Longing for the light: ”God’s love has set me free from my past.”
Nienke de Vries is now 37 and lives in the Oude Noorden area of Rotterdam. Since the beginning of her life, she has been looking for affirmation. She was drawn to the dark sides of this world. But she found a love one day, greater than the one she always so longed for: God’s love. In this interview, she tells how God changed her life forever and how she maintains an intimate relationship with Jesus.
”I grew up in Zuidlaren, in the province of Drenthe,” Nienke says. ”During my upbringing, I learned about the rational side of faith. The Christian faith was present in the family but very limited. I did not yet know the intuitive of the Holy Spirit and God’s love. ”Looking back on her childhood, Nienke sees that God planted seeds early on. ”In elementary school, I heard stories about God and Jesus. Now I know that everything has a purpose and that God’s love for me is so great. And that together with God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit you can have an amazing life and may walk in His light. ”
Nienke is very creative, she loved crafting but was seen as a rebellious child. In her childhood, this made her feel that she was not good enough. “I was often seen as the ‘ black sheep’. Guilt was what stayed with me. Partly because of this, I later started looking for affirmation in the wrong places.” In high school, Nienke says, ”I began to have depressive feelings and the darkness took over more and more space in me. I lived a lot in my head, which I also really see as an attack of darkness, and I was very insecure. Little by little I stepped deeper into that darkness”.
Insecurity
When Nienke is 20, she gets into a relationship with a boy, whom she later discovers is using drugs. ”I desperately sought affirmation from him but in retrospect was emotionally belittled. I believed everything he said and I too started using drugs and became addicted.” Eventually this difficult relationship went out, but Nienke was addicted and was in deep trouble. ”I thought the world was so complicated,” she says, ”I thought I wasn’t allowed to be who I am. I looked so much for affirmation, but often got the opposite.”
”I looked so much for affirmation, but often got the opposite.”
”All this time I have felt so empty and alone,” Nienke says. ”I had gone down the dark path, a path without Jesus and had no one to turn to. I became entangled deeper and deeper in darkness”. The love of Jesus was nowhere to be seen in her surroundings at this time.
Nienke moves to Groningen from Zuidlaren. There, because of a new but also bad relationship, she ends up in a very unsafe situation. Nienke: ”I remember well that one day I really feared for my life. I was in a totally unsafe place. I had had a physical confrontation with my then boyfriend and was besieged by bad people. I went to the police to ask for help. But they didn’t take me seriously.” It felt like a total emergency to her, where she was all alone. ”I didn’t know who to call. I felt so alone. ”That night was incredibly exciting and full of danger me. All the while the night darkness came and danger lurked everywhere. ‘
It also proved to be a turning point. Because at that moment Nienke started praying from panic. It was really a cry for help. The seeds of old began to sprout from the ground and became points of light in which Nienke cried out to something above, “Father help me.” ‘I called an anonymous helpline and they reminded me of my grandmother who always prayed for me and sang songs about God. For example, she often hummed the ‘ Our Father.’ I continued to pray myself and that gave me a lot of peace. I was writing a farewell letter to my earthly father and was drawn each time to the image of my heavenly Father. ” The insecurity remained, but Nienke received rest from God and little by little came to the light, out of the darkness.
Rotterdam
Nienke survived the night. In retrospect, it was this day that Nienke chose life again. “I had gained new courage to ask for help and got a place at the women’s shelter in Rotterdam away from the bad people who wanted to do something to her. In Rotterdam, I first came back to church, an evangelical church,” says Nienke. ”Here I experienced the Holy Spirit appealing to my sensitive, intuitive side. I began to understand more about God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit which made me live more in His light. ” Slowly, Nienke gained more perspective in her life. ”I really felt then that the Lord made me safe in Rotterdam. He gave me a new chance in this city. But He never said it was going to be easy.”
