"I am new"

My Testimony

“Now I won’t deny the worst you could say about me. But I’m not defined by mistakes that I’ve made because God says of me I am not who I was, I am being remade, I am new. I am new.”

~’I Am New’ by Jason Gray

As always I share on my blog as I am led by the Lord and tonight I am finally sitting down to write out what He has been urging me to share for years: my testimony. I would like to preface this by asking readers to please withhold from judgment and gossip as this is very difficult for me to share and deals with many sensitive issues.

In 1996, at the age of 5, I accepted God as my personal Savior and His gift of eternal life. I was raised in a Christian home where we attended church regularly and prayed every night before bed. My mother was the one who ultimately lead me to Christ the first time (I will explain the use of the word first later…) We weren’t the perfect family, there were rough times in my childhood, but I am thankful for the family I was born into and for the exposure to Christ at an early age because it was the foundation I came to lean on later in life.

I was a pretty good kid. I excelled in school, attended VBS every summer and AWANA every Wednesday. I continued to be active in the youth group into my Middle School years and even shared Salvation to a few friends during that time. But High School is really where I want to get to the meat of my testimony and my life transformation.

Freshmen year, as expected, was difficult. We were dealing with family illness, financial issues and I faced a huge identity crisis. Most of my friends were falling into different clicks and I wasn’t sure where I fit. At the age of 14 I first experimented with cigarettes; in my undeveloped mind it was ‘the cool thing to do.’ After awhile I found my core group of friends and continued the adjustment to high school.

Sophomore year was a big turning in my life and really when things started to go downhill and quick. Throughout the years I had had a multitude of ‘crushes’ and doodled a few Mrs. Jenni <insert crush’s last name> on my notebook but when I was 15 I began dating my first real boyfriend. I was raised with the belief that Christians should date other Christians: ‘Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?’ 2 Corinthians 6:14 But at 15 I had no thoughts about the long term effects or even marriage, what could be so wrong with dating a non-believer? I rationalized that I could always be the one who led him to Christ. This would not be the case. I changed my life to revolve around him, his interests and his friends which left very little room for the Lord. Sure I still went to church every Sunday and youth group every Sunday night but when I was on my ‘own’ time I did what felt good at the moment. I sought satisfaction from the world and the people of it. At the young age of 15 I gave myself away, a decision that still haunts me to do this day. With that action I set forth a chain reaction….unknowingly I learned to define love in unhealthy terms which I still struggle with. I programmed my mind to believe that a guy would only love me if he got what he wanted from me. Let me be real honest, changing those precedents is extremely difficult once you’ve replayed them so many times. It took me 3-4 years to get out of this reckless behavior. I am ashamed to admit the pregnancy scares I had as a teenager and later as an adult I realized how STDs were the bigger consequence. Thankfully the Lord protected me but the what if’s still plague me.

Eventually my first relationship ended, yet I still carried the stigma and careless behavior into other relationships and flings. At 16 I needed an escape from myself. I found a new group of friends and a new crutch: alcohol. It allowed me the opportunity to become someone else because I could not stand who I was at the time. Yet with every drink I hated myself more and more, mostly because of the way it inhibited my already altered inability to make wise decisions. I don’t know how many times I got into a vehicle with someone who had been drinking….again the Lord protected me for reasons I still cannot comprehend. And when the alcohol wasn’t enough I turned to prescription pain killers. I just so badly wanted to escape the mess of my life. Numerous times I would fall to my knees crying out to God to forgive me and promising I’d change my ways; but I always fell back into my old patterns. I’d show up hungover to church Sunday morning after a night of drinking the night before. I’d go to nightclubs downtown located in dangerous neighborhoods. I’d flirt and date guys who only wanted one thing and shamefully I gave it to them. I was slipping fast and it would take something big.

Senior year finally came, little had changed except for the fact that many of my friends had graduated the previous year. I felt invincible. I carried around a lot of hurt from a previously abusive relationship. I was harassed daily, called names, nasty rumors were spread about me….I was angry and decided to get even. Without even thinking a few friends and I decided to pull a prank that would completely turn my world upside down. The next day I was suspended for 10 days with a pending expulsion. Even with all my mistakes I had managed to maintain my ‘good girl’ image but now that was quickly slipping away along with everything else. My suspension lasted the entire month of March with an additional 3 weeks of in-house suspension. In that month God started to get a hold of my heart and revealed to me the consequences of my actions. I spent a lot of quiet time with Him apologizing, begging for guidance and promising to change. I gave myself to Christ for the second time and now when people ask me what age I was saved at I reply with 18 because this was when I really knew what it meant. Looking back I am so grateful for getting suspended as weird as that sounds. God needed something BIG to get my attention and boy did He!

I was not magically changed overnight. I wish I could say I didn’t slip after my life-changing experience but I did. The summer after graduation God really used that time to refine me through fire. One of the things that pains me the most is having people still see me for the person I once was. I hurt a lot of people in those years, I made mistakes I can never take back but I have to live with those consequences.

Had you told me 6 years ago how my life would play out I probably would have laughed right in your face. Now one of my greatest joys comes from hearing people say ‘wow you are so different’; it reaffirms to me the power of God. He took a lost, hurting, out-of-control girl and molded me into a woman for Christ. Praise Him for never giving up on me and my family for loving me through it all.

I pray in sharing this others will embrace their pasts and realize that they are not defined by them. You are not alone in your struggles. I also want to paint a picture of why I am who I am today. I’m not perfect, never have been and never will be, but ‘I am chosen and holy and I’m dearly loved. I am new. I am new. Too long I have lived in the shadows of shame believing that there was no way I could change. But the One who is making everything new doesn’t see me the way that I do.’

<3 JT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9bjPwwLgj0