HOLLIE WILCOX

TRUSTING

GOD WITH THE PROCESS

Hollie Wilcox

Hollie Wilcox has a great love for Boone. She loves the way this small town mixes with the University culture and mostly, because she gets to call this place home. She and her husband Joel serve at Cornerstone Summit Church and Hollie is the Community Prevention Coordinator of the Western Youth Network. She has been a part of the WYN staff since 2008.

It was an indescribable feeling. This is what I felt at age 14 while at a youth conference in Texas, like “every knee shall bow down and confess that Jesus is Lord.” I had heard about Jesus because both my grandmothers were devout Christians, who prayed all the time, but my first encounter was in that big stadium. I felt a draw in my spirit for something I couldn’t wrap my head around. It was a weird feeling and I sort of left it at that. It would be a matter of years before I would have another encounter with Jesus.

It took a few turns around some hard corners between adolescence and adulthood to see God’s handiwork in my life. Looking back, I feel thankful to have spent the first 17 years of my life growing up in my parents’ little red house with a barn and a pond. We lived a simple life in Sugar Grove. My mom was a teacher, and my dad, a contractor. We had everything we needed but we didn’t have anything in excess. Not that it mattered. Being able to run bare-feet through the yard, climb trees, pick blueberries, and garden with mom are some of the favorite things I have learned to appreciate about my childhood.

I had a great childhood. My parents were always present. They were helpful when it came to homework, loving my brother and me, and providing a safe and strong structure to our home. My brother and I didn’t spend our nights watching television or playing video games. Rather, we loved the outdoors because we had the prized luxury to run on safe territory. I didn’t begin to appreciate this hallowed liberty until I grew older, realizing how many children live around crime and unsafe neighborhoods. I am fortunate to have tasted and experience such a jovial freedom as a kid.

Although I experienced such joy as a child, I was taking one of the worst turns when I started the sixth grade. I entered middle school at 5”7 and weighed 140 pounds. I had an unusual stature for a 12-year-old. I became the laughing stock and often got picked on by the other students. Bullying wasn’t a term yet developed in schools. Then, it was an unspoken uni

versal law that kids who got picked on, just got picked on. Like most middle schoolers, at that age, I was figuring out who I was and learning which things were important to me. Getting made fun of was an added element to that hard-enough process of discovering who I was. In result, I had a lot of aggression and anger toward other kids. I began to assume this identity that was created by my circumstance: the bad girl.

By the time I entered high school, I not only began to assume this identity of being the bad girl who smoked weed and drank, but I liked the idea of being bad. It was appealing and edgy. As I continued to walk in this image, I also started to notice how men valued me for my body. So, I lost my virginity at 15 because I enjoyed the validation and approval men gave me. At that age, it seemed like the acceptable thing to do.

As high school continued to pass from one year to the next, my issues continued to layer on top of each other. I struggled with my weight, appearance, popularity, and the need to feel accepted. To compensate for those issues, I started to use Adderall, which eventually led to the use of cocaine. Ultimately, it carried into my first year of college and only worsened. The summer after graduating high school, I reached one of my lowest points. By then, I was using cocaine daily.

I had lost a significant amount of weight, which people began to notice. All my friends were complimentary about my newfound body. I had a great approval for how thin I was becoming. After spending many years being bullied for my weight, I was finally feeling pretty and skinny. Thirty pounds lighter, I was loving the attention so it made me want to keep using the cocaine. But with that, it came with a price. Community College. I failed every class because cocaine was taking over my life. I could no longer sustain my good grades and eventually stopped attending class because I was going to fail the semester anyway. So one day while sitting in my apartment, my mom showed up to confront me. She told me that day, “People know you are on drugs and you need to stop.” In hysteria, I remember thinking, “I’m 18. I can do what I want.” Even while I was losing performance in school, I still felt in control over my life and my weight. And that was the one thing I wasn’t willing to give up.

It wasn’t long thereafter that I was living on a friend’s couch because I no longer had my own apartment. I remember moving from one friend’s to another and it all hit me one day. I had this realization I was addicted to cocaine and knew it wasn’t going to benefit me for the long haul. I immediately called my mom and confessed that I needed help with my addiction. She and my dad came to help me pack my things and take me home. They eventually bought a small house and let me live in it. It gave me space for independence, and it gave them the ability to check in on me (as acting landlords and parents). Gratefully, I spent the next few months going through counseling and recovering from cocaine. My parents did whatever it took to see me succeed. They are what you think parents should be, full of innumerable chances, your biggest fans, and biggest supporters. I am thankful for my parents because while I was in my early adulthood, they gave me the tools to help me succeed. Given, this wasn’t my last time using cocaine, I was able to regain some stability in my life. I eventually finished my Associates degree at Caldwell and transferred to Appalachian State.

