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I will be honest when I first received a call to give my testimony I was ecstatic, happy, counting it as a privilege and honor, then reality hit.  I have been given an opportunity to share part of myself. I spent most of the day in fear, anxiety riddled, and very vulnerable.   Immediately I told my mother and we went to praying.  I then called my friend Cassie who is a pk (preacher’s kid) to my being an mk (missionary’s kid), and we smiled and laughed over the fact that our friendship had been formed and remained close through the years because we had both given our lives to Christ at a young age and then tried to do things “our way” instead of God’s way. However recently we have both came back to God as babes again. She also reminded me in her own way that God would give me what to say and/or do like so many times before when she was my choir director and I a member of the choir.  

I thought there are so many things I could talk about that God has brought me through or is helping me with… abusive relationships, cults, child birth, the death of a child, homelessness, a coma, transportation, employment, suicide attempts, mental health issues, even just daily walking with him.

I’ve learned so often that for me personally my prayers are answered when it seems like I’m doing the most simple of things. A perfect example of this was today while I was making nachos. My favorite scripture is Phil. 4:13 which in the New Living Translation reads: “For I can do everything with the help of Christ who gives me the strength I need.” A peace and calmness came over me causing the fear, anxiety, and vulnerable feelings to leave being replaced by the love and comfort of knowing Christ.

I accepted Christ into my life at the age of 9 and chose to walk away from him as a teenager thinking I knew all the answers to everything. I fought against everything that had to do with God and Christianity. It was my way of rebelling, my way of saying that there was not a God.  My way of saying I was made to go to church every time the doors opened but in my eyes all I saw was hypocrisy so I wanted nothing to do with Christians, Christianity, or God.

At my first Military Training School I was given a drill sergeant that was a powerful man of God who would invite me to church constantly to the point where I finally went to a prayer meeting just to get him off my back or so I thought.  I felt such a powerful movement of God in that place that night.  Many things tugging at my heart, but I still fought against them. I would openly tell people that I wanted nothing to do with Christianity or going to church because all they want is money no one cares about souls anymore so why should I go to church when even the church I was raised in had 5 offerings per night during a revival but no one could tell you how many souls got saved or filled with the Holy Ghost. In my eyes they could care less.

Therefore with a passion for running away from God I did so with a vengeance. Doing everything I was big enough to do and then some.

While I was on active duty I was assaulted several times which caused me to become bitter, hard, emotionally shut down, keeping everyone away, and truly believing that if there was a God then he wouldn’t allow such things to happen. Apparently since they happened and when I turned in the person who did the acts, my life was put under scrutiny then there was no way I was going to keep praying to such a God who couldn’t or as I saw it wouldn’t help me at what I thought was my lowest and I was acting the part of a fool if I did prayer or put my faith in such a being.

Yet daily my mother prayed.  ”Lord, don’t let any of my blood be lost.”

That prayer is what brought me home and when I showed my brokenness to my creator. Who saw me and was with me all those years that I was running far and fast away from him. I came to the realization he had never left me. He knew what I was going through, for he was right there standing with me, giving me the strength I needed to go through it, even at times carrying me through things I thought were impossible.  

I accepted Christ into my life again on April 11th 2005. There was no church, no people telling me about my past, or sins I had committed, just me in my brokenness giving myself back to my creator and him loving me enough to take me back.