Hey there. For those who don't know me, my name is Nia. Not that knowing my name would help you to know me any better... but the story that follows most definitely will. Just a heads up, it's a very sin-filled story. But thankfully it has become a God-glorying story. It's my testimony. I posted it to Facebook a few months back, but I'm sharing it here as well and asking that God would use it to bless you and prepare your heart to fully receive Him.
Posted on Facebook on 7/28/10 at 8:23PM, entitled "the story of my life: uncensored, uncut and unedited":
I spend a lot of time on Facebook declaring God’s goodness and His redemptive power, but I don’t think I’ve ever shared what God has rescued me from, publicly on Facebook. So here it goes. Behind every saint is a story. And mine is, ha. Let’s just say God’s grace is SO amazing and He is the only reason that I am where I am today.
When I look back on my life, I smile. Not out of warm feelings for my childhood or satisfaction from my accomplishments, but because of the grace of God. Even in all of my mistakes, all of my screw-ups, and all of the times when I tried to turn my back on Him, He still kept me. God loved me so much that He continued to watch over me even when I did things to break His heart. And I’m so grateful for that because I’ve committed tons and tons of sins. Sin is anything we do that we know is wrong and isn’t up to God’s standard for living. Most of the sin I’ve done in my life, even to this day, was birthed out of my desire for comfort and intimacy.
Let’s go back to when I was in the 5th grade. That’s when I was introduced to pornography. At first I didn’t really know what it was, but it didn’t take long for addiction to set in. Porn is so pervasive in our culture today, and nobody wants to fess up and say that they’ve been affected by it. But it used to have a ridiculous hold on me from a young age. I even remember watching lesbian porn, because male body parts still grossed me out. That’s how young I was. But satan used the female body, something I was familiar with, to drag me into this death trap of porn.
I had a computer in my room growing up so access to porn was simple. My dad was pretty big into technology so I was used to the Internet and having the privacy of my room to do whatever I wanted, especially since I was an only child. But, ha. One thing I didn’t know about was Internet History and child blocks… lol So one night I was busted. I remember being called downstairs, and my dad had this ridiculously long list of porn sites that I had traveled to. It was a ridiculous hot mess. Thinking back, that list was SO long… I don’t even know how I had time for all that. I guess it had accumulated over months. And when they approached me, my mom said something like, “I know there are those ads that pop up…” And I broke down crying, not in an actual confession of what I had been doing, but I blamed it on those pop-up advertisements. I don’t even know how they believed me because that wasn’t even a logical response… thousands of those ads?! lol But I guess they just wanted to believe the best in me.
So I continued to struggle with porn and masturbation, even at that young age of ten. Then in middle school and high-school I began “talking” to boys, pretty much for the same reason I was addicted to porn. I was seeking fulfillment and comfort. I knew I was missing something, but I couldn’t figure out what it was.
In high school I began getting more involved in the church. I had received Christ as my Savior when I was a young child, but now that I had gotten older, I wanted to understand what it really meant to be a Christian. I attended church every Sunday and tried reading the Bible but I had little passion for Him, and I didn’t know how to obtain it. But when people looked at my life, it was safe to assume that I was top of the world – straight A student, involved in sports and clubs at school, attending church, and I even sang in a gospel group with my friends in an attempt to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with others. But the funny thing is, I didn’t really understand the gospel for myself.
I even attended a summer camp through my church, and I specifically remember that the sermon one day was about porn and sexual immorality and how it can consume your life and really interfere with your walk with God. They asked each of us to go to the altar for prayer, one-on-one with one of the youth pastors. And I remember walking up to pray with the female youth pastor, and she asked me what I was struggling with, and I looked her in the eyes, and said nothing about porn or masturbation. I know she saw the shame in my eyes, so she asked me again, but I said, “no, nothing” and quickly bowed my head. I remember they gave us a contract to sign that pretty much said we’d dedicate our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God, for a year. I couldn’t even sign it. I was afraid. I knew I would break it, and I didn’t want to set myself up for disappointment. I was so ashamed of what I was doing. I knew it was wrong, but I didn’t know how to ask God for forgiveness and depend on Him for the strength to turn away from it.