It was during my time at Appalachian that I began to date a Christian guy. We occasionally went to church together, but I was too caught up in partying to take religion seriously. Although I imagined marrying him, he didn’t have the same desire because he wanted to marry someone who shared those same faith values as he did. Every relationship seemed to always end up this way, “Hollie, you’re great…” and then a big “but” interjection. I was deceived that I was inadequate and could never be good enough. In result, my life would turn around a horrific corner straight into the comfort of alcohol.

There was a lot of drinking. The minute I was finished with my classes, I would race to the nearest bar or go home so I could drink. It was all I wanted to do, to stay drunk. I began to get lost in the drinking like I did with the cocaine. So while I was in class one day, I was presented with the opportunity to study abroad in Costa Rica. “Yes! I am going to drink and party so much!” I really thought Costa Rica was going to be one big party because my life was exactly that, a constant party scene.

But while in Costa Rica, although I had the company of friends, I remember feeling gravely isolated and very alone. Coming off that break up, being in another country where I didn’t speak the language, I found myself reaching defeat. There was a pivotal turning moment for me while in Costa Rica. I was lying in the top bunk in our cabin, hearing the monkeys yap outside in the background, and clearly remember thinking to myself: I feel so alone. My eyes were filled with tears and all I could do was lay there. I didn’t know God at the time but I clearly see now that this was the shifting moment. I had encountered God in Costa Rica. I was crying out for Him indirectly in that moment. Waking up the next day, I remember telling everyone I wasn’t going to drink anymore. My friends who were on the trip sort of shrugged off my declaration because they thought it was just another phase I was going through.

different outlook. I saw how joyful the people in Costa Rica were with the little they had. I envied so much of what they had that it made me really think about my life and my priorities. I was convinced that I needed to make significant changes in the way I was living my life. So I continued to choose to not consume alcohol. I was received by the same response I experienced in Costa Rica. Although some friends were supportive of my choices, everyone essentially thought I was going through another phase. But with my birthday around the corner, my friends surely thought I would be over this no-drinking-phase. It wasn’t a phase. I had lost my desire to indulge in alcohol. After my birthday, I was no longer the “party girl” and because of that, I realized people didn’t want to hang out with me anymore. People didn’t enjoy being around the sober Hollie. It was a wake-up call. The sober me wasn’t a valuable person to them.

While still figuring out how to go out with my friends and not drink, I got connected to the Dibiasi family and began working at their Italian restaurant in Valle Crucis as a waitress. I remember spending the slow times during my work shift out on their porch. Joann, the owner, would always meet me outside with her Bible and talk to me about faith and the Lord. She would read scriptures to me and invite me to church. By then, I had tried to go to church by myself. I had gone twice, which I felt good about so I was open to the idea of going to church with her. A few weeks later, I went to her church.

During my first visit, I remember thinking the totality of worship and the dynamics of church was very different, in a good way. I remembering thinking to myself, “If my personality was translated into a church, this would be it.” It was cool because I felt like I could be myself. By the end of that service, the pastor gave an altar call for those who wanted to receive Jesus as their Savior, and I felt led to go forward. I was the only one who walked up front to give my life to the Lord that day. It was very emotional. I didn’t know anyone, yet I remember feeling so accepted. I found myself returning week after week, surrounded by people who helped me walk out of darkness.

I started to see a big change in relationships. I was surprised to see that the boys weren’t trying to chase after me and the girls weren’t as catty. It was a different and good place to be. People genuinely cared about me and didn’t judge me based on my past. I was accepted for me, Hollie, as a person. As my new life was unfolding, I was losing many of my friendships. I had some friends who were supportive and some who believed this was going to yet again, be another phase. Even my mom thought it would be a phase but seven years later, I am still a Christian.

