Personal Testimony

This is the personal testimony of how I accepted Jesus into my life and began to follow Him.

 

I’m gonna get real in this. The point of this is not to highlight the bad/the past. There is power in our testimony.

¹¹ And they have defeated him by the blood of the Lamb
    and by their testimony.
And they did not love their lives so much
    that they were afraid to die.

Revelation 12:11 (NLT)

 

I did not grow up in a Christian home. My parents separated before I could ever know them together. I had a father figure in my life for 12 years. The relationship represented between my mom and this man was not a great one. It was torn apart by disloyalty, alcoholism, guilt, anger lashed out through physical and verbal means, etc. In the matter of one night, my father figure was gone. No matter what he had done, I just wanted my Dad. When I lost my Dad, I lost my brother, aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents too. People that have been around for 12 years of my life were no longer a part of my life. There goes my “family”. Within this “family” there was so much hidden hurt. I loved them so much I discarded the things I didn’t have an understanding on until later in life. I was consistently compared to my friends by that father figure. Things like “she’s so pretty why can’t you be like that”. I was always made to think that I wasn’t pretty, that I was ugly. Comparison was given so much power over my identity from the start. At a young age I was continually sexually violated by multiple family members from that father figures side, mainly by his son; my “brother”. I thought we were just playing or that it was just family affection. That’s how “love” was presented to me from a young age.

There were three months after her second separation that my mom was a complete mess, which I can understand why. But it was in this time that I was trying to heal as well. I pushed aside my own healing to sit back and make sure my mom was going to make it through. I watched her go through all the hurt. I tried to make sure my brother, who is autistic, was okay as well. I don’t think the recovery ever really stopped. After those three months, there was another man introduced to us. I just wanted my mom to be happy so I pushed my own feelings aside once again and did my best to accept him. Even though everything within me was so angry.
Soon enough time revealed that my mom was dealing with some major trust issues because of the extreme hurt she had just gone through. This new man also had a drinking problem, but this time it was a little different. There was a lot more verbal abuse being used that sometimes turned physical. A result of these things were a severe anger towards this man. We did not get along whatsoever. I could just tell my mom was afraid of being alone so she just took what she could get at the time. I felt pushed to the side. I felt like my mom put this man before me and my brother. The lack of positive attention I got from my mom pushed me towards rebellion. This rebellion caused even more of a hostile environment at home. I felt like the only thing I was ever getting from my mom was negative. They would fight about me all of the time. Out of fear, my mom would say things like “if we separate, it’ll be because of you, and then I’ll have all the time in the world to make your life a living hell, just like you make my life a living hell”.

Then, things in school started to take a nasty turn. Bullying became a prominent issue. I became a target at my high school. There was one group of girls that went out of their way to make me feel worthless. I felt completely isolated. There was no place that I could go to get away from what seemed like people that hated me. I felt like no one wanted me around.
I then sought after acceptance. I found that in a group of people that used and abused drugs. I started getting into smoking a lot of pot. Sneaking around with this group. I got into a habit of getting really good at hiding things. I would smoke before, during, and after school. I would steal money out of my mom’s purse to buy pot. I would steal pain medication from my mom’s boyfriend and sell those pills in school. I was on a bad track. Then add in the crippling depression, self hatred, anxiety, and insomnia that flared up. I would self harm myself just to try and feel something. Then, I would flaunt it around in hopes of getting some sort of attention. But really, it was pity. People were more turned away then drawn to help me. I felt completely rejected.
The friends that I did have all struggled with the same things that I was struggling with. So instead of getting help, the problem was just being fed by the same things. We suffered together.

