Feature Friday: Sarah's Testimony and God's Unconditional Love
“But I want you to know, brothers, that the things which happened to me have actually turned out for the furtherance of the Gospel, so that it has become evident to the whole palace guard, and to all the rest, that my chains are in Christ. And most of the brothers in the Lord, having become confident by my chains, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.” (Philippians 1:12-14 NKJV)
Hi! I’m Sarah Blakely. Thirty years old, single, “dog mom,” living in little Ishpeming in the beautiful U.P. of Michigan, and loving life!
You might know me as an anchor on TV6 News. Maybe you know me as “that cookie girl.” Maybe you know me through mutual friends. Maybe we are friends! Maybe you know me and don’t like me. Or maybe you don’t know me at all! Either way, I’d like to share a little about myself with you, if you’d be willing to listen. Brevity is not my forte, but I want to be thorough and honest.
Today, I’m sharing my personal testimony with you about my relationship with the One I call my Father, my Savior, my Protector, and my Friend, Jesus. Everyone has a testimony to share. Mine is not one of addiction, abuse, tragedy, etc. like some powerful testimonies are. But mine is one of broken relationships, overcoming legalism, and God’s profound faithfulness in the protection of His children.
My hope in sharing my story with you is that if you are a believer, you will be encouraged and emboldened to continue in the pursuit of Jesus and glorifying God; if you are struggling with your faith, that you will see the Lord’s faithfulness in my life and be inspired to keep seeking Him in prayer and studying the Bible, His own Word; if you are not a believer at all, that you will perhaps be stirred and have a new understanding of why so many people in this world have been captivated by the glory of Jesus.
I grew up in a Christian home, and my family went to church every Sunday (sometimes twice a day), most Wednesdays, and even some Friday nights. I knew all the hymns and memorized Bible verses, and I loved it. I LOVED it! My little home church in Indiana was far from perfect, but we loved God and each other, and it’s where I grew to know Jesus.
I also went to Christian summer camp every year as a kid, and when I was 11 years old, I told my camp counselor it was time for me to be baptized. I was dunked in the camp swimming pool on a cloudy June day ready to follow Him into whatever He had planned for me. I was a child of the living God, and He had given me such a beautiful, deep understanding of His love and power at such a young age— it seems so incredible to me even now!
In my pre-teen and teen years, I went to every youth group event my church had. Every conference, every lock-in, every bible study, every outreach/volunteer event, every Trunk-or-Treat, every church musical— I did it all and loved every second of it! I loved God’s people, they were my dearest friends. I never thought of anything outside of my life. I never knew bad things. I really had a lovely, happy childhood.
It was as I got into my pre-teen and early teen years that I started to really see the world around me, particularly what was going on in my own family. I had always been aware of bad things that happened to people, but they always felt so far from me, and most of the time I would think, “Well, that would never happen to me or my family because we’re Christians, and Christians don’t do those things, and God protects Christians from those things.” More specifically, I felt like my family was immune to divorce.
It wasn’t.
If at this point in my story, you’re thinking, “Seriously, girl?? That is what this is about??” keep reading. As a Christian child, the word “divorce” is devastating. The word was hardly in my vocabulary, it seemed so impossible to me. For any child, that word can be devastating. Divorce rips families apart. It’s ugly. It pits siblings against each other, children against their parents, and is very rarely the amicable “conscious uncoupling” Hollywood pretends it is. It affects the entire family for the rest of their lives.
My dad was always my buddy as a kid. He told the best jokes, had the best laugh, and the biggest smile. We sang silly songs, I watched him play piano and guitar and fix up cars. Whenever I had a sick day from school, he would secretly take me shopping for a new outfit and we’d go get lunch at Dairy Queen. We were special pals! And while he loved all three of his kids, I was his Precious Gem. No, really. That’s what he called me! Never “Sarah,” always “Gem.” His only daughter, and the youngest.
When I got to my teen years, things changed.
