Echoes of My Testimony

Hey guys! Sorry I haven’t posted in a while. I’ve been going through a lot recently and haven’t felt like writing much. But I hope to get back into writing on my blog soon. Anyway I got baptized at my church on Sunday and I wanted to share with y’all my testimony that I shared with them. It explains better what I’ve been going through. I’ll post the video of the baptism and also just the written out testimony if y’all don’t want to watch the video. 

                                                           My Testimony 

 For a long time I’ve been afraid to share my testimony. I don’t know why but I’ve always felt like people would judge me. So I’ve just hid behind when am right now, kinda letting who I was hide in a closet. I’ve never been a very open person. Im not the kinda person who’ll just tell you what they’re going through or where they’ve been. I’ve always just hid behind a mask. And whenever people ask me how I’m doing I always say “tired” or “good.” I guess I’ve always just been scared to open up. But I don’t want to be scared anymore. Im tired of being scared of what other think of me and even what I think of myself. So here we go.

My life verse that I’ve had for years now has been 1 Corinthians 15:10. Which says “But by the grace of God, I am what I am. And His grace which was lavished on me was not in vain. But I labored more abundantly than they all. Yet not I but the grace of God that was in me.”

That first phrase has always just struck me. But by the grace of God, I am what I am. And really you can fill that in with whatever. But by the grace of God... You see when I was 4 I had thought I had gotten saved. I prayed the prayer I said all the right things. I did what you’re supposed to do to get saved. Everything except believe. Which is the most important part.

So I kept going with life, thinking I was saved. Then life happened and I didn’t know what to think. Cause when I was 8 my life kinda fell apart. There was an event in my family that nearly tore us apart. And it wasn’t until recently that I realized how much that event had actually affected me. It planted two seeds in my heart. One a seed of bitterness and hate. And the other a seed of deep depression. Both of which I let grow. And it got to the point where not long after this event got resolved that I really started thinking about suicide, and came very close to following through. But every time I always felt like something was stopping me, something inside me that I couldn’t explain that kept me from just ending it.

I wasn’t a nice person when I was a kid. I was very bitter and angry at a lot of people in my life including myself. I had gotten into sin and couldn’t get out. I had become very hostile towards members of my family. I was abused by someone in my life and that kinda just piled onto the shame and self hate. Which manifested itself in bitterness. And honestly I don’t remember a lot of it but I do remember some things and I don’t like them. I was headed down a very dark road and I didn’t know or want to go any other way. If God had not drastically intervened in my life I would be dead right now. And not just dead in my trespasses I think I would actually be dead and I’m pretty sure it would’ve been at my own hand. If God had not come into my life, I would be in a dark sinful place. But by the grace of God, I didn’t end up there.

At that point in time most of the people closest to me either weren’t strong christians or they didn’t live out there faith in a lot of things they do. And so it was hard for me to desire Christianity cause I saw a lot of hypocrisy in others lives. I thought “if thats how a christian should act then I don’t want to be a Christian.” But that all changed when I met a man named Chris Jenson. I was 13 when I met him and probably at the lowest point I’d ever been. He was the kindest most personable person that I’ve ever met. He was one of those people that you could meet for the first time and talk and share with him like you’d known him all your life. He was the first person in my life who just absolutely overflowed with the love of Christ. I looked at his and I heard him talk, cause he was the pastor at our church, and I saw in him something that I knew I didn’t have and I knew I wanted. I saw peace in him that I didn’t have but that I’d been searching for for a long time. That was the first time I realized how empty I was, and how much I longed for that missing peace in my heart. And so he planted a seed in my heart that led me down the path of salvation.