So I kept doing what I knew how to do. And I loved music. I listened to the music on the radio, and the lyrics pervaded my mind. I used to go to Jetz or Club Zoo on the weekends in high school, and I thought it was okay to dance with guys however I wanted to. I used to go to those places on Saturday night (a few hours away from church on Sunday) and act like God couldn’t see me there. Like, just because the lights were dim inside the club it was a whole different world so I didn’t feel convicted of my sin. But I was just being deceived (Galatians 6:7-8).
Through all of this, I was still in church. So I was gaining knowledge of who God is, and the Bible, even though I wasn’t applying much of it to my life. I didn’t take notes at church when I listened to sermons, but I did desire to grow in the Lord. I was just beginning to learn how to turn to God instead of trying to take on my personal issues by myself. God began to break that addiction to pornography and masturbation. It didn’t have the same hold on me like it used to and I was really starting to embrace the power of Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection.
Now let’s move onto college. God put me at Carnegie Mellon University. I am fully convinced that God wanted me there. I got involved in the Christian community there and God sparked a desire in me to grow closer to Him. I didn’t have the strongest relationship with Him when I first started out a CMU, but by the grace of God and the encouragement of others, I began to try living a life for Jesus Christ. Now, let’s be real. Anybody who attended Carnegie Mellon knows that this place is a monster. A monster. Like a godzilla, in the sense that it can be ridiculously challenging. The culture there consists of constant stress, packed schedules, lack of sleep, and just a feeling of being burdened by something or another all the time. I found myself being constantly overwhelmed by day-to-day tasks. And looking back on my freshman year, I was just a grouch. Lol I felt like I had no reason to smile most of the time. I felt like CMU sucked the life out of me. Of course, I was growing in the faith, but I was still struggling with putting all of my trust in God. Instead, I was bearing so many burdens, and I most of the time just felt like I couldn’t handle the pressures of life.
And then came a relationship. A romantic relationship that just wasn’t built on a solid spiritual foundation. So even though we were both Christians, we didn’t know how to conduct ourselves according to the Word of God. And it quickly led to sexual immorality. Something I thought I was done with. But this issue came back to haunt me, and it was even worse now because it wasn’t just me who was affected. It was both of us. So even though we cried out to God so many times for deliverance, we still kept messing up, because we didn’t hate our sin as much as we should have. We only hated feeling guilty about it. True repentance comes out of a love for God and a desire to present yourself holy and blameless before Him. Without that, you’re likely to fall right back into what you just confessed about. So that relationship wreaked a bit of havoc in my spiritual life. I desired to pursue God with my whole heart, but this sin kept holding me back from experiencing Him fully.
My relationship with this person was kind of off and on, but eventually we broke up for good really early on in my junior year. And although I knew it needed to happen, I was devastated. Literally devastated. It was like in the movies where the girl with the broken heart is in her bed all day crying and refusing to get up. That pretty much happened. I remember it was the middle of the day, but I laid in my bed just bawling. I had never felt so alone. But God was faithful. Being in that place of brokenness, I was finally ready for God to step in and really restore my heart (Psalm 147:3). And He did. It was like a chance to start over and really give God my whole heart and love Him more than ever.
I think it was after that point that things really in my life really started changing. Yes, it was hard, but God comforted me and gave me the grace to live for Him. I started to really desire to read and study the Bible and draw closer to Him. I found peace in those quiet times I spent with Him and I found myself wanting to live in a way that brings glory to Him.
Now, even since then, I haven’t been a perfect person at all. By no means. For those who know me personally, y’all know that’s the case. Lol I’ve been rude to people, I’ve struggled with pride, among so many other things. I’ve been a mess. But one thing I’ve learned is that no matter how messed up I can be, God chooses to love me. He knew that I would mess up in this life, so out of His crazy love for me, He saw fit to have His perfect and sinless Son, Jesus Christ, put to death. Why did he have to be put to death? Because I deserve death. I deserve death for all the horrible things I have done and things that I still do to this day (Romans 6:23). But it is God’s will for us to be saved from this death. And this whole thing about Jesus Christ was God’s way of saying, “You don’t deserve this, but I’m giving you a chance to live right by taking My perfect Son and having him suffer for all the mess that you’ve done. All because I love you so much.” That’s really all it is. We’ve all done things that hurt God, but He loves us so much that He’s given us a way to live holy – asking for forgiveness and believing that Jesus Christ died to bring us into good standing with God.