In an act of trying to discipline me, my mom would go through drastic measures to ground me. Taking my phone away, no tv, taking my bedroom door away from me, taking my guitar away, no napping. These things went on for months and months. I was on high restriction, and I understand why. I felt like I had no where to go. I had to quit all of the sports I was involved with, she had my brother walk me to and from school in order to make sure I wasn’t meeting up with anyone.
There was a point in time where I was going to be able to watch a movie with my mom as a reward for my behavior being okay for the past couple of months, but we had to go to walmart first. I ended up getting caught for stealing when we had gone. I had never felt worse in my life that night. It wasn’t the first time I had stolen. It was a bad habit I had but never expected to get caught. I didn’t think much of it. I was 15. My mom on the other hand, this was just another thing for her. She lashed out on me. On the way home I just was fed all of these words that made me feel just as worthless as I felt being at school. I had a panic/anxiety attack in the car. I could not breathe at all. I got home and locked myself in my room. (at this point I actually had a door). I was so engulfed in the feeling of worthlessness. I really believed there was no point in living anymore. No one cared about me. No one would care if I wasn’t alive anymore. So I attempted to hang myself with a bed sheet. I tied it up around the bed post of my canape bed. I just stepped off. Next thing I knew, I was on my floor with my face in my hands. I have never felt more of an extreme pounding in my head before. My body was trembling, I was bawling my eyes out. I looked up and the sheet was just laying on my bed. It wasn’t even tied anymore. I thought nothing of it except for the fact that I couldn’t even succeed at killing myself. So I just continued on struggling.

There came a point where my mom just couldn’t do it anymore. She had found out that I went behind her back yet again and she was done. She told me to pack my bags. So that’s exactly what I did. It was a Wednesday night, two months before I was finishing my 10th grade year. She drove me to my biological dad’s house and dropped me off. I had only been spending maybe once every couple of months at my dad’s house throughout the years I was with my mom. I didn’t really have any relationship with my dad and his new wife. They were really just there for me to complain to about what was going on with my mom. She dropped me off, informed them of how much of a terrible daughter I was, and that she didn’t want me anymore. I was their problem now.

I started a new school that coming Monday. Things just got worse. I quickly made friends based off of doing drugs. I soon found myself in an apartment with a group of people I hardly even knew, tripping on three tabs of acid and inhaling air duster. The guy that I knew the most and was my friend took me upstairs so that I could lay down because I wasn’t feeling well. He was sober so he was supposed to be taking care of me. But someone that was supposed to be taking care of me, took advantage of me. When I realized what was happening it took all the strength in me to kick him off of me. I just laid there after not being able to peel myself off of that mattress on the floor, it felt like hours. I didn’t get any sleep but he did. He laid there right next to me. When I finally stopped tripping, I found myself walking to the bathroom in only a shirt that wasn’t mine. I looked in the mirror and could not even recognize the girl looking back at me. There was no life in me.
I didn’t learn from that. I blamed myself and moved on.
I then found myself in a drug dealers house with a couple of friends. We were all just smoking like usual. All of a sudden, the one guy locked his door and window, the guy next to me told me to tie the restraint that was around his arm so that he could shoot up heroin. They would not let me leave that room. I was stuck and forced to take part in helping this guy shoot up. That was enough for me. I completely distanced myself from this group of people.

I got myself a job so that I could work towards something instead of having so much extra time to spend with other people. Toxic people. I was still smoking weed but it was no longer for fun. I depended on smoking weed to make me feel like I could get through the day. It was the only thing that I could find to get me away from my depression and anxiety.

Summer before senior year I went on a family vacation with my dad and step mom and my step mom’s bestfriend and her family. My step mom’s best friend was a solid christian lady. She had a nephew that went to my school. I had never seen him before since I had just moved to the district. I thought he was the cutest thing ever but I knew that he was a christian. I wanted to get my in with him, so I started showing interest in church. So his aunt started bringing me to church with her. I did the whole shabbang. I went to sunday services, youth group, bible studies, and even conferences. I soon found out that I really didn’t have an interest in him but felt too guilty to stop going to church. So I kept attending but it was more about the social aspect then anything. I would get glimpses of community and happiness when I would go to conferences but it would never stick. I never had any relationship with Jesus. It was never about Jesus. I started to go to church for a month straight then I wouldn’t go for a 3 months. Then repeat this cycle over and over again.

I graduated high school, quit my part time job, and started working a full time job. I soon found myself in my first serious relationship. It was built off of a hook-up. That set the tone for the rest of that relationship. This was the first person that ever made me feel genuinely wanted. I gave this guy my everything. I poured every ounce of who I was into him. It wasn’t much, but it was all that I had. This was the first time that I ever could commit to someone. I put aside smoking and drinking because it was something he strongly didn’t agree with. It was 6 months that was devoted to pleasing one guy. I spent every waking moment I had with him. I put him before anyone else in my life.