I remember the day I got saved. Best day of my life. I was 14. My mom was reading a book to us, Radical by David Platt. We were on the second chapter and I remember it just laid out the gospel in such a simple and yet so profound way. I think we underestimate the power of just the pure gospel. But that book laid it out in a way that I had never heard it before! And I

remember going into our laundry room, cause my mom had asked me to do laundry, and just praying. It wasn’t fancy, it wasn’t eloquent, it was just like three sentences, but those three sentences were the first three sentences I think that I had ever truly said to God. And in that moment, pure joy flooded me for the first time. I wrote lyrics to a song the other day that said,

The day your eyes first met mine

And I beheld love so divine

Peace finally filled my anxious soul

And fully filled this gaping hole inside of me 

The day that your grace flooded me

It lifted me up and made me free 

Everything I searched for now I find

I leave the scars and the pain behind 

The darkness lit the pieces fit

The praises rise from my lips

When I free fall into grace

And that pretty much describes what went on my heart at that moment. Everything made sense for the first time in my life, and what didn’t make sense got overwhelmed by the ocean of grace I fell into. But then life happened again.

In the fall of 2016 I began to struggle with my health. There would be days where I would be in so much pain I didn’t want to get out of bed. I would be exhausted after doing the simplest things. It was hard. We went to multiple doctors to try and find answers but it was a dead end most everywhere we went to. Then we went to one doctor who tested me for Lyme’s disease and he said I had Lyme’s disease. So that was a hard time of adjusting for me. But the way Lyme’s disease works is it’s like a rollercoaster, so you’ve got high and low moments. And eventually I started to feel better. I was able to do more and things were pretty good for a while. Until this last January.

In January I started to feel absolutely awful. It got to the point where some days I could barely get out of bed. I had constant headaches, I felt lightheaded all the time. I was in a lot of pain most of the time. I couldn’t concentrate on hardly anything. It was like my life and everything that I wanted to do got put on pause for months. It was probably one of the hardest times for me. And if any of y’all struggle with health issues you know that sometimes when you’re at your lowest physically, satan takes that time to attack you spiritually. And that’s what he did for me.

I felt so hopeless in that time. My depression came back, I got into sin again. It was a time when I felt like life wouldn’t get any better. I felt like I was a hypocrite, cause I would go out and be this super christian dude and then come home and snap at my siblings and be the person I thought I had left behind. And all that time I never told anyone about any of this. I bottled it up inside and never let anyone know. I felt ashamed of the fact that I was highly depressed and lived one way at home and another way when I was out. It was the hardest time of my life. And it got worse from there, cause as I fell deeper into this shame and self hate I started to get into self harm. I would cut my shoulders as a temporary relief from the pain that I felt in my heart. But it was temporary, and eventually the self hatred would come back worse and I would have to cut worse to keep it back and it just kept going on for about a month.

I finally told my mom one night. And she told me I needed to go talk to someone. So I did. I talked to someone and it got better for a while. But then it wasn’t better. And I kept lying to myself and to others that I was fine. But I wasn’t fine. Then last month I got back into cutting. And my depression was a worse than ever before. I began to reject and resent God, which led to more depression. And I began to seriously think about suicide. In fact I attempted it twice

 but couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was a dark time for me. And I’m still kinda struggling through it with the help of my parents and Ben. But it was the hardest thing that I’ve ever had to go through. I had planned on finishing up a few things that I wanted to finish, mostly just finish my play and have that kinda be my suicide letter, and then end my life. But through a miraculous set of circumstances God brought me the help I needed. And I’m still here, and I’m planning on staying here.

God’s brought me through so much in my life. I cant even begin to thank Him enough for all that he’s done for me. I was in ignorance about my faith, but by the grace of God I’m not ignorant anymore. My family was falling apart, but by the grace of God he brought us together. I struggled with depression, but by the grace of God I saw the light. I was angry and bitter, but by the grace of God he helped me get through that. I had hypocrites in my life, but by the grace of God he brought me a man that showed me the love of christ. I wasn’t saved, but by the grace of God he showed me how empty I was and how fulfilling he is. I struggled with my health, but by the grace of God he gave me strength through that. I cut myself, but by the grace of God I know those scars tell a story of grace now. I hid away all my pain and struggles, but by the grace of God I don’t want to hide anymore. I wanted kill myself, but by the grace of God I’m still here. I’ve been in deep darkness, but by the grace of God I’ve seen the light. I was a sinner, but by the grace of God I am what I am today, and i’m not who I was. And his grace which was lavished freely on me will not be in vain, because I will run and fight harder than ever before. But not me, its the grace of God that’s in me.