Something my family did each summer was go to a small gathering, hosted by my paternal grandfather, called the Refreshing Waters Renewal. It was a three-day, morning-till-night preaching fest of most of my dad’s side of the family and a few other families, maybe 80 of us in total. This was hosted by my grandpa’s church— a small church that met in his house in Missouri— that he was the leader of. It was a completely separate thing from my home church, and no one else from my home church went to it. In the beginning, it was about preaching the Bible and building up each others’ faith. But it slowly began to turn into bashing other churches and condemning every other church for how “they believed,” and it then quickly turned into preaching an extremely exclusive “gospel”— that this small group of people was the only true Christians in the world, and that surely no one could know the true gospel if they hadn’t heard it preached the way they preached it. They were the only ones going to Heaven. Anyone outside their group was going to Hell.
One summer, my dad preached a sermon at the Renewal titled, “The Conditional Love of God,” where he claimed God doesn’t love you if you don’t love Him first.
At this point, it might be good for me to explain what legalism is, if you aren’t familiar. It’s the “Christianese” word describing a false gospel that says salvation comes from being a good person and doing good things. Often people proclaim they believe the true gospel, of “salvation by grace through faith in Jesus, not by works so no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9)—rarely will someone actually say they believe salvation is works-based, but very often people will live their lives as if they believe salvation is based on doing and being good, that we earn our way to Glory with God. Sometimes legalism means telling us we need to pray harder, be more involved in charity work, do more things with church, make sure you only have church friends so you don’t get sucked into the world, or looking and acting a certain way— or else your salvation is in jeopardy and you’re headed for Hell.
For example, for me, it was being told by my dad and my grandpa’s church that I could only read the King James Version Bible (KJV) because all other translations were “false and misleading.” (KJV is an excellent translation! But the archaic Olde English can be confusing and lack clarity sometimes for many Christians because we don’t talk like that. There are other great translations too, like New King James NKJV, English Standard Version ESV, New American Standard Bible NASB, to name a few.) Other legalism I faced was my dad being against the fact that my brothers and I were involved in extracurricular activities (gymnastics and band) because in his eyes, we would almost certainly be swayed into leaving the faith by spending all that time with “the world” and not enough time with family or at church. That’s just a few of the many legalistic things I was told. (Praise the Lord I never fell into believing the lies I was being told!)
On the surface, it appears like good and virtuous things. And while living an upright life is good, it can quickly become an idol if we aren’t careful— we may take pride in how good we think we are. We should live in a way that’s pleasing to God, but not because we fear Hell. We should live that way because we love God and want to glorify Him! The sad reality is that legalism is false and unbiblical, and it causes people to feel like they could never truly earn God’s love, because who can be good all the time? Who can perfectly have the right friends (who are they?), perfectly be involved in church enough (how much is enough?), perfectly say the right things, look the right way, do the right things... It causes people to fear they could lose God’s love and their salvation at any second for any misstep. It always leads to pain, confusion, and a lack of confidence in faith and salvation. And it always leads to eternal death.
I was just 13 years old when I heard my dad preaching on the conditional love of God, and I remember thinking that day, “This isn’t right.” But how could I disagree with my dad? How could I stand up to him that way? I didn’t dare!
I often wondered if I misunderstood him. In fact, just last week I did a deep dive online to see if maybe, maybe I could find the sermon. And believe it or not, I found an audio recording of it! I was nervous to listen to it. What if I really had misunderstood him all this time? What if, in my spiritual immaturity as a child, he was speaking truths I could not comprehend? But as I listened to the audio, I realized I had heard my dad exactly right. Here’s a small portion of what he preached that day: “If it is true that God’s love is unconditional, surely we’ll see that in the scriptures. If it’s true that God loves sinners, if that’s true I would certainly expect news like that to come from Jesus.”
My young ears could not believe what I was hearing. My dad was claiming an earned salvation, that God doesn’t love you first. You must first love God, and then God loves you. How many of us live our lives like that— that we must prove ourselves worthy of gaining His love?
