What’s my testimony?
I’m not going to make this really long, or butter it up, or anything. If you want specifics, then you are always welcome to ask, but right now I’m giving you the basics.
God saved me. I was depressed and my depression started when my best friend Rachel killed herself on October 29th, 2009. I tried to cope with it with drugs and drinking and sex. None of it worked.
Joe and I were together for five years. He loved me, and took care of me when I had “emergencies”, which was code name for “I feel bad.” In my case, “I’m feeling bad” was the worst possible thing I could say to you. It meant that I felt so depressed I was shaking. I couldn’t contain myself. It meant that if I didn’t talk to someone right that second, I would kill myself. No hesitation. I had emergencies almost every night. One of them got so bad that I went to the hospital for a week.
One night I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t live like I was anymore.
I thought about my sister, Sarah, and her family, and how her husband, Andy, talked about Jesus saving people from devils. For some reason I called her. It was three in the morning. She didn’t pick up, but I waited, and she called back. I told her I wanted to talk to Andy, and she let me. I could barely utter words I was feeling so bad. Like this was my last hope; my last resort.
I knew of God. I had been to church, but only a few times in my life, not because I didn’t like it, I just didn’t understand it. Ever since I was little I thought of God as a person to call on when you’re in trouble. I sometimes went into the prayer room at a church near my house and wrote in the book they had there, asking Him for help. He always helped and made things right, but I never thought anything of it besides that prayer worked and God was doing His job. I never labeled myself as a Christian because I never turned to Him unless I was just lost about life. I never read the bible. I knew the basics, but I never read it. God was a stranger to me, and yet I still felt like I knew Him because He was there for me when I didn’t know what to do.
So here I was, calling Andy, telling him about how I was feeling and how I wanted so badly for it to be gone. I told him there was something inside me that I wanted to be gone. He told me that the only way to be completely free was to give me life to Jesus. It didn’t take me long to decide to do it. It was either this, or I’d die. It still took me a second to think because I had never done anything like this before, and how could I trust a God I don’t even know anything about with my life? It was my only hope. The only thing I had left to do.
I was crying out in agony, shaking, scared of myself and what would happen. I told Andy I would do it. He told me it was simple, and all I had to do was repeat words after him. I repeated the words he spoke into the phone. I felt God there. I felt him looking down at me, and I was speaking right to Him. I was choking on my words and hiccupping as I cried and tried to speak at the same time. As soon as I was finished, Andy started yelling, commanding the devil to leave me, and that he was defeated and that Jesus loved me and he had no authority over me. I started throwing up and choking, but right after he said those things, I became overwhelmed with joy.
I had never felt that way before. I had never actually been happy, at least not that I could remember. My whole life seemed to be in darkness and agony and peril, and it was all gone. In one moment all of it was just gone. I couldn’t sleep I was so happy. My sister talked with me on the phone about it.
I told Joe that day that I was a Christian, and he didn’t understand what happened. That night my sister and Andy took me to church and I actually understood what the pastor was saying. I walked up to the altar when they said to come, and I gave my life to Him. I felt something huge come off of me, and I stood there crying and all I could think of to say was “thank you”.
Joe came to church with me eventually. After I told him what God did for me, I wanted him to know, too. Joe came, and he felt God. He told me that he was watching the people around him, and he was so confused, and he didn’t understand it, and he said to God, “If you’re real, then show me.” And right then he felt God come to him and he felt something he never felt before.
I was so excited, and we both signed up for the baptism service. We got home and Andy talked to him about Jesus, and then Joe and I went to his house.
I’m not going to give out the details of what happened unless you personally ask, but we broke up. He chose his old lifestyle, I chose God, and I told him I wasn’t living like that anymore.
I was absolutely heartbroken. Five years invested into a relationship just to watch it fall. Just to find out he would rather leave me then change…
Yet I never had another “emergency”. I never went back. I never regretted it. I kept chasing after God. I kept doing what He said. Because once He truly saves you, you will always trust Him, always chase after Him, and always love Him.
Honestly, I never knew who I really was. I never asked my opinion about things. I always worried about what others thought. I’m finding out who I am now. I get to know me and Christ every day. He makes me feel whole when others couldn’t. He makes me feel important when I never felt like that. He makes me feel normal when I that’s all I ever wanted. He keeps showing me who I am every day, through Him, not through other people. And you know what? I only love who I am when I’m being myself through Him. And I will spend my whole life with Him, and my whole life trying to show others just how far his love is willing to go for his children to be made new and free under His spirit.
