The circumstances I went through is what brought me back to Christ, through the years of legalistic rules that were now ingrained in my head made it difficult to align my thoughts with God’s love for me as I was persistently being spiritually attacked with fear and doubt. While as I have now learned over the years, this thing called “faith” is actually real and not based upon teaching of works to get to heaven, but by God’s grace that saved me. I am now a new creation by realizing my need for a Savior as I am constantly learning and growing on how to know Christ and make Chirst known through my traumatic experiences in life by living in His Word and abiding in His truth.

“And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

John 8:32 

I came to know Christ at a young age as I was born and raised in a Christian household. You could say I was born as a “perfect child” into a “perfect family.” As I got older more things came creeping in as I struggled with speech and reading which lead to the start of my childhood trauma. I had to go into the Individualized Educational Program (IEP) to learn to be successful in school. I felt very alone at this time as I didn’t feel very successful. I felt like a failure to my teachers and my parents. In school there were three places I hated the most: the bathroom, the cafeteria, and the playground. These places were the least supervised places and were also the main places that I was in and therefore the most vulnerable. I would often come home from being taunted so when I would come home from those long days I would distress by sitting in a full bathtub of water.

Later on I developed an eating disorder at school due to the comments made about my body image. In the bathroom mean things were said to me as I would try to fix my appearance in the mirror. I remember constantly asking my mom questions about my image like “am I pretty, ugly, or fat," “do I look pregnant," and “when will I start puberty?” It started to get worse when I began to avoid eating my meals throughout the day. My mindset of being a child of God started to diminish and negative thoughts started creeping in which made me doubt my identity and worth in Christ.

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.”

John 10:10

At the end of first grade my mom decided to take us kids out of public school and start something new. Being pulled out of school was a lot for me to process and the concept of being schooled at home was confusing for me. Staying home all the time with my family had its pros and cons. Our family started traveling a lot to homeschool conferences but one in particular was interesting. This conference which, was more of and Institute, felt cult-like to me as it taught us in a strict manner of Basic Life Principles of Bill Gothard, we had to dress and be a certain way to honor Christ. It had a lot of rules, which made me question my faith. 

Years later things started to come to light as I started to deal with some physical health issues. I did not know it at the time but my mental health was suppressed and deteriorating. When I started to talk about it I got confused why people would freak out and get so worried about what I was saying. I remember very clearly one day being asked “are you stressed” at a doctor’s appointment. My mom was with me and I remember answering honestly along with other questions they had. During that time it was my first time seeing my mom cry because of the actions and behaviors I had implemented in response to my mental health. I thought it was out of the ordinary to see my mother cry because I thought my behaviors were normal.

Things started to get worse when my habits turned into addictions. I would compulsively lie about things so I wouldn’t get help. I was afraid of becoming selfish and afraid of how people viewed me. Diagnoses, pills, and labels were being shoved at me constantly as a solution for my behaviors. Therapy was not helping so I was in and out of hospitals, group homes, and residential as I was not stable enough to stay with my family at home. I became a danger to myself and others because I lost hope. I started to doubt if my parents really cared about me and I even started to deny God was ever in my life. I started to hang around the wrong group of people and started living a secular lifestyle by dressing immodestly, wearing heavy amounts of makeup, doing drugs, refusing to go to church and do school, and started listening to secular music and believing the messages it was giving.  My relationship with family members began to fall apart and past trauma began to mix with new traumas making me feel overwhelmed. They seemed too big to cope and manage both for me and for God so I kept pushing him away and avoided healing. I became selfish in my own earthly desires and grew very hopeless; I was in a very dark place in my life.

During my spiral down hill my mom had me do horse lessons not knowing that the person teaching me was not only going to teach me about horses but also pour into my life. She expressed to me that I can find "true healing” in God but only if I submit to him. I laughed and completely rejected what she had to say. This was said to me every week and I started to get annoyed and hateful towards everything, especially towards her and God.

In the beginning of 2020 I became extremely sick and I was in the hospital for a couple months. I began to ask God questions and started my own little relationship with God, which I had pushed away, and I started to pray once again. 

After horse lessons ended I kept in contact with the horse lady. I started going to Bible study and worship nights with her and learning about God’s love and hearing other people's testimonies. The women running the Bible studies acted like she already knew me and said she had prayed for this one word for me—“Joy.” I never held on to a word so tightly before. This was something I craved desperately for because I knew I had not felt it in a while.

At one point I was struggling really bad from my trauma and I couldn’t stand the pain any longer. I invited some friends over including the ladies from bible study. I was asked some questions about my faith and if I understood how lost I was without a Savior. I felt even more alone talking about my struggles but then realized that my struggles are not mine to fight alone which gave me the overwhelming peace I needed to repent again. On that day I recommitted my life to Christ and got baptized on November 1, 2020. Now everything didn’t go away in one day, it actually got worse before it got better. Dealing with the experiences of my past trauma is a continuous journey of detangling a lot of fear to make ones heart whole again. 

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”                

Galatians 2:20   

I know I was made to have a servant’s heart. At a young age I was taught to put God first, others second, and yourself last. I knew very well of the dangers of the world and now I strive to live as an example of Christ. Even though I drifted from God’s will for me for a time I wouldn’t have changed anything. What I have gone through has equipped me for my calling in doing ministry for others. Now I’m able to put myself into other peoples’ shoes and show the love of Christ to them by showing the compassion shown towards us with Jesus dying on the cross for our sins.