Gods Amazing Love and My Own Transformation

So where do I start? Like many people in this world I had a past. Growing up in a broken home where I felt that I could only receive conditional love. I never thought I would live past the age of nineteen too afraid that I would die in a car crash. I lived and bathed in fear. I would watch scary movies and actually believed life was like that. My mind was filled with fear and inappropriate thoughts due to sexual abuse when I was younger which I just found out about last summer and a book I read in fourth grade called Flowers in the Attic which mistakenly my mother and my grandmother gave me to read it was three hundred pages that a little girl should never read. Most of my friends were broken people like me, ranging from a friend in JJC to cutting herself to a bully to a girl that hanged out with people that were druggies and a foster kid.
I tried to run away and even threatened to kill myself due to problems at home, my mother and me who also was unsaved at the time did not get along. I lived in secrecy many people did not know what happened with me at home and I would never report my relationship with my mother of similar problems of generations past of abuse. I was too afraid of what people thought of me and had self esteem issues. In fact my freshman year of high school I spent an hour in the bathroom staring at myself and hoping somehow the image would change. I distrusted people and even hated them I never knew how to get close to anyone and I thought if a God existed then why would He want me to go through so much pain.
I would never smile literally when I was younger people even commented to my mother who was unaware of the abuse due to oppression, so my own mother did not know the pain I experienced everyday. We hated each other and called each other horrible names back and forth I would run and hide and I felt like it was an everyday ritual. I hated Catholics up until this summer due to being teased by Catholics in fifth grade after being there a year and being back stabbed by an ex best friend. In fact when I was a freshman in college out partying and staying at my boyfriends at the time thank God to this day I am still a virgin I saw a truck everyday with a Campus Crusade for Christ bumper sticker and I thought to myself they are too Christian for me. I hated Catholics but I hated Christians more. That was when God started to perform a miracle on my heart and soul and change my life forever.
God works in mysterious ways, ways in which I can never understand. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:5-6” That same year my father got the call to Iraq. At first my parents were not going to tell me and then somehow I figured it out. I knew it was either divorce or Iraq and I was betting because of the time Iraq. When my father went overseas I had a hole in my heart I realized that I was not living life the way I wanted and somehow I needed a change. I did not know that that change was going to be the Lord Jesus Christ.
When I first talked about Jesus with my friend Lindsey I thought nothing of her question I thought it a bit odd and a bit personal but I did not think too much into it. She wanted to know if I had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ? I said no and she invited me to bible study since I was looking for better friends and a new fresh start I agreed. I went to bible study and loved it. My friend Amy had just started it the year before due to the Lord’s calling. That was the day I asked God in my heart not willing to fully commit but willing to be open to the idea of a relationship with God, I was not ready to say Jesus because that meant the belief in Christ not only God and I was not ready to take the full step, but willing to believe in a higher power then myself and begin that walk to discover Him.
That year Lindsey invited me to Campus Crusade fall retreat. I thought she was nuts I had already gone to a CRU meeting and felt like the worst person around I thought if they knew my past they would kick me out and told myself I would never return. But God was not done with me yet. I actually ended up going to Fall retreat and getting the booklet to accept Christ in my life but did not receive him yet. That summer I had applied to a summer project through CRU and somehow I got in even though I was not a born again Christian believer. Since I thought the prayer was not needed then I thought I was good enough. I had campers the week before I said the prayer and luckily got sick that week with a strong devoted Christian who happened to share the good news with me again for like the third time. That same week I told the Lord I loved him and accepted him fully into my heart, it was a prayer that was genuine and sincere out of faith.
Lord Jesus, I need You. Thank You for dying on the cross for my sins. I open the door of my life and receive You as my Savior and Lord. Thank You for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal and abundant life. Take control of my life. Make me the kind of person You want me to be.
That summer I learned about the Lord, my personal relationship with him and what that looked like and how to have daily devotions. After that summer I lived in a Christian Cooperative which helped me to know about genuine Christian friendships with other girls and how to be a good support network also a lot about having fun while being a Christian and the girls that lived there helped me to grow and deepen in my relationship with God. I would go to church at St. Pius with my catholic friends and would reach out to them in need and tell and share with them the love of God that I experienced. I also would go to Campus House a church I could go to church with my CRU friends and Calvary in which I helped out with the youth ministry. That same year my world of spiritual knowledge changed incredibly when I was in Detroit during spring break. I learned about oppression of demons and the true deep everlasting love of God. I also met a man of God named James who I talk to about spiritual things and told me to love my mother and that it was easy. I call him my mentor and him and his wife Erica are like my spiritual parents people I know are walking very closely with the Lord are married and live day by day for Jesus Christ.
That summer my relationship with my mother changed as she got freed and I got freed from demons of our past. Oppression is something that happens too many but not many people know about it. God chooses some to go through what they do and to teach others what they encountered and how they got freed. Prayer and lots of it is the sole authority we have as believers in Christ. You can never pray too much for anyone and there is a 100% guarantee it works every time. So pray diligently and constantly. The earliest disciples came together and prayed and so should we. “They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers” (Acts 1:14)
I feel like God has granted me the gift of healing and faith. Although every believer does have the power to heal if they believe in the name of Jesus Christ, and there is so much power in his name. “And so, when Jesus' name is called, the knees of everyone should fall wherever they're residing” Philippians 2:10. Jesus name is the answer to our prayers and the peace within the storm. This summer I have conquered another impossible belief in my mind. When I was growing up I had a food addiction and would eat whenever I got stressed or bored. So my releaser when I was going through my past would be food. Now I turn to God and since deciding that I have lost a lot of pounds 25 to be exact and can do more then I ever thought physically possible. I am a true believer though that what God can do for me He can do for you.
We all have a past no matter if it is physically or mentally being hurt somewhere along the way we all have been hurt. This world is not a kind and gentle place and there is a lot of mean things around us every day. “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12). The important thing is to know that we have an enemy and is not each other and to know that we are uncondionally loved by a Father in Heaven that wants us to come to us daily so that He can give us our daily bread. God gives us the breath that we need to survive so that we can reach out and touch the lives of others around us. If He can change my life from depression and brokenness into a life of hope and love imagine what He can do with yours. You know those dreams that you have in your heart that you keep secret or those fears that you have kept secret give it to God and let God transform your mess into something beautiful. You are worth more then you think you are.
Two verses to leave you with that fit with my life story:
Isaiah 38:17
Surely it was for my benefit
that I suffered such anguish.
In your love you kept me
from the pit of destruction;
you have put all my sins
behind your back.
So the answer to my question years ago when I was broken and afraid looking for God is that He does exist and that Jesus is the answer. I studied many religions and often though Christians were judgmental because they had one true God but the fact of the matter I found the truth. Jesus is the light the truth and the way and I would encourage anyone to fully give their lives to Him.