Becoming a Christian is only the beginning of someone’s journey. It was the start of mine. It was a long, tough process, and can still be. Christians paint this picture that once you receive Christ, your life is perfect and you won’t have any problems. But all of those insecurities and baggage I had didn’t go away. If anything, they were magnified. I came to the Lord as a sexually active drug addict and drunk, into a place where there were so many others who grew up in the church. Having lived so long in the world, I experienced and felt judgment for not being as holy. Sometimes that caused me to be upset and bitter at the church and it took me time to grow in humility and grace.

Yet while journeying through my faith, I met Joel, the incredible man of God who showed me the beauty of real love that can only be formed by Christ. Our dating and engagement story is an interesting one. After we dated for a couple of years, there was a great pressure for us to marry. I think culturally, it was expected that if a couple in church was thriving for a certain amount of time, this was the next thing to do. All of our friends were getting engaged and married, and being the one of the older girls in the group, I felt like we also needed to be where they were.

I remember getting engaged in the month of February and by the time June came around, I was so stressed with planning and the pressure to fit into this mold, Joel and I called off our engagement. I refused to fit into another image that other people had for me. So ending our engagement left me bitter toward other couples getting married.

I remember feeling very disconnected from my relationship with God. I wasn’t staying in the Word of God, and I didn’t have a desire to walk with God. I think it allowed for opportunities like partying and drinking to be reintroduced into my life. While I knew Joel spent a lot

of time receiving counsel and praying through things, we had broken up and called things off altogether. I didn’t know how to properly cope with the internal and external things in my life: Joel and I called off the wedding, decided we didn’t need to date any more because it didn’t seem like we had a future together, and a family friend had just died. It was really easy for me to resort to my “old Hollie” habits, so I did. I let go.

After growing tired of these old habits one night, I drove to Joel’s house to apologize for my wild behavior of partying and flirting with other men. I thought I could easily convince him I was ready for us to be together and that these other men weren’t important. Well, Joel told me he didn’t want to be with me. It was difficult to hear him say no because Joel has a heart of gold. He could never say no. His heart is full of second chances and countless “It’s okays.” I left his house with the worst feeling, like a painful dagger in my heart, but I realized I couldn’t do what I wanted and treat him that way.

For the next six weeks, we barely spoke a word to each other as I stayed on my face, praying to the Lord in my living room. For six weeks, I cried repeatedly. Sometimes, tears were the only prayers I had. For six weeks, my posture stayed on that one spot in my living room. I was hurting, but I was also learning to seek God in humility, and to not pray out of manipulation or ulterior motives. I remember in those six weeks, praying for Joel and myself as individuals rather than as a couple who needed to be together. My focus began to shift and I had to grow in my confidence of knowing I could really trust God with all things.

Weeks later, I approached Joel after church one Sunday and told him I had been praying for him. His only response to me was, “Thanks?” Although that response wasn’t pleasing, I knew I was taking a leap of faith. I left that day with an assurance that we would be together. Ultimately, we got engaged a second time (six months later, while on a mission trip in India). And sometimes when I share with people about our double engagement, people are confused or embarrassed for me. But I am not ashamed about the process we went through. My marriage didn’t come without hard work, forgiveness, God’s love, and lots of prayer. I hope that in my transparency, others wouldn’t feel ashamed about their stories. Joel and I had to process through healing and trusting each other again. The testimony in all this is: Can you trust God in the process? It gets tough while we’re in the process because in the moment, we want what we want. And I wanted to be with Joel but I had to trust God. I didn’t come onto the scene knowing this, but have learned, there is nothing I can do to make God love me less. There is so much freedom in knowing that, because I realize I can be me with all my little nuances. I hope on my birthday, every year, I can say I am more and more comfortable with who I am. I want it to always be that process, to be who God has designed me to be. This is one of the most beautiful things about life. And I love that I can journey through life as a member of this community, sharing with those who come here, the sacred grounds that I have seen God manifest in His own deep love for me.

One sweet reminder of how God has showed me that deep love is learning that the professor who led the Costa Rica trip I went on loves the Lord. He later told me that he could see that something was changing in me on that trip. I know God placed Him on the trip and that he was not only witnessing this spiritual transformation happening inside my heart, but he was standing in prayer for me. Years later, I still keep in touch with him. You will never know how God connects our stories to each other, but He always does. Look at the people He put in my life: my professor, my husband, and the Dibiasi family. My story will continue to be a process, but the joy in that is, I can trust God with it all. Written with Pangshua Riley ~