I met Eva Briscoe within my first two weeks back in Kansas City. I was visiting small group girls’ Bible studies to see where God would have me, and Eva happened to be sitting next to me in one of them. She knew that I was new to C&YA, and she asked me how I had gotten there and about my testimony of salvation. We hit it off and stayed afterward a while chatting. I loved talking to her;it was easy and full of peace, like talking to a friend, even though we had just met. I prayed that evening and over the next few weeks that the Lord would have Eva disciple me. I had not yet taken our Cost of Discipleship class, but I asked the Lord ahead of time to pair us together anyway. The Lord graciously said yes to this prayer. As I am writing this reflection and looking back on how the Lord used Eva in my life, I am driven to tears. I am immensely grateful for the godly woman the Lord placed in my life to lead me in His word.

I brought 26 years of baggage filled with all the wrong things to the table, but Eva brought God’s word to it. I had spent an entire decade endeavoring to accumulate the praise of others, and I had placed my confidence in the admiration of women, in the affirmation of men, in the outward appearance of my identity, in the shape of my body, in the comfort of routine, in producing physical creations of my own and in accomplishing impressive physical feats. I was an emotional rollercoaster with an all-or-nothing approach and an impossible expectation of perfection. I was struggling to give up the false safety nets and controls I had gripped tightly as my go-to exit strategies when life became too daunting. I had an unrelenting drive to be comprehensively self-sufficient and an expectation for others to be just as self-sufficient. I saw my unmet desires in this world through a lens of discontentment, and I was broken for the things I wanted but did not have. Yet God used Eva Briscoe to teach me how to walk in truth, as well as stand beside me as I learned how to walk with the Lord myself.

Eva did not do anything outlandish or special. She did not try to impress or entertain me. She was simply obedient to God’s word, and she prayerfully trusted the Lord to grow me to become obedient to His word too. Eva also did something for me no one had ever done before. She stood beside me, and as I fell over and over, she tarried there with me without holding me to an impossible expectation, without responding in condemnation, without prompting shame. She showed me what it looked like to trust the Lord by trusting the Lord for me when I did not yet know how. Eva listened, she asked me questions, and she provoked me to consider what God says in His word in relation to each set of circumstances. She patiently ministered grace, mercy and kindness to me in a way that was almost alien to me. She met me precisely where I was and did not hover over me in judgement. She was a steady rock who pointed me to my Strong Rock with words of sound hope in every situation.