When we were in Costa Rica there was a 16 year old girl from Florida here with her team on a high school mission trip.
I knew she was special right away and I didn’t know why.
One night, she shared her testimony at a youth event and as I’m sitting here listening to her testimony, my mouth DROPS! “She’s telling my testimony.”I said out loud.
My team mates who know my story turn and look at me because they realize the same thing and when they turn to look at me, I’m already crying.
She continues telling her testimony and again I said “She’s actually telling my testimony!”
Immediately I knew I had to talk to Alyssa and share with her MY testimony.
I start crying even harder to the point where I can’t catch my breath and people near me are looking at me trying to figure out why I’m crying so hard.
My mind is spinning and I can’t breath, I can’t focus and I can’t stop crying.
Sandra, my best friend who was translating for Alyssa, came and sat next to me and put her hand on my back as I’m bawling and I say to her “She told my testimony.”
Still in shock that this girl has gone through everything I have gone through, had the same struggles and hurdles as me and we just happened to have met by chance (or was it) in Costa Rica.
Sandra says to me “yeah, but look how far God has brought you!” Which I said “that’s exactly why I’m crying.”
In my head I keep thinking of where I was at 16 and even where I was just two short years ago and how destroyed and damaged I felt and how God himself picked me up off of the ground and dusted me off and how he has been refining me.
Then I think back to a few days before this where I was feeling so defeated by the enemy, still living in my self doubts and believing everything the enemy tells me about myself and having 5 sisters speak Gods truth into me and motivate and inspire me to actively find this truth out for myself and to know it in my heart and not just my head.
I look back at that day and think to myself “Wow, I have a long way to go.”
Then hearing Alyssa talk I realized that even though I have a long road ahead of me, I’ve still traveled so very far on the road I’m on right now.
God used Alyssa’s testimony to show me the growth in my own and to reconfirm in me, my passion.
A few months ago, I realized that I want to help girls who are in the same place I was, I want to help girls that struggle with depression, anxiety and self harm.
I want to help girls like Alyssa who are still in that struggle and I want to help girls who feel helpless like there’s not a light at the end of the tunnel find God and use God to help them find a way out.
God is so good!
He is taking something that the enemy tortured me with and turning it around and using it for SO much good.
