L
love1sagain
Guest
Hi there. I want to share my testimony so that others can see where I've come from. It's nothing remarkable; people have gone through far worse than me, and I know that the rest of my life will carry a certainty that many other people's lives will never carry. I just felt the need to share. 
I was raised in an atheist household which supports belief in reincarnation, ghosts, alien life and the likes. I developed an understandable obsession with the paranormal at a young age, and to a lesser extent, with the polytheistic and pantheistic religions of old - namely Hellenic and Kemetic pantheons. As my mother had always made it evident that she'd support any religious decision that I made, she had no qualms to my researching pagan deities, nor did she have qualms with my later dabblings in witchcraft.
She had three exceptions: I was not to pursue Christianity, Judaism or Islam. The Big Three, basically. When I was in year seven, I tried to get involved with the local church's youth group. I admittedly only attended for the free donuts and awesome music initially, but at the end of the first night, we had it gently explained to us what Jesus did for us - in simple terms, though, as though 12 year olds can't cope with the impact of it. (I've come to see why. I still can't quite cope with it - and it brings me to tears to think of it!) We were given New Testaments, and my mother threw mine in the bin.
At the age of fifteen, I fell into a horrible downward spiral. I was physically and emotionally abused by my classmates and developed a severe depression. I inflicted pain and injury on myself and began to seek out risk-taking behaviours which, in retrospect, put me in horrible amounts of danger. I entered into an abusive relationship and was sexually assaulted by the partner of the time and his best friend. My mother helped me to escape from the abusive relationship.
Imaginably, my life felt very void, very empty. I began to play with witchcraft and create votive altars to various pagan deities in an attempt to feel somehow spiritually fulfilled. It never occured to me to turn to Christianity, though, as my mother didn't approve. I hadn't realised that in the time that I'd been suffering my severe depression, my mother had significantly mellowed out and had been exposed to the positive sides of the three aforementioned religions. She was more open - it just took a lot longer, and a lot of fearsome half-truths about where I was spending my time, before I was willing to let her know.
Anyway. I explained to my friend, a Christian, that I felt totally void. I didn't directly say "I feel spiritually empty", but she explained to me that while lots of it was naturally from my previous experience with these two boys, some of what I was feeling could be explained through spiritual emptiness. Jesus's story was explained to me for the second time in my life, but I was able to properly appreciate it. I explained to my friend how I felt a resounding "ping" in the depths of my heart as she explained it, as though what she was saying was so obviously true and real, as though I had to become involved in that, as though nothing else for the moment mattered.
She put her hand on my shoulder, cuddled up next to me, and guided me through a makeshift sinner's prayer. I wept. I went home and watched a DVD she lent me (Louie Gigglio, I believe?) and wept some more. I then opened up a King James Version Bible that she leant me, and wept even more. I seemed like I was a giant puddle of guilt, desparation and tears throughout the whole ordeal. After I'd stopped, and when I lay in bed and began to simply explain to God how I felt when I had been crying earlier, it just ... felt as though a weight had been lifted off my shoulders, as though chains had been unwrapped from around me. I felt so free and ... loved.
It's still a struggle, as it hasn't been very long at all (only just over a month!), but I'm getting there. I have a renewed energy to do things and a passion for God that I have never felt before.
I was raised in an atheist household which supports belief in reincarnation, ghosts, alien life and the likes. I developed an understandable obsession with the paranormal at a young age, and to a lesser extent, with the polytheistic and pantheistic religions of old - namely Hellenic and Kemetic pantheons. As my mother had always made it evident that she'd support any religious decision that I made, she had no qualms to my researching pagan deities, nor did she have qualms with my later dabblings in witchcraft.
She had three exceptions: I was not to pursue Christianity, Judaism or Islam. The Big Three, basically. When I was in year seven, I tried to get involved with the local church's youth group. I admittedly only attended for the free donuts and awesome music initially, but at the end of the first night, we had it gently explained to us what Jesus did for us - in simple terms, though, as though 12 year olds can't cope with the impact of it. (I've come to see why. I still can't quite cope with it - and it brings me to tears to think of it!) We were given New Testaments, and my mother threw mine in the bin.
At the age of fifteen, I fell into a horrible downward spiral. I was physically and emotionally abused by my classmates and developed a severe depression. I inflicted pain and injury on myself and began to seek out risk-taking behaviours which, in retrospect, put me in horrible amounts of danger. I entered into an abusive relationship and was sexually assaulted by the partner of the time and his best friend. My mother helped me to escape from the abusive relationship.
Imaginably, my life felt very void, very empty. I began to play with witchcraft and create votive altars to various pagan deities in an attempt to feel somehow spiritually fulfilled. It never occured to me to turn to Christianity, though, as my mother didn't approve. I hadn't realised that in the time that I'd been suffering my severe depression, my mother had significantly mellowed out and had been exposed to the positive sides of the three aforementioned religions. She was more open - it just took a lot longer, and a lot of fearsome half-truths about where I was spending my time, before I was willing to let her know.
Anyway. I explained to my friend, a Christian, that I felt totally void. I didn't directly say "I feel spiritually empty", but she explained to me that while lots of it was naturally from my previous experience with these two boys, some of what I was feeling could be explained through spiritual emptiness. Jesus's story was explained to me for the second time in my life, but I was able to properly appreciate it. I explained to my friend how I felt a resounding "ping" in the depths of my heart as she explained it, as though what she was saying was so obviously true and real, as though I had to become involved in that, as though nothing else for the moment mattered.
She put her hand on my shoulder, cuddled up next to me, and guided me through a makeshift sinner's prayer. I wept. I went home and watched a DVD she lent me (Louie Gigglio, I believe?) and wept some more. I then opened up a King James Version Bible that she leant me, and wept even more. I seemed like I was a giant puddle of guilt, desparation and tears throughout the whole ordeal. After I'd stopped, and when I lay in bed and began to simply explain to God how I felt when I had been crying earlier, it just ... felt as though a weight had been lifted off my shoulders, as though chains had been unwrapped from around me. I felt so free and ... loved.
It's still a struggle, as it hasn't been very long at all (only just over a month!), but I'm getting there.
I have a renewed energy to do things and a passion for God that I have never felt before.
