Testimony

I haven’t written a blog in about a month because I asked God what I should write about and He told me my testimony… so since then I’ve been doing everything to put this off. Only a few people have heard my testimony and that’s because I am a very quiet and private person. I don’t like to share stuff about myself especially this personal. But this is what God wants, so here we are. Honestly, I’m pretty excited to share with everyone how I got to where I am and why I am the person I am today.

So here we go…

I got saved in VBS on June 26, 2007… I truly believed in God and asked him into my heart.

Fast forward seven years.

Oh, sweet Awanita. My favorite place to be. For those of you who don’t know, Awanita, is a very special youth camp and a very special place to me. This is where I rededicated my life to the Lord. July 1, 2014, a day I will never forget. It’s the day I felt the Holy Spirit literally come alive in me. Some of y’all know what I am talking about. The best feeling in the world.

Little did I know, well actually I was warned… That the first year after this wonderful “rebirth” I would like to say, is going to be a hard year.

Let’s fast forward a few months after July 1st, when the “spiritual high” started wearing off.

Freshman year of high school… I have no idea why, but I decided it was cool to be a really mean person. I wasn’t intentionally mean to others, but stuff just came out pretty rude. This my friends caused A LOT of drama. I started listening to rock music and wearing all black (disclaimer: I for real was not gothic, some may say otherwise). You know the usual temptations that go on in high school and in everyday life: cussing, drinking and smoking. Luckily for me I hardly did any of those things… really, I just struggled with being mean. Sad thing is… at the time I did not even realize I was being mean until after it was already said and done.

So, this went on for a while… pretty much the whole first semester of freshman year. At this point I was being called Satan and Lucifer and that the devil had a seat waiting for me. This would literally break my heart, but I WOULD NOT let that show to anyone… I would just respond with something mean, instead. Then I would go home and sit on my bed and cry. Nobody knew this was happening or how I felt. I would open my Bible and read it, but I would just begin to feel bad for all the stuff I had done and feel bad for the people I had been mean to. I would get mad at myself because I knew I wasn’t living the life God wanted me to live. Then I began to believe that I deserved to be punished. I believed I needed to feel the pain that I brought upon other people. So, I would get a razor and cut myself.

This continued for a few months.

Then one Wednesday night in youth we sang the song, heart of worship. I felt the Holy Spirit saying Hailey, just come back. Then my youth pastor read us Psalm 42 and Psalm 31.

As a deer longs for streams of water,

so, I long for You, God.

I thirst for God, the living God.

When can I come and appear before God?

My tears have been my food day and night,

while all day long people say to me,

“Where is your God?”

I remember this as I pour out my heart:

how I walked with many,

leading the festive procession to the house of God,

with joyful and thankful shouts.

Why am I so depressed?

Why this turmoil within me?

Put your hope in God, for I will still praise Him,

my Savior and my God.

I am deeply depressed;

therefore, I remember You from the land of Jordan

and the peaks of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.

Deep calls to deep in the roar of Your waterfalls;

all Your breakers and Your billows have swept over me.

The Lord will send His faithful love by day;

His song will be with me in the night —

a prayer to the God of my life.

I will say to God, my rock,

“Why have You forgotten me?

Why must I go about in sorrow

because of the enemy’s oppression?”

My adversaries taunt me,

as if crushing my bones,

while all day long they say to me,

“Where is your God?”

Why am I so depressed?

Why this turmoil within me?

Put your hope in God, for I will still praise Him,

my Savior and my God.

Psalm 42

Lord, I seek refuge in You;

let me never be disgraced.

Save me by Your righteousness.

Listen closely to me; rescue me quickly.

Be a rock of refuge for me,

a mountain fortress to save me.

For You are my rock and my fortress;

You lead and guide me

because of Your name.

You will free me from the net

that is secretly set for me,

for You are my refuge.

Into Your hand I entrust my spirit;

You redeem me, Lord, God of truth.

Psalm 31:1-5

First of all, WOW to those verse and to God!! Literally as he was reading those verses; I felt the Holy Spirit moving. I knew that this night, this lesson was exactly for me. After he got done reading, he asked us to write a letter to God.

I immediately wrote I’m sorry Lord for the way I’ve been acting. It was a letter of repenting. Needing to know that God still loved me even though I was not living the way He said. Needing help. Pleading for forgiveness. The beautiful thing about my God is that He immediately forgives, and He immediately helps!

After that service I went home and sat on my bed and listened to heart of worship by Jeff Johnson and The Last Night by Skillet (Had to have my rock in there, but no joke this song truly helped change my life) and I just prayed and prayed and prayed that letter of repentance. After, I felt so much peace and joy to have finally been set free of all of that hate and sin that was living in me.

Fast forward to today, I am soooo thankful for everything that I have went through. I would definitely not be where I am today or who I am today without these trials in life.

Like Isaiah 66:9 says, “I will not cause pain without allowing something new to be born.”

I have been set free! I have been redeemed! I have been born new!

God has a plan for each of us and sometimes to stay on track of that plan we will have to face some tough trials. But that’s okay! Trials are okay! Trials are what brings out our strengths!!

“But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power, may reside in me. So, I take pleasure in weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and in difficulties, for the sake of Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

It takes being at our weakest, so God can build us back up a thousand times stronger. I am so grateful for that.

H

Here are the links to Heart of Worship and The Last Night. I highly recommend listening to both of these songs!!

Heart of Worship

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-RwQtZZf6A

The Last Night

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdtvX7uiZqU