I ended up getting the opportunity to go to another conference with my church and I told my boyfriend at the time. He suggested I really make a decision on what I believe while I attend this. He told me he loved me and that he would support my decision no matter what. I went and came home really feeling a pull to pursue this christian thing. I came back feeling different. I felt weird about holding his hand. I was being firm about making changes in our relationship. We slowly saw our relationship falling apart. But I still depending on him for literally everything. We ended up breaking up. During the time we were broken up I felt like I lost myself. I didn’t know who I was because who I was, was found in him. It was found in our relationship. I couldn’t bare it. So I went out of my way to get him back. We were back together a week or two later. After a weekend spent together talking about working it out, how much we love one another, even talking about our life together later on…I found out some news. He had been talking to a bunch of girls. It continued even throughout the weekend that I spent with him.
I was crushed. I was pissed off beyond belief. I called him, flipped out, and ended it. It took months to get over it. Especially considering only a month after breaking up, he was in another relationship. I was bitter. But this pushed me to spend more time pursuing God.

I was still stuck in the cycle of only going to church for a short time then not because I didn’t have any stability. In that period of time that I wasn’t attending, I got some devastating news. I had found out, that the previous year, a close friend whom I had when I was still living with my mom, had killed himself. He was the go to person I had when I was a mess. He struggled with the same exact things I did. We would skype even after I moved in with my dad talking about how much our lives sucked. He would tell me about his want to just kill himself but I always told him it wasn’t worth it, that I had been through it already. He eventually got a girlfriend that didn’t like that we were such close of friends, so we cut our friendship off. I was okay with it because I just wanted him to be happy. So if that means I have to lose him, I’d rather that then him being unhappy. Something happened and they broke up and he just lost it.
Finding out that it had already been a year since he had taken his own life completely torn me to pieces. This was the first person I had ever lost to death. I kept replaying the memory of him telling me he loved me over skype in my head, over and over again. I felt guilty for not being there for him.

Carrying all of this, I tried to numb it. I got back into drugs and drinking. Anything to take away the pain for a little while. I started sleeping around trying to fill the void in me. In the midst of my mess, a friend reached out to me. This friend, I used to smoke with. But he was reaching out to me to make sure I was okay. He ended up inviting me to his church. He really encouraged me to come. I went out and got trashed and slept for three hours and somehow ended up at this little Mennonite church. When I got there, my friend wasn’t even there. I sat in the little front waiting area. The pastor had come up to me and asked my name and he said that my friend had told him I was coming. Weird. The pastor then took me into the sanctuary and introduced me to all these people that were the same age as me. And they all made a point to hug me. WEIRD. What is wrong with these people. The whole entire time I was listening to the sermon I was freaked out. It felt like the pastor was speaking directly to me. I was getting a little pissed off because I thought my friend had set me up completely. But I blew it off. After the service ended we had a time of prayer. At this point I was just so fed up. So I just sat there on the floor and just prayed this weak prayer out of anger. I told God that if He was real that He had to show me that He was because I was gonna end up dead soon. I immediately felt the tears falling from my eyes. I then felt all of these people gather around me laying their hands on me and praying for me. There was one of these young adults that had prayed something over me. What he had prayed was so specific that not even my friend would have known these things. That was the moment I really thought that maybe God is real. But what really impacted me was what these people had and what they were so freely giving out. They were happy. They treated me like family. I felt so accepted. I spent that whole day after church with them. It was that day that God had shown me his love for me through these people.

The next four months I spent with this group. Having friendship with them looked like praying and reading the bible and just hanging out. I slowly started seeing God work in my life without me even knowing it. My depression seemed to slip away, my anxiety was no longer something I gave attention to, and I was finally sleeping at night.

Then one night I had a church meeting. We always closed in prayer. Usually prayer just consisted of me closing my eyes (because that’s the Christian thing to do, hahah) and listen to whoever was praying. It was never personal. But in that moment everything around me dimmed out. My hands started to feel completely numb. I got freaked out and opened my eyes. In that moment I realized my hands were clasped together. I thought to myself “huh”. Immediately I heard the still small voice of God say “I”m right here”.

It was in that moment that God really became real to me. I felt His Presence for the first time. I got hooked. I started praying and reading the bible at home. I was so hungry. I started to slowly give everything that I had to God.

The more that I gave to God, the more He made me aware of the things that He had and has for me.

And that was just the beginning to embracing the life God had set apart for me to walk in.