In Rotterdam, Nienke is building a new life. However, her life remains full of struggle between darkness and light. History repeats itself several more times. Nienke encounters darkness again and ends up in the wrong circuit again. But she also still comes to church occasionally. ”My old habits drew me back to darkness, to the wrong men and all the other bad habits in the dark world. ”
Fortunately, Nienke also still knew the world of God, of Light. ” On Feb. 14, it was another moment when the Holy Spirit spoke to me. I had rent arrears and a lot of shame. The Holy Spirit spoke to me in my mind and pointed out that I can also look at His light. I remember well when I asked a counselor for a candle so I could actually literally focus myself on the light. ” The sermons Nienke had heard at Young and Free where I occasionally visited came back to her mind. Focusing on the light on the light of God brought Nienke much. Solutions came to problems such as rent arrears. She was also once spontaneously anointed on a public bus by an unknown woman in Drenthe who told her that the Lord had sent her. Nienke longed for more, for the light and peace that so beckoned there.
”I longed for more of His light where I could find peace.”
See, you are beautiful, My friend. – Song of Songs 1: 8, 15 (HSV)
That great, unconditional affirmation and love that Nienke so craved in her life, she found with God. Nienke: ”I knew through the power of the Holy Spirit I experienced in the church that I was on the right path. Not everything would be right right away. But I was not alone. I was learning more and more to live from the identity I am in Jesus: His beloved daughter. This identity I could not lose by His grace. I kept making foolish choices, my habits kept pulling me toward darkness. But God’s love kept pulling at me and set me free step by step from my old life.”
”’Just relax, I’m here for you no matter what you do.” That’s what I heard from the Holy Spirit every time. My relationship with Him grew and grew as I diligently read the Bible and drank all the words with the power of the Holy Spirit. I could listen to His voice and be in His presence better and better. This is how I found and still find the way, God’s plan for my life. All I have to do: look up to the light, to the sun and take in the biblical truth.”
In the sun, Nienke finds the light, the Holy Spirit. She says, ” When I worship to God I like to pray in tongues and focus on the sun. In this way I become filled with Holy Spirit and see the color of the sun change from yellow but orange, pink and finally purple. The color that according to the Bible stands for Kingship, victory, power and authority.”
”Jesus is now my very best friend. He is someone who looks at me with a lot of love and compassion and gives me approval for who I am in Him,” Nienke says. ”He has all the patience in the world for that.” Nienke learned how to maintain an intimate relationship with Jesus, how to experience the Holy Spirit and how the Bible truly becomes a living word. She knows that faith is not a one-way street. Nienke continues to learn every day. So she learned that it is important to focus (also) on the little things. ”God says to me, ‘Focus on the fruits you have. And make sure you do your tasks with love.’
Today, Nienke is a youth worker in Rotterdam. ”Without God, I would still be addicted to alcohol and drugs today. But God showed me that He has a bigger plan for my life and that He wants to be with me every second of this life. When it was unsafe for me in my current neighborhood and the authorities confirmed this, the Holy Spirit told me that He cares for me and that I may be in His light precisely where I live now. He cares for me, He is my refuge and fortress in uncertain times. His love shows in everything I do, in the big and small things. Just having a chat with someone can mean so much to me. God works in the small, I really believe that.”
Stumbling after him
For Nienke, the Bible book of Song of Songs is the prime example of how God loves her. ”Song of Songs explains so beautifully how patient He is with me and how He wants to dance with me. Slowly He wants to let me know how much He does love me. That He has a plan for my life in the light.”
Everything is beautiful about you, there is no lack about you (Song of Songs4:7)
Every day of Nienke’s life, she continues to choose to look up to the light, to the sun to God with the help of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. This can be literally by singing and crying out to God or by reading the Bible, singing and meditating. “This is how I immerse myself in His truth about me every day. He tells me that I am His great love and that I may find my approval with Him. The Bible book of Song of Songs shows me how God sees the relationship with me. He loves me so much. And I get to experience that every day. His unconditional love for me helps me to bring His light into the darkness. I am enough in Him and may therefore stumble after Him. He shows the way, I follow in His footsteps and know that when I fall He helps me up.”
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