This is the LAST part to my series. I have been praying into sharing my testimony and my dreams/goals for the future. The more I prayed into this the more I kept thinking how all of that goes hand in hand. What I am striving to be, where God has me right now, and my past that has shaped me. I began with my future moved into who I am now. Now here is my testimony, the final part to my story so far.
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My story at times has been hard for me to tell, other times I have found such great joy in telling what God has done in me. I have learned in the past few months that the biggest way I can bring glory to God is telling people what He has done in my life, the redemption that has happened because of Him. So, as I end this series of blogs I am leaving you with my God story.
Praying into telling my story was easy, I knew where I had came from and what I had been through. Its the actual sitting down to write it out part that has been difficult. On Monday my team and I did prayer walking as our ministry that day, it was such a beautiful way to start the week. The only one I talked to for several hours was God. I kept praying about life here on the mountain for the Dominican people. I prayed about the houses we passed, the people we saw. Then for a good 2 miles it was just a conversation between God and I. I started praying about why I don’t remember the day I woke up and it was all different and I had a bigger sparkle in my eye and He answered with a response that I don’t know why I didn’t grasp all along.
“Your salvation is real. You don’t have a bigger sparkle in your eyes, you now have my eyes. Your eyes get to see the things I have placed in your path to see. Your eyes get to show you the things that I am placing love in your heart for.”
Which led me to this blog that I can now actually write. It was pretty clear that I don’t have to start at the beginning, I am starting with the moment it all changed for me. Before I began, here is a little back story to my life.
My mom passed away when I was 7 years old, she was 23. I have a younger brother and younger sister. My parents were already split up when she passed away. My grandmother took custody of us. Social services were a huge part of our lives. My life growing up was just much different from other peoples. I gave my life to the Lord at 13 in a room in the back of a small Baptist church. This is the day I gave my life to my creator.
Now to began the testimony, I feel called to share…the point where my life changed from living with me to living for Him.
At the age of 21 I graduated Paul Mitchell the School- Nashville. I had finally finished what I had wanted for my life all along, to be a cosmetologist. I was living in Nashville, TN, I was so happy with how my life was going, but I knew I was running. I was running from my problems, from my past, from the deep issues that were inside of me. My relationship with God was pretty non existence, I had allowed my life to be steered away from Him. I was in deep trouble with my licenses, I had gotten to many speeding tickets and I was trying to ignore it. On the outside I was acting like my life was all good, on the inside I was at a constant war. Looking back God was convicting me of so much and yet I was trying to run further away, I decided to move back home to Hickman, KY, I was so sad to leave the city I loved so much and the place that had become my home but I knew I was in a down hill spiral and where I needed to be was at home. I knew the first thing I needed to do was get back in church. Moving back to Hickman was hard because I had no where to go really and I didn’t have a car and I still had this hidden secret of what I was running away from. I went straight back to church upon getting back home. God had me right where He wanted me. My time in Hickman was a time of growth, of figuring out this walk that He had me on. I grew a ton and spent every night praying that God would help me fix this issue that I was running from.
The day I signed up to be an adult chaperon for camp at my church He knew exactly what was going to happen. The process of the next few weeks was a time full of conviction, dishonesty, and tons of sleepless nights. God was putting up road blocks every which way and I was finding ways around them. I went to camp and within the first 2 days of being there, I was arrested for failure to appear on several speeding tickets I had gotten. As I sat in the front seat of the man’s car who had driven several hours to arrest me, I went through every emotion that any human can possibly have, yet I had this weird peace that it was all going to be okay. I sat in a jail in Nashville, TN for 5 days.
I had hit the rock bottom God wanted to know build a solid foundation on.
I sat in my cell with 2 other woman, I spoke maybe a total of 20 words the whole time I was in there. I spent most of my time writing verses that God kept giving me on a small notepad that was in my cell. I prayed and just sat quietly as God spoke to me. Within a day of being there I knew this was exactly in His plan. I spent night after night for months praying for God to help me fix this issue and He answered. He answered in a way that would be later used for His glory. The day I put on the navy blue uniform at that jail, a change happened in my heart, a change that is still hard for me to explain. I knew from that moment forward I was tired of running, He was personally wiping my slate clean and the only thing He wanted for me to do was give it all to Him. This day I stopped being a fan of God and became a follower of Him.
Right after I was released was from jail I came home to people who were disappointed, hurt, and some that were angry at me, but I also came home to people that God had placed right there to speak to me for Him. I was a mix of emotions as I entered back into Hickman, I wasn’t broken because God had done a huge work in my heart but I was hurt because there was a lot of people I had hurt in this process. My time in between jail and leaving for the race was the period of my life that I truly learned how beautiful it is to give it all to God. I sat through talks with people telling me the ways I needed to grow to look more like Him, I built relationships with people who have been the biggest examples of what loving like Jesus looks like, and I saw how beautiful it is to say yes to the calling He put on my heart and give it all away to follow Him wherever He wanted/wants to lead me. I grew in honesty, responsibility, my prayer life, and even in my faithfulness, I have learned to trust Him even when it’s scary, and to truly listen when I have convictions, all those things has lead me to the place I am now. The fact that I can be writing this blog from the nations.
I am on a journey with falling more in love with Him, I am learning what humbling myself looks like, what laying down my pride looks like, what being called to be the light to my family looks like, what forgiveness and being forgiven looks like, what being a daughter looks like. I am in a place of finding great joy in the fact that I went to jail and now I can show others just how much God wants to use even the untrustworthy people who run from their problems for His glory. I am in a place of loving Jesus more than I love myself or the things of this world.
I have always thought my salvation and my walk with Christ had to look just like everyone else. That is the beautiful thing about this walk with Him, its mine. It doesn’t look like the world says it should or like anyone else’s walk with Him. Our relationship is intimate and personal. He has been a distant man I prayed to when I needed something, a big brother, my Father, my best friend, but most importantly He is the one who has loved me through every up and down, He has held my hand and walked with me when I thought I was doing it all on my own, He has been the one that has always looked at me with unstoppable loved that never ends and been the one that has made me a new creation. The one who didn’t walk away when I had messed up, the one who looks at me as blameless and white as snow.
