This is a long one, but I’m finally letting some stuff out…..
The past 6 months have been some of the roughest times I have ever had between me and God. since 2010 I have been involved and then employed by a group home that works with at risk youth who have been in and out of jail. November of 2011 to October of 2014 I worked as an assistant house parent in one of the group homes. I both lived and worked in this home. This set time was the craziest time of my life, but also the closest I have ever been to God. Working full time ministry in the front lines literally fighting dark with light, and on a minute by minute basis. It got so crazy that for about 2 months at one point I only got about 3 hours of sleep a night because I was having to deal with something new. Everything from my car being stolen to having a hit put out on me. I even almost threw one of the youth through a window because he was choking me out, I didn’t, but it would have been bad. It was insane that I would intentionally live in this home, live in community that was chaos because it was teaching the youth what it meant to be in community. It taught them who God really was and what it looked like to actually be loved on. For most of them it was the first time someone showed true love, that we actually cared and were not the typical “system”…even though when they got mad that’s how they always felt. One of the craziest things though is that I was learning all of this at the same time and I learned to love them like Christ, and to this day I still visit because that love is never going to leave.
This is just a brief synapsis because I cant go into detail because of the nature of the work, but what I can tell you is that it has defined who I am, and help mold me into the man I am becoming. Before the group home, I was so socially awkward that I would just not hang out with anyone because I didn’t truly understand how to. I hated myself to the point that no matter what happened I was always in a state of depression (which is something I’ve dealt with since age 7). Life for me was just something I went through and didn’t care about the outcome. God took this and I am no longer that person. It got to the point I was on my knees in my bathroom praying and crying out to God because I had no where else to turn. Why would God allow me to go through such hell and why would I allow myself to stay???….
God was breaking me of soooooooo many things of my past that it took 3 years of intense suffering to actually allow me to start breaking and allow God to start working. One of the things that had afflicted me my whole life was a spirit of fear. I’m not talking just some little scared thing, I mean at one point when I was in high school I was afraid of the toilet flushing(totally not logical, but come to find out spiritual huh…)… How did this spirit of fear break, well I will tell you. God actually used toe show supernatural to help me break it. I could never watch the show because I had so much fear, but living in the group home I was in fear all the time, but had to stand on God to get me through. I would be attacked at night spiritually as well. I would be laying in my bed and feel my bed move like knees over me and breath on me even though there was no one there. For about a year and a half I would wake up suddenly scared out of my mind and not being able to breathe. Sometimes I would wake up and my lights were on I never turned them on, and my door was locked at times as well and I never turned them on. Anyway God used supernatural because one day I was watching Netflix and decided to watch it, and before I knew it, it was dark out and I was still watching it..then it clicked I was watching supernatural and I wasn’t scared. God broke me of something that had plagued me my entire life, and that was just a start.
The reason why I say spiritual PTSD is because the last year up to now I have been dealing with things I held onto while in the house and since. For the longest time I was struggling, at one point I ran the house by myself for 2 months. I knew I needed help, I didn’t know what it was, but I knew I needed it. I tried to talk to multiple people, but something was happening I didn’t understand. These people were listening, but they were not hearing me. They kept saying just go to God, or what I was feeling isn’t actually what I was feeling, or what I was feeling was just me and not God. It was so frustrating that I eventually just stopped talking, sucked it up and did my time. Being an assistant house parent is really lonely, and even though its not intentional the house parents seem to get the blunt of the attention. The assistants are there for the house parents, but also there for the guys, and life gets crazy in the ministry. So basically on the totem pole of things, the assistants are the last to be dealt with, and its hard. In the 3 years of working in the house, it was me alone with the guys 70% of the time. Weather it be covering date nights, or meetings, or driving them around, or other reasons I wont go into. The 3 of us were probably together 10%, and the other 20% were just two of us, or me with the supervisors and them. I honestly felt isolated almost the entire time I was there, and never really said anything because like I said, no one was really listening.
Since then I have really been going through it. I lost the job I got after I left (I lived an entire month with $2.92 in my bank account). God has continued breaking me of my past( which I am glad). I have also been working sooo much, some weeks around 65 hours because that’s what my job entails. I also I signed up for the World Race, which God is breaking me of my trust issues, especially the financial part. Missions in were my heart is, and I am dead set on going, and I really believe God has opened the door.
Its so awesome to see the possibilities, and I am so excited for the future and how the things I have struggled with and living in the group home has prepared me to do world missions. I am so excited to see what God has for me and even more excited at the chance to minister in countries were it is illegal to do so. I came from a spirit of fear to now wanting to smuggle bibles into North Korea. The main part of my heart though is to work with those who are in the drug smuggling business. From the lowly drug dealer to the kingpin himself, and anything to do with gangs. I know God has a plan for me, and the things I want to do are not small, but I believe and trust in my God and I know that everything is going to work out in the end.
Thank you for taking time to get to know me a little better!!
If you haven’t done so yet I would appreciate it if you could put me in your prayers. Pray for my team that is going, pray for the countries, and just for me. Also if you could pray about financially supporting me, I have $1200 out of $16700 needed. Thank you again for your support I couldn’t do this alone!!!
