NK and I had a deep, deep love for three brothers that were from New Jersey. The ultimate thing that we were attracted to was their faith in God. We personally do not know their relationships with The Father, but we did know that they were some of the few that publicly gave glory to God. It was their world tour of 2009. I would be comfortable saying that it was the prime of their careers. I can remember NK and I looking up all of members of the tour we possibly could. Then we found her. We found one of the instrumentalists on their tour. Their violinist, Christa Black. We did a lot of research on her, and to our excitement, we found out that she was a sister in Christ! We were so happy to know that one of our sisters would be representing The Father on that tour. Here is a little gem that I found in an album titled "THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE" of NK and my stalking abilities:
That woman behind John Taylor (JB's guitarist and musical director) was Christa Black. After their tour was over, we continued to follow Christa Black around on social media. It was later that I found out that she had a blog. I began to follow it, and I will say that it was very inspirational. Then, I remember she came out with a book! I begged my mom to get me a copy of it off of Amazon. She got it for me as soon as it came out. I can specifically remember laying outside tanning, reading "God Loves Ugly". This book changed my life. I began to forgive myself for my past, and starting embracing the fact that the Heavenly Creator loved ME!! From this book stemmed a new kind of relationship with The Father. It helped me think of how I really wanted my relationship with Him to look. A few years later, I began working with the youth at my church. My copy had circled around 15+ girls within a few months. I shortly began to realize that this book was not just inspirational, it was life-changing. It wasn't just for me, but for younger girls, and older girls, and everyone in between. I began following Christa more on social media and regularly reading her blog posts. I even had the opportunity to see her speak at the Revolve Tour in 2013. In a crowd of emotional girls, I saw her, and I pushed my way through security guards for her to sign my book. She pointed out that it was an original copy and I pointed out that she was even more beautiful in person. Even though I don't know Christa personally, I have some strange sister-of-Christ bond with her that I can't explain. I guess you could say she is a role model for me, or just simply a professional violin player that helped me with the most important thing in my life: my role as a servant of The Almighty.
So, you might be wondering why I am talking about Christa Black and the Jonas Brothers, and other crazy things that I did in my teen years. I assure you, there IS a point to all of the madness! Like I had mentioned earlier, I feel as if I have this strange bond with Christa. Her story and ministry is amazing, and something that I think every single teen girl needs to know about. A few weeks ago, Christa lost her baby girl. You can read about her story here. Luca Gold Gifford was her little baby girl who died just forty minutes after birth. I've read Christa's blog posts and instagram posts about her and her family's loss, and every time I read something, it breaks my heart. I think being an aunt of three boys and one girl all under the age of two gets my heart to tug harder when stories like Christa's comes along. Something that I took out of Christa's book was that she experience a lot of hate in her life, and a lot of hurting. She later decided to cling to Christ and have her life changed forever. God pushed her through the terrible moments of her life, and gave her a new life. As I read through Christa's words, I am so inspired and touched by the love that she has for God. In this time of her life, it would be SO easy to curse God and fall back to old habits. She has clung to Christ during this time and He has started to heal her through Him. This is an amazing thing. When someone experiences such a tragedy; especially to their daughter, naturally, humans tend to shut down. Christa has been so open about this experience, and she has not seized to praise God through her storm.
Christa herself may never read this post, but I know that others will. As a Christ-follower, I am constantly asked the question that says something like "If God loves the world, why does He allow suffering in it?". I'm not sure of the right answer, and no one but God does, but I have my own interpretation of it. In 2 Corinthians 1, it talks about "...The God of all comfort...":
"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort."
2 Corinthians 2:3-7 NIV
This is probably my favorite passage in the Bible because of how much hope it brings. I believe that the reason that God allows us to go through suffering is so that we can feel his mercy, love, and comfort, and then relate to others who are going through the same suffering-showing them all that The Father showed to us. For an example, my mom had breast cancer for many years when I was young. We know a woman who was just diagnosed with breast cancer and my mom has been able to reach out to her and walk along side of her during this time, because she knows exactly how it feels. I'm not saying that this is exactly why we go through hardships, but I think it is one of the reasons we do. Christa has already used this opportunity to reach out and love others because of this experience. I pray that all of us can act as Job did, and praise God through the storms.
Please join me in constantly praying for Christa, her husband Lucas, and their son Moses during this time. I pray that they will all continue to lean on the God of all comfort. I also pray that The Lord directs their family in the path that He wants them on in the future. Christa: know that you are an inspiration to many. You have changed lives simply because you chose to have Christ change yours. Thank you for all you have done for girls across the world.
"The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of gold, as pure as transparent glass."
Revelation 21:21 NIV
The book of Revelation talks about the gold streets in Heaven. They are described as pure and transparent. The streets could have been made of anything, but God chose gold. He chose gold to have the most Heavenly, Perfect, Amazing, Almighty God walk upon every single day. I believe that Luca is now in Heaven, walking along those streets with Jesus Christ, and is as pure as the streets are. If you would like to learn more about Luca Gold's life and to contribute to a healing fund in her honor, you can find it here.
In His Love Forever & Always,
Cassandra
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