By Janet Seever
Carla R is a person who doesn’t let adversity phase her. “God has a plan,” she says. When adversity strikes, she strives to move forward with joy. She has faced cancer twice and has dealt with six months of unemployment. In each instance, she has seen blessings come from adversity.
Trusting God during the lean seasons, Carla says, “Be faithful, trust God when it’s tough, don’t give up. And when it’s not tough, rejoice. God gives us messages if we only slow down and listen and keep quiet.”
In November 2017, she was laid off from a company she had worked at for almost 10 years. Trusting God throughout her time without work, she was never in a state of panic and never had to collect unemployment. When Centre Street Church’s “Build More Room” campaign came up, and they were praying for donations toward the new NW Campus building and an addition to Central Campus, Carla took a step of faith.
“I thought about it and prayed,” says Carla, “and even though I was not employed, I felt I should make a lump sum donation, in faith. It was not a massive amount, but for someone without a job, it was significant and a bit scary. Just over a week after I made the donation, the job I have now was posted online. I applied, and within about a week and a half after that, I had a job offer!”
A graduate of the University of Calgary, Carla has a degree in communications studies. She is now working at a company where she can help establish the systems and processes. Hired to work in health and safety administration, she has had an incredible opportunity to be involved in and learn interesting new tasks such as contract management and vendor compliance.
Coming to the Lord
Coming to the Lord was a process for Carla. As a child, she went to church, but never felt like she belonged. It left her feeling like she was from the “wrong side of the tracks.” She knew there was a God who was watching her and knew the Bible stories, but there was no personal application in her life. She quit attending church when she was quite young because it “was uncomfortable, seemed like a burden and not a lot of fun.”
“I was one of those people,” Carla recalls, “who felt like I could do whatever I wanted and it didn’t matter. If it felt good—do it. I used to be exact opposite in the thinking from who I am now.” She used to be pro-choice. One of her best friends was gay, so she would go to the boy’s town club with him and would feel comfortable hanging out with cross dressers. She even went to hear Dr. Henry Morgentaler, the famous abortion rights crusader, while she was at university.
Her thinking has changed 180 degrees from her university days. Jesus has made all the difference in her life.
In 2005, Carla’s grandmother was moving to Calgary, and her family knew she was a regular church goer. Where could she attend church? Carla’s family had heard about Centre Street Church and it was nearby, so they felt Grandma might be comfortable there.
To check it out, Carla attended a “Plant Big Seeds” fundraising concert, and then started coming to church . She found Centre Street Church to be a warm and loving environment, never judging or intimidating like other churches she had been to previously.
She remembers sitting through a sermon and “kind of freaking out” because it seemed like Pastor Henry was speaking directly to her in his sermon. How did he know her? The sermons were so different from the hard-to-understand sermons she had heard as a child. She often found herself holding back tears. One lady at church told her that all of her tears and feeling like crying meant God was speaking to her.
As she grew in faith, she volunteered in the bookstore, children’s ministry, and security. She has found a loving church where she belongs.
Freedom Session
In 2016-2017, Carla went through the Freedom Session at CSC. She felt God was drawing her to go, but didn’t really know why at the time. She had heard about it at church, and a friend who went through it spoke highly about it.
“Going through Freedom Session is sort of like going through chemotherapy,” says Carla. “You don’t want to go, it’s hard, you feel lousy, but overall it’s there to heal you.”
People mistakenly think Freedom Session is only for someone who has issues with alcohol or drugs, but it can be any issue holding them back from experiencing freedom in Christ. Whether they know it or not, everyone is dealing with issues from the past. With Freedom Session, people can work through all the issues that they have dragged along with them all through their lives. Maybe it’s the messages people heard as children in school. During Freedom Session, the participants identify all of these negative messages and release them to God. It’s a matter of forgiving people and knowing you’re forgiven as well.
“It’s kind of like the 12-step program,” Carla explains. “It’s faith-based and really, really difficult because you are digging in. You figure out things that you had no idea were going on in your mind.” She wanted to work on her problem of being judgmental and critical.
Born and raised in Calgary, she felt that that her value was based on performance. In high school, she was anorexic—because she had to be the best at everything. Her body was something she alone could control. As a result, she mostly lived on rice cakes and diet 7-Up. Fortunately, anorexia is no longer a problem for her.
“I think one of the most important things I learned in Freedom Session—and it still gets me all teary when I think about it—is how broken everybody is. We see people and we’re so quick to judge them based on behaviour, their sins, their appearance, and we have no idea what’s going on behind that.”
“I’m a work in progress,” Carla says. “God’s not done with me yet.”