  Dansey
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Last Activity: Today 03:06 AM
About Me
- About Dansey
- Biography
- Somewhat short, redhead who likes to be busy and sometimes be by myself.
I love learning new languages but really the only ones God has laid on my heart (Spanish, Russian, Chinese) - we'll see one day where that takes me.
I love these things about the Lord: the way the Holy Spirit directs my life, the way He wants to be involved in the little things, He's in control and I don't have to worry, His wisdom and His rebuke - I love how He makes himself so clear on His no. I love how he doesn't need me, but he lets me be used by Him. Plus a ton more. - Location
- North Carolina
- Interests
- Tennis, Learning Languages
- Occupation
- ESL Teacher Elementary School
- Gender
- Female
- Religious Adherance
- Christian
- Testimony
- The Lord has had His hand on my life from very young. He first made an impression on me at 4 when I lost my blankey for the 3rd day straight, and we prayed to find out where it was and my dad right after that prayer got a picture of where I had left it. I have known that he was real and believed in Jesus ever since I could remember. My life growing up was a log string of experiences of watching God's power affect, heal and love on people.
In high school, I was going to a church where I had few friends. I was quite depressed at that point because of my fear, shyness and social awkwardness in many parts of my life. Of course, the spirits that cause depression are suicidal spirits, so I often would be crying as I was driving because the voices (demons) in my head would tell me to drive into another car. I struggled with this for a while. My parents decided to try out a new church. The people at that church had a close connection with God and every Sunday in the worship I would sit in the chair and cry. I had no idea why I was crying. I think I cried for two or three months straight, at the end of that, I began to be able to worship God without fear. From that point on I prayed for boldness to overcome fear and shyness. I believe the Lord was softening my heart to Him and taking something out of my heart.
That next year I went to Chapel Hill for school and was on a gymnastics team. The Lord sent another strong Christian friend on the team who became my best friend. I am the kind of person whose superlative would probably be most skatterbrained, so the Lord drew me close and taught me about faith my first year in college. James 1 - faith is not doubting. I asked the Lord to make me hungry to read His word, when I asked Him this, I had no doubt in my mind that He would do it. Thus my faith for other things grew. Especially my faith for His ability to find the things I had lost. Onetime, I stepped on my friend's diamond earring that we had the day before prayed to find!
My sophmore and Junior year in college a lot was going on, the church I was attending was going through some drastic ideological changes. My family felt the Lord calling them out of the building on Sunday Morning. This and other factors caused our church to disband and us to be out of church. I asked the Lord to take control of it. There were several churches in the area that I would attend, but at times were not attending churches on Sunday morning, but fellowship groups with my friends or on campus. It was right about then that my friend began to be involved with some Street Preachers, who held up big signs that said some offensive things. At first I didn't agree with them or their signs. She however, fond of religious debate, engaged with them, increasingly more and more until eventually, it was talking to them on the phone 3 times a week at least. I was formally introduced to them the end of my sophmore year. Before that night and basically all throughout my life I had lived with guilt. Guilt that I'd never "witnessed" to many people about Christ. These people were the opposite and offered me a way to overcome my shyness. That night we formed a friendship and a connection, They inspired me to stand in the middle of campus with a sign "I'm too shy to initiate a conversation about Jesus, will you help me." I did it at the end of the year and it was quite exhierating.
The following year I was a roomate with my friend so I heard increasingly from the street preachers and my roomates and I continued to hold up signs. It was pretty fun, we even did it on Myrtle Beach and on Halloween night for a crowd of 70,000 people. Needless to say, no one got saved. The relationship between the street preachers was becoming increasingly close and their beliefs about witnessing and women submission started to grow in my mind and almost consume me. Near the end of my Junior year I began holding signs that I would have previously condemned. I began to sleep less and my gymnastics was declining rapidly, so much so that I had stopped competing all together. What really changed was my attitude towards other Christians. I began to feel superior because I was doing more for Christ, but I also felt inferior to the street preachers because they were giving up their lives for Christ. I started fantasizing about going that way on my own. It finally came to a head when we invited the preachers to go on a mission trip with us and they were to meet my parents. My father (who is very prophetic) took one look at the main street preacher and knew He was a predator. He played dumb and when we went out to dinner he saw the extent of my infatuation. At one point in the dinner my dad was speaking and then the street preacher interrupted him, He saw me (and I remember) sitting up and leaning forward (as if at attention) and had the glazed look over my eyes, like there was no filter to what he said. Of course my parents skin was crawling, but they played it cool and told me to call them to meet with them to discuss things. I at that point knew that they were not going to give me permission to go on the mission trip but was settling in my heart that I would obey “God” over my parents and go anyway. The rhetoric at this point had made me more “spiritual” than my parents because I witnessed more.
When I finally met with them under the direction of the Holy Spirit, they read me all the characteristics of a cult. It was then that the Holy Spirit took the scales off my eyes! Thank you Lord. He also at that point slammed my picture of the world and revealed to me the nature of spiritual pride. Spiritual pride is not just looking down on people. It is viewing the world in a hierarchy, where you look up on those who do more and down on those who do less. God took me to the edge of spiritual pride to show me what it is made of. Now, when I set foot somewhere, my instinct for it is very strong.
The interesting part about the whole time was that not once in all the “labor” I was doing for God did I see anyone get saved or come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
After that the Lord had me go to a house church which was crucial in building up my security in the Lord and my belief that we are all level at the foot of the cross.
What was scary was that when I went back to tell my friend about what revelation I had, she not only could not hear a word I was saying but also almost convinced me back to her way. It was then that I recognized the spiritual dimension behind it! Praise God that the Lord took her out of it in his own way later on!
From that point on, the Lord has called me in and out of various fellowship groups, sometimes on a Sunday morning and sometimes not. Many times, I cannot go to churches because I smell the structure of pride thick there. I have become increasingly less fond of the religious traditions that not only separate us as the body of Christ, but cause us to be unable to hear the word of God. I have been out of a traditional church for several years, but the Lord has never ceased to provide me with fellowship, elders, instruction, exhortation, edification and growth during that time. I have felt closer to any Christian, because my tradition does not divide us. I see them not as Pentecostals, Baptists, Presbyterians, but as members of the Body of Christ.
He has built my faith and boldness so that my shyness is slowly melting away. The cool thing is that my shyness prevented me and protected me from relationships the whole time through college and high school, where my low self esteem made me particularly vulnerable to unhealthy relationships.
I could go on an on with my testimony, because the Lord has been present in my life for such a long time, and has been no less than a wonderful father and even gentler master to me for so long. I am in His hands and the more I go into Him, the more I realize that my way stinks and His way is the best.
God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.
If today you are comparing yourself to other Christians or feeling guilty about what you are not doing for God, let me encourage you- that feeling comes from the structure of pride of whom Satan is cleverly the master. Rest in knowing that the Holy Spirit is in charge of what you “do for God” or better stated what He does through you.
I have seen more fruit when I stopped working and let the Holy Spirit make me what He wills to. “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which He prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”
“For it is God who makes us both to will and to do for His good pleasure”