My mom didn’t go to the Renewal that year. I didn’t quite understand why at first, but it eventually became clear. She also disagreed with what was going on— the church bashing, preaching a false gospel, the way they spoke about other people.
Over the next two years, my parents’ marriage was very obviously falling apart. It probably was before then, but I never noticed. It got to the point where my dad refused to speak to my mom. I remember one time my dad was sitting at his laptop at the dinner table writing another sermon, and I was next to him asking him for lunch money for the week, and my mom was standing in the doorway with her arms crossed and said to him “So, are you just not going to speak to me?“ And he looked back at her and said, “When you’re ready to talk to me about spiritual things, then I will speak to you.“ He was so self-righteous that he refused to speak to his wife because she wasn’t “holy” enough for him. It got so bad that he was leaving nasty notes to her intentionally left in plain view of his children. One note in particular read, “If you’re going to do something, just do it and get it over with.” In other words, he was telling her if she wanted to get a divorce, then she should just do it. But the worst of his offenses was telling me and one of my brothers over and over again, “Your mother is evil and satanic.“ A father said this to his teenage children. He told us that she was the devil and that she was going to hell and taking us with her. And I told him he was wrong. (He didn’t like that.)
Eventually, the summer before my sophomore year of high school, they got divorced. He claimed it was all my mom’s fault. In fact, he told the judge that she misled him and lied to him about who she truly was when they got married— that she wasn’t truly the Christian she claimed to be. Why? None of us proved ourselves worthy. He claimed he was the victim, since she was the one who filed for the divorce against him. Don’t get me wrong, my mom isn’t perfect. She would never claim to be! She made mistakes too, but she never called someone’s salvation into question because they didn’t meet her expectations for how they should behave.
My dad then moved away from us in Indiana to be with the other church (my grandpa’s church) in Missouri.
Over the next few years after the divorce, my dad told me over and over that he thought I was going to Hell. I can’t tell you how many times my own father told me I was going to Hell. He even wrote it on Facebook one time! And his reasoning for believing I was going to Hell was because I was not doing enough to prove I was a Christian. No matter what I did, it wasn’t enough for him. I was even actively involved in Campus Crusade for Christ when I was in college, and he scoffed at the idea of going out to share the Gospel with the lost. And I told him over and over that I thought he was so wrong.
I eventually cut him off and quit speaking to him, for my own mental health. It was incredibly hard and painful for me for many years. For a long while I refused to talk about it. And whenever I did, I would just cry. I loved my dad, my childhood buddy. And I lost him.
Through the help of my Christian friends in college, I came to forgive my dad by God’s grace. God allowed me to let go of the pain. It certainly wasn’t easy, but the Lord strengthened my faith in college more than I ever thought possible. Forgiveness is a hard thing to learn and practice. But He had given me immeasurable grace in forgiving my sins against Him, how could I not practice that same forgiveness to my dad for a lesser offense?
When I graduated college, my dad came to my graduation ceremony. It was the first time I had spoken to him in years, and I was surprised he came. It was the start of repairing our relationship, though we had a long way to go. I prayed so hard for so many years for God to restore my dad’s heart and soften his heart of stone, for him to seek the true Jesus, and to turn away from hatred and turn to love in Christ. I held onto hope that God would restore him, because He is the only one able. I even prayed that God would destroy that church, even if it felt wrong to ask God for that.
Then a few years ago, I was able to live closer to my dad (I got a job in Arkansas) and we were able to talk more, and I even went to visit him a few times. Though we’ve never gotten into the nitty gritty of what happened, one day he said something incredible to me. He told me that he and some of the people at his church realized that they had been skipping over so many parts of the Bible that command us to love others, share the Gospel, and live generously with others. He had even gone on a missions trip to Africa! I couldn’t believe my ears! A few months later, my brother told me something I never thought I would hear.
The church broke up.
