Tracey Robitshek

The year was 1974. Richard Nixon was impeached and resigned as 37th US President. The horror movie “Friday the 13th” debuted. Patty Hearst was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army and Ted Bundy began his string of horror. It was a year of chaos and instability…something that would certainly frame my childhood and much of my life for the next 40 years. The only thing that was constant was God – He was my only trusted and dearest friend. At times, He felt close. At others He seemed so far away. Like most, my spiritual journey was heavily influenced by who may have tickled my ears at the moment, what the latest book may have taught, and whichever minister I found myself sitting under. I was a tumbleweed, at best. I knew about God, but really didn’t know Him. Ultimately, having no depth of root, my selfish desires overwhelmed my attempt at a relationship with God.

Even in seasons where I felt the closest to Him, I found myself drawn to and struggling the most with behaviors that were born out of the deep-rooted pain of my younger years. I knew Jesus as my Savior, but He was far from being my Lord. My life was a merry-go-round, and I didn’t know how to get off. It wasn’t until my life hit rock bottom – when I had reached my breaking point – that I finally started to dig deep into Him. I had had enough of me and surrendered. I let go of my life and began to focus entirely on the lifelong dream I had never really pursued – to KNOW this God Who loved me beyond measure. It became the longing of my heart. My time with God became focused on WHO He is rather than WHAT He can do to heal the misery of my wounds and pain. I began to read scripture with one purpose – to find the heart of God. I went back to the beginning – studied the scripture from the epicenter through which it was birthed – the Hebrew scriptures.

I immersed myself in learning the passion and culture of Yeshua Himself and of all the Jewish men and women who penned the entire bible. The more I did that, the more I discovered HIM, the God of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob. The more I discovered Him, the more I was transformed. My eyes were opened to this beautiful love story between God and the apple of His eye. I saw my own life in the journey of the children of Abraham. I fell in love with the God that never stopped pursuing His bride, the God who opened the commonwealth of Israel to me and the gentile nations through Yeshua. All the pieces of the puzzle started fitting together, from Genesis to Revelation. It all began to make sense. And with it, the puzzle pieces of my life began fitting together like never before. For the first time, all the chaos and instability was transformed into peace and contentment, knowing that I had finally surrendered my will, my ways, my desires to Him. This broken little girl became whole again. And I can never turn back.