Tell Us Your Story: Jasmine Hadjis

Tell Us Your Story: Jasmine Hadjis

January 1, 2020 | Randyl LaMaack


Transcript

Randyl LaMaack Hey Veritas I am Randyl LaMaack and I am on staff here with the adult ministry team, and we want to get some stories in front of you guys of how God is moving in and through his people. And so today I'm joined by Jasmine Hadjis and we're just going to talk about her story a little bit. So hi.

Jasmine Hadjis Hi.

Randyl LaMaack How ya doing?

Jasmine Hadjis I'm good.

Randyl LaMaack Tell us about yourself.

Jasmine Hadjis Yes. My name is Jasmine. I'm married to Adam Hadjis. We have four girls on Earth and one in heaven. Adam owns a restaurant Gianna’s. Italian Beef.

Randyl LaMaack Shameless plug if you haven't been go.

Jasmine Hadjis You should go. And I do hair for probably a lot of Veritas clients

Randyl LaMaack Also if you need your hair done.

Jasmine Hadjis Yes. It's super fun love our jobs. And so yeah we have Harley, Alina, and Ivy and Veda and Gracie new little pup and Gianna is our angel baby in heaven. I met Adam when I was 19 and she was 10 months old. And so we dated and Gianna was a huge part of our lives and unfortunately very unexpectedly in January of 2012 she passed away suddenly while I was pregnant with our Harley. So that was literally one of the most painful moments of our entire lives but it also brought us to Jesus. So we were both kind of wandering at that time away from the Lord and the loss of Gianna just really was a huge pivotal moment in our life together and in our spiritual lives that ultimately brought us back to God. So yeah.

Randyl LaMaack Yeah. So tell us a little bit more about how — Like how did you come to faith or how did you come to know Jesus?

Jasmine Hadjis Yes. So I just keep thinking about the story of God's redemption in my life and in our life because it even goes back to my childhood. My parents divorced when I was about six or seven years old and my dad moved back to Puerto Rico so I was just with my mom and my brother and my uncle was a believer at the time and he in that time he saw my parents get divorced he decided to take me to church with him and his family. And so I started going to church with them and it was beautiful because then my dad saw me getting to know Christ and then over the years my dad became saved. And so it's really crazy how God uses these really like not great stories to turn into honoring him that way because because my dad became saved then he kind of walk me through that. And I did become officially saved when I was pretty young in the summer time when I would go to Puerto Rico to visit my dad and my dad explained the gospel to me and it made sense and it was beautiful. And so that is when I committed my life to the Lord as a child. But over the years you know I I was in church in high school and some things happened that were really detrimental to my spiritual walk at that time. And I became really angry with God and I just sort of walked away. So it was in that time that I met Adam and so I just thought I always knew God had my heart though and I always knew my dad was praying for me to come back to the Lord. I just knew it. But I was just suppressing it for many years and so when Gianna passed away it was just like everything just became really crystal clear you know how could we walk through that without the Lord. There's literally no way there would be no hope there would be no peace if we didn't have faith in God in that time. So it's a heartbreaking you know thing to have happen to lose your child, but at the same time God redeemed us in that. And so yeah it's just something that we always look back with — There's pain and then there's also joy you know. So so yeah. So then we Adam and I had been looking for a church after Gianna passed away that we could plug into. And I remember hearing about Veritas on top of chrome horse.

Randyl LaMaack In a bar.

Jasmine Hadjis In a bar — and he was very not about it. He was like Jasmine I'm not going to church on top of a bar that I've been to. And I just I just kept praying about it. I just asked God to soften his heart that we would end up coming to Veritas to visit and we did one Sunday we came and Mark Arant was preaching and we literally have been coming here ever since. And it's been wonderful for our spiritual life for the community for — Yeah just it's been so great for us. We love it here.

Randyl LaMaack Yeah.

Jasmine Hadjis Yeah.

Randyl LaMaack How long have you been here?

Jasmine Hadjis Well that would have been in 2014. So then I was pregnant with Alina. So quite awhile.

Randyl LaMaack When we met for the first time Alina was little a baby.

Jasmine Hadjis Yeah.

Randyl LaMaack At Veritas Iowa City Cedar Rapids softball game.

Jasmine Hadjis Oh my gosh I remember that!

Randyl LaMaack And then we had a little competition and then a little fellowship and a little picnic and that's where we met. And Elina was a baby.

Jasmine Hadjis Yeah. Yeah. Now she's seven. Yes. So yes.

Randyl LaMaack That’s crazy.

Jasmine Hadjis I know.

Randyl LaMaack So how has you kind of talked through how you came to know Jesus and then how you got to be Veritas — How has being a believer just kind of shaped your your lives together? I mean you have a believing household and trying to teach your girls.

Jasmine Hadjis Yeah yeah it's definitely a lot especially this day and age there's just so many possible distractions you know. And so then following Jesus has just made everything in a really complicated world just simplified. You know like it it is actually so simple to have our faith and trust in a God who is literally in control of everything you know. And I just think in the past of how there's been times where we've been like worried about kind of like what's going to happen you know and then I look back and I see God's faithfulness EVERY SINGLE TIME. Like so being in a relationship with God over time knowing that he's been so faithful in the past gives us that confidence that he he is our caretaker. I love how he cares for the fields and the animals like how much so he would he love his children. So that has been just really really impactful in our spiritual walk that we just know that God is faithful and he's gonna take care of us always. And then it becomes this beautiful snowball effect of like we just want to worship him for that you know. And he just shapes our decisions because sometimes I think like where would we be without him. And it's scary. It's not a good thought you know. And I'm like but we know that he is faithful to our family and is faithful to his children. And so yeah I just feel really loved and protected by God. I just know that he has us in the palm of his hands and it's helped carry us through so many things. And I don't know. That's why we love him.

Randyl LaMaack Yeah that's sweet and that's a good word just to remember that God's faithfulness to his people that you know there are hard things that happen in life but God uses those things for His glory and for our good. Yeah. Oh yeah yeah. I love reminder. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. Well thanks for taking some time to hang out. I hope you guys enjoyed hearing Jasmine's story and we'll talk to you all soon.

 Stories  

Randyl LaMaack

Adult Ministry Coordinator