One day, my grandfather (the church’s leader) was preaching, and he told the church, “If you stand with God, then you stand with me. Come now and stand up here with me to prove you stand with God.” This man equated himself to the Almighty! It’s a wonder he wasn’t struck down that instant! (This was just one of many, many outrageous and false things he has spoken in his life.) While some got up and stood at the pulpit with my grandfather, a miracle happened. My dad refused. He defied his own father, seeing the error of his ways, and chose Jesus instead. It took him until his mid-50s, but the Lord softened his heart, and my dad left the church.
Our relationship still has a long way to go. A very long way to go! And he and I both have a long way to go individually, too. But God is so good.
My dad was remarried just a couple years after the divorce (which was also extremely upsetting for me, but I’ve healed from that pain too), and they have two kids, my half-brother and half-sister. They are absolutely lovely! Their family has moved away from the church altogether after my dad got a new job in Oklahoma. And we are working on our relationship, and yes, it’s still difficult.
My mom has been my best friend and cheerleader all this time. Through it all, she never told me to abandon my dad. She always said she hoped one day we could have a relationship again. What grace she has! She’s always encouraged me to pursue and trust God.
Sarah and her dad — Dec. 23, 2017
I am continually amazed at God’s faithfulness. He protected my heart as a child from a false gospel. He granted my young ears discernment to know what was true and what was not. He guarded my heart from unbelief through difficult trials. He poured out blessings along the way— good jobs, good friends, happiness, and more. I won’t say I haven’t had my struggles and vices; I had a very long seven-year spiritual dry season in my twenties (a story for another day, perhaps)— and even through that time, God protected me from unbelief.
So. Do you know the Gospel? Like, really know the Gospel?
We were created by God to enjoy perfect fellowship with Him, but sin crept in and tore us apart from Him. God knew the relationship needed to be restored so that we could live with Him in eternity instead of being banished to Hell for our offenses against Him. So He commanded His children to follow strict rules, knowing we could never live them perfectly, but requiring His children to live out His commands in faith— with the heart. He knew we could never satisfy the perfect life He commanded, and He planned all along to send His One and Only Son, Jesus, to live that perfect life for us. Jesus was hated for it and was crucified, bearing the weight of all our offenses in His death. And by God’s power, Jesus rose from the dead— yes! He ROSE FROM DEATH! And because He paid the price we owed God for our sins, we can spend eternity with Him, simply by trusting Him, believing in His promises, and allowing Him to change our hearts for His glory. And He did it all because He loves you!
God loves you, unconditionally.
There is not a single thing you must do to earn God’s love or salvation. And there is not a single thing you could do to lose salvation once it’s truly yours. The good news is, you are so loved by your Creator already. And despite what my dad preached, that “If God loves sinners, surely we would see that in scriptures,” we do see that in the Bible.
“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8 (NKJV)
“But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved... that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” Ephesians 2:4-7 (NKJV)
“By this we know love, that He laid down His life for us.” 1 John 3:16 (NKJV)
It’s plain as day. God loves you, and He wants you to be part of His family and to enjoy His glorious presence. And God shares a special, even deeper love with those who do seek Him and are His children— if He already loved you enough to die for you, imagine how much deeper and more fulfilling and satisfying it is to trust in Him and commit your life to following Him! It is so worth it!
My earthly father may have failed me, but my Heavenly Father never will. “He will not leave you nor forsake you.” (Deuteronomy 31:6) God will never, ever divorce His children. He loves His children. He loves you more than you can ever imagine. He alone has the power to change a heart of stone, no matter how “far gone” someone seems. And He is faithful.
Thank you for letting me share my life with you, albeit just a scratch on the surface. Please feel free to reach out to me if you ever need to talk to someone, I judge no one.
I love you, and God loves you more.
-Sarah @sarahmblakely
Recently our dear friend Sarah reached out to us about sharing her testimony here on the blog, and we are so glad she did. What a inspiring, moving, and beautiful testament to the faithfulness of God through every season of life. We love you, Sarah! Thank you so much for your loving and encouraging words, and the wonderful reminder of who God is and how great His love truly is. What a blessing!