If you feel like there’s something missing in your life, you’re not alone. I used to seek comfort from so many other things, but now I find ALL of my comfort in God.
Now, if you’re a female, I can probably relate to some of your struggles. I know it’s hard when you feel like you have all of these emotional and physical needs that want to be fulfilled, but please, take it from me.. God is intimate. Intimate. He’s not some distant cosmic being, He wants to dwell in you. He wants to walk with you. He wants to be your everything. He LOVES you more than you can even fathom. Yes, you. He loves YOU. And I must say, it’s the greatest, purest love of all. You wouldn’t even believe how much God desires to hear your voice. He wants you to speak to Him. He wants to hear all about your struggles and He wants to take them away.
Giving my life to Christ was the best thing I’ve ever done. I’ve encountered God intimately, and it’s almost like I can’t even describe it in words. It’s ridiculous how REAL God is. And, I guess, if I’m still telling my story, that brings me to where my life is now. And explains why my Facebook statuses are steady talking about how ridiculously real God is. It’s because I’ve encountered the real, true, living God and I just can’t keep from telling about it.
Even in these past three months… this summer has been absolutely AMAZING. God has revealed Himself in so many ways. I had my first personal experiences with healing miracles this summer. Of course, I had seen God heal people but I had never been personally involved in it. Well, that changed. God wanted to heal a few people that I came in contact with this summer… I just prayed for them and the power of God overtook them and brought healing. Legit healing. God completely healed two different people’s knees through my prayer. It’s absolutely incredible.
And the Holy Spirit is SO powerful. When you choose salvation through Jesus Christ, He sends you the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit dwells inside of you and transforms your heart and your mind, helping you to be obedient to God. The Holy Spirit gives you direct access to the mind of God. Even when I go out to share God’s love with people, He is able to direct me to do and say exactly what needs to be done. I used to fear sharing my testimony or sharing the gospel with people, but now it’s just exciting to see God does. At the end of May, I went on my first “treasure hunt.” I think I’m going to write a whole different note just on treasure hunting, because there’s just so much to tell. Just know that God loves people. And He is so excited to use people to share His love.
Even my prayer time has changed. Oh boy. I used to think prayer was SO boring. And then I had the hardest time focusing because I was distracted by so many other things. But now… Prayer time has been the most intimate thing ever. I can’t even explain how it feels to commune with the God who made me. He speaks to me when I take the time to listen to Him. He cares enough about my day-to-day life to warn me about ways that I’m slipping up and then forgive me for them. He encourages me with sweet words. He loves me unconditionally and it’s so clear to me when I spend time with Him.
It’s crazy that such a huge God is able to be so personal. And the things I used to struggle with – porn, sexual immorality, and seeking fulfillment from relationships – it’s all GONE. It’s incredible how God has fulfilled me so much that I don’t even want to turn to anything or anyone else for affection and intimacy. It’s ridiculously amazing. Even the type of music I used to listen to just makes me sick now. Now I can only listen to music that glorifies God. Even my purpose for being on this earth has become so clear. It's just so obvious that I was created to praise God. There's so much to tell. I can’t even list all the ways that God has changed my life. He has fixed and comforted my heart in so many ways, even up until this very day.
Now, if you made it this far through the note, I'm impressed. I know I said a lot, but I pray that something I wrote actually touched you. I never want to come off as better than anybody else. I'm just a girl being used by God. I can’t boast in anything I’ve done, because reality is, I’m a mess without God. But now that I’ve decided to cling to Him, and receive His grace, I am being transformed. God is taking the mess of a person that I am and making me into something beautiful by His grace and power alone.
I wanted to share all these things because God is real. He can work miracles in your life if you just let Him in. Just try it. If you don’t know Christ personally and you feel something within you wanting to make this decision to follow Him, do it. Ask God for help. Ask Him to forgive you of your mistakes and thank Him for His sacrifice of Jesus Christ. God will be right there to help you with your decision.
If you want to know more about having a personal relationship with God, feel free to message me. And if you are unsure or confused about anything I shared, definitely ask. We can talk about it. It doesn’t matter if I’ve known you 5 minutes or 5 years or if we’re family or friends or acquaintances… I’ll listen to whatever you have to say.
In Christ with love,
Nia :-)
**The blood of Jesus Christ and the power of my testimony overcome the enemy (Revelation 12:11). Thanks be to God.
No comments:
Post a Comment