Feb '22
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To the reader:
I had the honor of attending an event through my home church, The Well Boulder, and Trinity Church Denver. The event, Love Thy Body - A Night with Nancy Pearcey, opened my eyes to social dilemmas and how we can approach them as Christians.
The letter below encapsulates everything I wished I could have expressed to Nancy during our short time conversing, and what it made me consider concerning Perennial Devotionals.
While my primary goal in publishing this letter, is for it to reach her eyes, I welcome my readers to consider it's contents as well.
Nancy,
A follow-up from Love Thy Body - A Night with Nancy Pearcey at Trinity Church Denver.
Thank you for giving me a moment of unique connection. That moment where you look into another’s eyes with the intent to see and find a mutual understanding that few inherently possess. You shared a part of your childhood with me, and in turn, allowed me to see one of the unique ways God had called us both to himself. You gave me an affirmative piece of myself by stepping into a concept of God that few are lucky enough to experience.
Talking with you gave me a rare and beautiful moment of genuine human connection reminiscent of the community that’s so integral to our innate being. A moment where the anxiety took a step back, the nerves calmed, and the soul sang “this person understands why God is so important to me. This person understands how and why God is all we have, need, and want.”
Your talk, while addressing so many things I never truly knew were problems, sparked a desire to learn more. It made me realize that if I want to be a good, Christian, role model to my little sister, my nieces and nephews, and my own children someday, I would have to learn how to both understand and teach these hard topics. We can’t grow the mindsets of our younger generations, to pursue a fertile environment where they can both learn love and feel love, if we don’t understand the matters ourselves. We have to learn to become guides through these concepts that our younger generations are facing, to become stewards of the truth.
After our talk, I asked myself a common question, if my aim is to make the Gospel accessible, how did I myself find that?
In a weird twist of God’s perfect will, my fight to make sure no one lost their faith in trial like I was, ended up being the exact action that saved my own.
In a time when I felt too far gone to be saved, I cared more about the salvation of others than myself. And in needing to share God for their salvation and ability to access hope, I was forced to go to the spot I had previously found inaccessible. I was forced to pick up my own cross and let the thorns of my Christ’s crown tear apart the very being of my soul.
Eventually, I realized that if I wanted to help God’s people, I had to believe what I was saying. I couldn’t tell people that God loved them endlessly and deeply if I believed that God hated me.
Sharing the Gospel when I wasn’t even sure if God wanted me anymore is what taught me to look in the mirror, see the pain, trauma, and inequity written in my eyes, and pronounce through the fear “I love you. I love the body God has given me. I love the trial that has brought me here.”
I died to myself, rose for the sake of serving God’s children, and found life again by walking through a hell that taught me not only how much I needed God, but that I wanted him more than anything. And above that, God wanted me even more than how desperately I wanted him.
You have inspired me to reconsider the reason I write, the truth I write, and those I write for.
You gave me a space to publicly face the hardest part of myself and realize in the moment, despite it all, I still chose the God who created me.
Our talk will not soon be forgotten and I look forward to diving into your books and educating myself so I can more wisely educate others.
With Admiration & Respect,
Acayla Chung
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