About

My name is Tabitha Burleson and I’m one of the cohost for The Holy Pivot. I wanted to share about my testimony. I grew up in a very small, rural town in southern Oklahoma. I was born into a family that carried a lot of generational issues and patterns that went unaddressed. I was born to two parents who loved me very much but coped with all of life’s hardships in some unhealthy ways. Despite this, I’m very thankful for growing up into a loving family, with both parents present and knowing that they did love me. Fortunately, for me, I also had the most wonderful grandmother and great grandmother who really took care of me and had a very strong faith in God that they passed down to me. My childhood was so great and filled with so much love from my parents and my grandparents. But as we know, life often throws unexpected obstacles and pain at us. When I was about 11 years old, my dad was in a near fatal car crash that was not his fault; someone ran a stoplight and hit him directly. My dad and mom had both worked my whole life to provide for us and God had always blessed us with plenty. But after my dad’s car crash, he was unable to work and started having excruciating pain in his lower back and legs. He was diagnosed with all sorts of back problems, and as he’s gotten older, they have gotten even worse and the pain has become more severe. Because of this, my dad struggled so much with all the pain he was in and the feeling of depression of not being able to provide for his family. My mom also had so much depression and difficulty trying to help him and provide for all of us by herself being the sole breadwinner for our family. I realize looking back that because of this, I took on the role of a parentified daughter. I tried to fill all of the gaps at home while my mom was working and my dad was absent because of pain and later turned to abusing prescription drugs, and alcohol. Dealing with all that I put so much pressure on myself since I was young to fix everything and kind of perform my way through life for the sake of others. I really just wanted so badly to get out of my small town and be on my own away from all the chaos that my life was. This turned into a lot of perfectionism performing and I always felt and sometimes still do feel like I’m striving towards something that is unattainable. I was born into a Christian family and I accepted Christ when I was seven or eight years old, but it wasn’t until I got into high school and college did my faith really become real for me and I realized that God wasn’t just something that could be contained to a Sunday or Wednesday morning or night and that Christianity is a daily walk and way of life. It is a perspective changing, spirit giving, life changing experience that takes a lot of discipline.

Back then, I didn’t fully understand that when I accepted Christ as my Lord and savior, I had received the Holy Spirit into my heart, and because of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, I had authority over sin and shame. (See John 3:16, Romans 10:9-10, 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, and Romans 6:23) I was in college during my freshman year I spent a summer in Kansas on a mission trip. It was the most incredibly rewarding and incredibly difficult summer. We got out into the community, we got jobs, We made friends, we shared the gospel. We did evangelism, we volunteered, and it really caused me to go through a time of my life where I had to take accountability for my faith and my choices and have discipline and get to know God and myself better. I had always lacked discipline in my life, with two essentially absent and distracted parents, my life growing up was very chaotic and so lonely. Despite all the challenges, I remember that summer as being such a sweet life giving and life-changing experience. I experienced so much intimacy and closeness with God that summer and I saw him and everything, in a totally new perspective. Every year since then I have learned more about the attributes of God and my identity in him and how all of the things I used to identify with don’t suit me anymore because God calls me his own and he calls me higher. So much higher than all the things the world could offer, even more than my friends and family, or anything could offer. The thing is, you can live life without God, and some people even choose to do so after, they’ve heard the gospel. But the problem with that is, if you’re choosing to live life without God or you don’t know about him, you’re missing out on the abundant life that he wants for us. (See John 10:10) My prayer and hope for this blog and this podcast is that God will use me as a vessel to share my testimony and my life experiences in a way that will showcase his love and mercy. The way He brought me from nothing, he rescued (and rescued me from the pit) time after time in His loving kindness. The way he’s completely changed my life and used so many bad circumstances for his glory time after time. so many times I’ve seen Him turn things around when I thought nothing good could possibly come out of the situation, and he literally worked it for my good. He is able to work anything and everything for his good. Even for our good and his glory. That’s the beautiful thing about God, even though there are so many attributes, too many to list out, which is why we’ll be singing his praises and telling about all he’s done for the rest of eternity (which I can’t wait for). But I think the one of the coolest and most beautiful things about God here on Earth is that he can work ANY and EVERY situation for our good! (See Genesis 50:20) Even a situation that we were disobedient in or a problem that we got ourselves into by going against his word and following our flesh. He is Almighty, He is good, and He is able to work anything for our good. Which brings me to one of my favorite all time verses, Zephaniah 3:17 • The LORD your God in your midst, The Mighty One, will save": God is not distant, but present, strong, and active. "He will rejoice over you with gladness": God takes joy and delight in His people. "He will quiet you with His love": His love brings peace, calms my fears, anxieties, and troubles. “He will rejoice over you with singing": God celebrates over us and quiets us with His love. May I, may we, never forget how desperate we are for God, for our mighty warrior who saves. God is all mighty, but He’s also full of wisdom and lovingkindness. He is holy, but He quiets us with His love. He casts our sins as far as the east is from the west. (See Psalm 103:12). I thank God every day for allowing me to know Him. He is a God who wants to be known. He wants to love and love us. He wants to know and love you. Trust God today. It will be the single most important and best decision you will ever make.