Monthly Archives: January 2016

Brittany’s Testimony

Brittany's Baptism
Brittany’s Baptism
I grew up in a single parent home with my mom, younger sister and older brother; my father died when I was ten from cancer. We were upper lower class but we never knew it because my mom made sure we had everything we needed. Our home was always kept clean, we had decent clothes and we didn’t go hungry. We lived in drug, crime and gang infested neighborhoods until I was twelve years old; witnessing many difficult things first hand: molestation, homosexuality, drunkenness, drug addictions (heroin use and marijuana), verbal abuse and physical abuse. However, despite these things I didn’t drink, smoke or get involved in any criminal activity at any point in my life; it caused me to despise this lifestyle and the people in it.

Religiously, I grew up with influences from Catholicism, Baptist, Pentecostal and “pray Jesus into your heart” doctrines that filled me with contradictory and emotion driven “Christianity”. However, through all of this I still believed that everyone needed to be baptized to be saved and, until I was a baptized disciple, I had never been baptized. I was also very self-righteous and didn’t believe I was “that bad” or that I didn’t need to change much in my life. I went to the same church from age ten to age seventeen; it was a non-denomination church with heavy Pentecostal influences (I didn’t know this until after I was a disciple). However, no one asked about my purity, my convictions or knew the struggles in the household I lived in. Also, at seventeen I was being risen up to be the right hand to the youth minister with the hopes that I would lead the youth group after him. The reason why I stopped going to that church at age seventeen is because it fell apart from within due to deceit, bitterness and selfish motives in the church leadership. This was one of the hardest things I’ve ever witnessed, but I remember thinking of Revelations and about how God removes churches that don’t represent Him correctly. This was the start of me truly seeking God. I prayed continually for God to show me what He wanted to do with my life and I read my Bible every day hoping to find that answer.

During the approximate two years of me not going to church I grew a dream. I was preparing for college and I knew I was going to be an engineering major of some sort, but being an engineer was not my dream. I wanted to become an engineer with my masters in five years so that I can make a ton of money to fund my church planting in Puerto Rico. I wanted to buy land to build a huge house on; big enough to house poor orphaned children and start a church somewhere in San Juan. So when I went to ASU my prayer was to find a church so that I could get baptized and be saved. I had no idea what I was asking for.

On the week of August 31st in 2009 I was met on ASU campus by a sister and a brother who invited me to a Bible talk that Thursday. However, I didn’t go because I and the boyfriend I had at the time broke up hours before it started. Still, I believed God sent these people into my life and I wanted to see what He wanted to show me. After going to their Labor Day barbeque the next Monday (September 7, 2009) I quickly started to study the Bible and I was baptized twenty days later on September 27th. The biggest things I had to learn in those Bible studies is that I will never be perfect, I needed to repent before I was baptized to be truly saved and that I was extremely prideful to believe I was fit to lead any people to God with the heart and lifestyle I lived. I had “a form of godliness but denied its power” in my life. I was sexually immoral, impure, envious, prideful in all its forms, unforgiving, ungrateful, critical, deceitful, selfishly ambitious, and a lover of myself. I will be forever grateful to the women that studied the Bible with me and taught me what my true purpose needed to be. I thank God that He gave me an even greater dream, not just for Puerto Rico, but to evangelize the world. I remember the joy I had when I realized that my dream to plant a church could come true and how grateful I was that I wasn’t the only one out there who wanted to truly change lives and please God.

Natalie’s Testimony

Natalie and the sisters who studied the Bible with her
Natalie and the sisters who studied the Bible with her
I was born in Atlanta, Georgia in late September of 1995. Both my parents were very religious and came from a protestant background. My dad would pray over me every night and my mom would lock herself in her closet and pray in tongues, something both my parents did but I never heard. I questioned my relationship with God from the beginning; I always wondered why I couldn’t pray in tongues, why I wasn’t good or special enough. Throughout my childhood, I began to question the same thing about my biological father’s love.

When I was about six years old, my parents divorced. My mom was in and out of rehab while I was growing up, even before the divorce. She was the breadwinner and my dad didn’t have a steady job, so our family was split apart each time my mom left. For most of my childhood, my family (mom, dad, and two brothers) weren’t together. My dad got a job in Texas so we moved there, but once I got the chance I moved to Arizona with my mom. My feelings toward my father as I got older weren’t exactly loving, and for seven years he was not a part of my life in any way except my summer visits to Texas every couple of years.

