COGWC Teens: September 2010

This is one of those testimonies that most would consider shocking because this is coming from a girl that everyone sees as that “happy go lucky, always smiling” kind of girl. I like to call this my story because this does have a happy ending - thanks be to God.

I’ve always believed in God, I knew there was a God. When I little my grandmother took care of me while my parents where at work. My lullaby was Amazing Grace and bedtime stories where from the Bible. I remember asking my grandmother Anna what Heaven was like… and she told me about the gates of pearl and all. That night I had a dream she was an angel. About a year after I had that dream she got really down and a tumor started spreading in her brain. During this time period, Mom, Paul (my little brother), and me stopped going to church because we wanted to spend every last minute with her as possible. She died two days after my birthday. I got saved that day because I wanted to be in Heaven with her. But every year since then the devil would put in my mind it was my fault she died. “You had that dream, it’s all your fault! Right around your birthday she died!” I know, silly thoughts. But the devil can make you believe anything. And that thought ate at me. Not only loosing my grandmother was hard on me, my father was an alcoholic and had nothing to do with me really. He was either at work or outside in the barn drinking… once he got in the house mom would guide me to my room because he was just barely standing he was so drunk. I would hear in my room them fighting. (Not physical fighting but screaming) It broke my heart. They were on the verge of getting a divorce at one point it was so bad. I then thought well, I don’t have a father who loves me… all he cares for is his drinking. He never wanted anything to do with me. When I ask him to talk or play with me he would send me in the other room. I prayed every night for my dad to stop drinking but nothing happened. (Yet) You’d think, friends would help me in my time of need but to be honest, I didn’t have any friends. Through out my whole elementary school and until my 7th grade year… I really didn’t know what the meaning of “best friends” was. I was very much bullied and put down with negative statements. Some kids knew my dad was alcoholic and made fun of me. Then it lead to them telling me I was ugly, worthless, fat, and a cry baby. I only cried when they was putting me down. You would think the bullying couldn’t get any worse but it did… it then became physical. They told me I was too quite and nice then one kid would hold me down while the other would kick and punch me constantly while repeating the horrid name-callings. By the time I was in just 4th – 5th grade the devil started working in my mind and at the same time my grandfather was sick and dying while grieving over the lose of my grandmother. I was thinking God must hate me. If He loved me he wouldn’t let all these bad things happen to me in my life and He would have answered my prayers already. I guess you can say I was in a depression. Always sad but yet I would hide it with a fake smile. Nobody knew but God and me. Mom would find the bruises and catch me crying myself to sleep in my room. But I would lie and say I was okay when really I was being eaten alive by these negative thoughts and the devils hold he had on me. He got me to thinking nobody loved me and I deserved to die to get everyone out of their misery. I start plotting ways to kill my self just in the 6th grade. I attempted suicide my first time that year by skipping a day of school pretending I was sick while my parents are at work: I could over dose or stab myself in the heart. But I chickened out and didn’t do it. In 7th grade, I started to actually make friends but I wasn’t really close to them. I still felt alone. Then I start being bullied verbally again and the thoughts still hadn’t stopped. They were drilled in my head… “You’re so worthless, why are you still breathing? You are just wasting air!! Just shoot yourself it would be less painful” This was an everyday thought I just became numb to it at that point. It got to a point where I couldn’t look in a mirror I just wanted to break it and never look at myself ever again. Then I started to slowly stop eating because the thought I was fat came into play. Then I skipped school again playing sick… dad was at work and the thought of mom and dad fighting repeated in my brain and him drinking his life away and picturing myself dead without them caring. Then picturing everyone’s lives better. The devil lead me into my dad’s room with all his guns just looking and searching for one with at least two bullets just in case the first shot didn’t work. I looked at the gun and started trembling when I aimed it at my head. Closing my eyes picturing happiness for everyone with me out of their lives. Then I fell to my knees when I heard a voice. This voice was from my heart and I knew who it was. This voice asked me “What are you doing?” tears rolled down my face and I couldn’t answer. That voice this time said “I do love you… Why do you doubt my love? I sent my son to die for you and here you say I don’t love you? Things will get better, just believe and have faith in me. Don’t believe them lies that have been told to you. You are beautiful and I have mighty plans for you. If I am for you who can be against you? I love you my child with a never-ending love. Things will change if you just put all your faith in me. Take off your burdens my child, you have carried them to long. I have always been here for you; I have felt your pain. I want to take it all away.” I knew for a fact that these words where not from me. It had to be from God… there was like a puddle of tears in the floor and as I stood up I felt light as a feather. Like I could float. And then I felt like someone was holding me. I then rededicated my life to him that very second.

You can doubt, call me crazy! I don’t care, I know what I felt and I know what happened. God has delivered me from a mind trap by the devil I can never thank him enough. He not only saved me but he saved my life that second speaking to me. I was so close to pulling that trigger… but God stopped me and gave me a second chance. I’m so unworthy, we are all unworthy of his love but he loves us anyway. It was so hard for me to forgive myself for ever thinking that God didn’t love me. I still wonder till this day “How can he forgive me?” But he does, no one will ever comprehend how much love God has for us. And when I think about it, God never left me throughout my depression. He was right there suffering with me through the pain… right there with open arms to rescue me from myself.

That very year, God moved his mighty hand… my family got back in church and dad decided to stop drinking! Dad got saved exactly a year after! I never dreamed I would see him in a church house leading worship in my wildest dreams! My grandfather is healthy as a horse as the old saying goes! I don’t have to worry about the family splitting apart anymore! I’m now blessed with true friends who are there picking me up instead of putting me down! And lastly, my grandmother Anna is up in heaven watching over me with a smile on her face just watching me grow in my faith and love in God each day.

When you think you’re alone and think no one cares… there is a man who cared enough to die you for you. It’s hard to understand why would someone so great can love you so much but it’s true. I’m one of the many living witnesses to prove so. Romans 8:31-39 says it best.

The COGWC Youth Question of The Week is something new to our blog! In an effort to better share the Word of God, our love of Christ and our devotion to Him, we will be answering different questions every week! We hope you enjoy getting to know Him more as well as getting to know us more!! God Bless you all!

The question of the week is: What is your favorite Bible Verse?

Macy Roberts: Matthew 19:26 - "Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible."

Kara Gray: 1John 4:19 - "We love Him, because He first loved us." and Romans 8:18 - "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us."

Jonathan Runion: Hebrews 4:12 - "For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." OR Galatians 2:20 - "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." I can't decide!!!
Courtney Johnson: Leviticus 20:26 - "You are to be holy to me because, I the LORD, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be my own."

Ruby Chastain - Jeremiah 31:3 - "The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindess have I drawn thee."

Codi Roberts: Galatians 2:20 - "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." and "For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it."

McKayla Bradshaw: Romans 8:28 - "And we know that all things work together for the good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose."