy is so great that He looked beyond that drinking, scandalous woman and saw the miserable 12 year old reaching out to Him. His grace is so huge that He had enough to spare for someone as undeserving as I.
Most of the people with whom I partied are dead. I truly believe that God let me live so that I could minister to the needs of those who have similar experiences to mine. I especially feel the need to help teens understand that there is a better way than a life of drugs and disobedience. If I can help young people understand just how much Jesus loves them and how much he wants to enrich their lives now and for eternity, I will have accomplished my reason for being.
God has blessed me in so many ways. I was able to go back to school, and am now working on my second master鈥檚 degree. This time it is in Geoscience. I love being a student. God has also allowed me to be the church secretary and Children鈥檚 Ministry administrator at Calvary Baptist Church. I love my job. I love my ministry. God is good. God is above all that we can imagine. |