Since I was nine years old, I struggled with depression and anxiety. In middle school I was considered the “good girl”, but I was lonely and sad. I met my best friend, Zach, in seventh grade and suddenly I wasn’t so lonely, and the smiles he put on my face didn’t make me so sad. My freshman year of high school, Zach died. I was in emotional shock, and no longer cared about the people who were in my life, and I didn’t care much for mine. I felt lost, so I found a new group of friends. We shoplifted and went to parties, which led to drinking and then drugs. At this point I had lost God, I doubted him and claimed my religion as agnostic.

My junior year my dad and brother moved to Arizona. On prom night I got kicked out of my mom’s house and moved in with my dad. When my dad found out we were smoking marijuana, he said we could do it in the apartment but not in the streets. My brother started selling out of the room we shared, and my problem with drinking and smoking increased to a point where I was only sober when my morning intoxication wore off at school. During this time I had relationships where I felt rejected and used. I developed an eating disorder and my depression and anxiety became severe. One night I was about to attempt suicide, and as I was crying I began to pray for the pain to go away. Then I felt a peace come over me. I hadn’t prayed in years, and all of sudden I was calm and at peace. I knew that God was there, and he heard my cry.

Unfortunately things got worse after this. In college, I started living for myself and my experiences. Out rebellion and hatred, and a need to be in control of my life, I began doing harder drugs such as LSD, ecstasy, and psilocybin. I was immoral with men I barely knew, or didn’t know. My first year at school and I had lost my full ride scholarship. After many withdrawals and shameful nights I would cry to my friends about how I wanted to change my life and be close to God, but I had no idea where to start. I thought that I had overcome depression, but I hadn’t. I was hiding behind this “tough girl”, but in reality I was filled with bitterness, hatred, and shame. I wasn’t happy, just comfortable. While walking to friends dorm to study, a girl approached me and asked to come to a bible talk. When I said I couldn’t, but would love to another time she asked me if I wanted to study the bible. I said “yes!”. I went to my friends dorm, but while I was there I couldn’t get the encounter out of my mind, and I knew I needed to go to the bible talk, so I went back. On January 28, 2014, I started my bible studies. Throughout the rough four month journey, it was very difficult for me to give up the drugs and immorality. Why? I was scared. I didn’t trust God’s promises. I didn’t believe Him when the scriptures told me that I would be set free if I followed His commands, that I would be superlatively happy when I kept in statues. I thought that I had overcome my depression, that I was happy now because of the comfort I found in men and drugs. I was so fearful to give it up, to lose my “happiness”. I began to pull away from seeking Him and I hardened my heart, and spent a weekend in sin. I thought “After this weekend I’ll change”. But it wasn’t that easy.

Thank God, I began going to the chemical recovery ministry in the church! It was through journaling my experiences that I realized that my relationship with my father and men in my life had made me insecure. I had a deep wound of “not being good enough” that I had numbed and ignored instead of healed. I realized that I hadn’t overcome depression, and I wasn’t happy. I was just…numb. I realized that I had victimized myself, I became a slave to my idol- insecurity. I became consumed with it- every thought was negative and self-destructive. Everything I had done in my life was driven by it. I found peace in my eating disorder, confidence in drugs, and my value and self-worth in men. But it was like giving morphine to someone with a cancerous tumor- the pain may go away for a short time, but the tumor is still there, and the cancer will spread unless it’s removed. I was empty without God. I realized that to be set free from the pain for good, I needed to follow Him, to obey His commands. I needed to trust that His promises were good. I needed to give up my life for Him. But my insecurity made me believe I was unlovable, that I was both “too much” and “not enough”. I didn’t think I could ever stop the drugs and the immorality.

“For He satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul He fills with good things.” Psalm 107:9 ESV.
The greatest day of my life was May 28, 2014, when I made Jesus Lord of my life and was baptized! Now, I don’t live for myself, God has given me a greater purpose – to share my good news of Jesus with the world. I’m not empty, but I have been filled with joy and the ultimate good- the Holy Spirit! He is continuously healing me and building my character. I’m far from the hateful, deceitful, and hurtful girl I was and God is transforming me into a gentle, strong, and godly woman. Through Christ, the sins I committed that deserved death were forgiven. A man who was tempted with every temptation I gave into and more, yet was innocent and free of sin, was tortured and killed on the cross for me. My joy comes from understanding that my insecurities were lies. I was good enough for Jesus, and my sins were not “too much” to be forgiven. I am worthy of unconditional love, I am worth sacrifice. I am loved by my Father, who wants me. Who has chosen me to do His work, and to spend eternal life with Him.