Coria Brock

Ephesians 6 :10-12, NIV1 Corinthians 13, NIV
"If I......but do not have love I gain nothing....... But the greatest of these is love."
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Coria's Life - His Testimony

What is love? This is the question I always asked and the wish I made for every birthday I had. That is, until I returned to the Father’s side. 

I came to know God through a series of events that He orchestrated in my life. It after when I was pregnant and gave birth to my son. When he was born, I experienced a serious injury to my back. The doctors told me that it would likely result in permanent disability, and there was a real possibility of ending up paralyzed. This injury left me with chronic pain. One particularly bad night the pain sprung up and was crippling. In that moment, I remembered the “God” my dear girlfriends told me about. In my anguish I prayed, “If You really exist, stop my pain, and I’ll believe.” I waited for a second, I felt a warmth spread along my back—He healed me! He proved to me His existence in a way I cannot deny. God is the Healer and no one can ever do what He did for me.

God created the desire in me to come back to Him. I began searching for everything that had to do with Him. I searched for movies, books, and tried to connect with other believers. I prayed to Him day and night! He gave my life a sense of being. As a result, I stopped hurting myself, as I always did, in exchange for it. One night I heard His voice clearly. He said, “You are not fatherless, I am your Father. You have been looking for love, but you have actually been searching for Me. I am God, and God is love.” He healed me again! Healed the pain that had been inside my heart! God is love and His love for me is unconditional. He forgave all my wrong doing.

During the first three years I knew Christ, the path of my learning about God has changed me from believing in myself, to believing Him. From believing in the work of my own hands, to believing I can’t do anything apart from Him. This road was not easy. As I began this journey, God said to me, “Do you know what Legos are? If you building a Lego castle, but you already have a skyscraper, how do you go about changing the skyscraper into a castle?” The answer is that in order to do so, it must be taken apart in order to rebuild it. When I came to that realization, I knew that’s what my life needed to experience. It needed to be taken apart, and then be rebuilt. I am like the skyscraper made from Legos, and He is responsible for rebuilding me into His castle. 
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But, something has already been built, to rebuild you must first tear down. What does it look like when the life you have is being torn up piece by piece? It’s hard to imagine if it isn’t happening to you, but God is faithful. As God was working to tear down the life I had, and started to prune me, He brought me to the passage from Deuteronomy. “Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell….” (Deuteronomy 8:4, NIV). In the first seven years of my life with Christ, God has taken me down the long road of tearing down who I was. I have walked through many valleys, but He has also brought me to many mountaintops. There are lessons, there are times where He trains us, and there are experiences He has had me go through to shape me. This is what it means to have a life in Christ, to be a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come. 

After God had taken me through these valleys and rebuilt my life I also realized He had prepared me for the husband He had created me for and the ministry He would call us to. God did not desire to see us make mistakes, but He allows His children the freewill to make our own choices. My husband and I chose things that led to much heartache, but He has brought us back to peace. Part of this process included a tearing down in my husband’s life. He had made a series of choices—building by his own hands—that led him to a life built on a poor foundation. But we needed to be in a place where we were ready to receive God’s new working, so the tearing down of the old had to take place. And, just like the Pharisees, who said, "We are Abraham's descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?” My husband and I had to first come to the realization that we were trapped and needed a way out before He could began correcting and reshaping us. And, even in the midst of reshaping, we must face the consequences of our actions and learn to bear them. Through this, we have learned about His forgiveness, His faithfulness, and His unconditional love. He has spoken promises into our lives, maintains our life’s purposes, and gives us strength to have hope. In this process of learning, we are transformed from our unbelief to come to trust in Him. We are learning to no longer engage in rebellious actions, but to seek His direction first. We take one day at a time, and one step at a time. And God is rebuilding from the ashes, beauty. It is His testimony, our love story coming to reflect His love.

Now, I am reborn in God. He has given me a new heart, a new life, and a loving family. He has given me a man who loves me as Jesus loves me. He has called us to walk with Him and be partners in His ministry. I cannot put into words the immense gratitude I have for what He has done. But this is my prayer—that the Lord would let me seek Him with every ounce of who I am. That I would be able to, every day and night of my life, be still in His love. I know that my life will continue to be a testament to His love as I cling onto His hands through this walk of life. Father God, Lord Jesus, I love You! My life has been picked up again because of You! My life is beautiful because of You! Thank for being the loving God You are! Amen!