My Testimony

Your only as sick as your secrets. Powerful words. A single sentence that can make my stomach turn. If I am really being honest it’s a sentence that sends me into a panic state, shaking and gasping for air. As I have grown into an adult I have had to deal with and reveal a lot of inner deep down in my gut secrets. Secrets that leave me feeling like I am hanging on for dear life not to jump, not to end it all.

My story is not uncommon yet somehow I grew into an adult that has to rely strongly on my faith in god to continue breathing in and out everyday. I live with depression and anxiety. Like millions of others I have good days, bad days and some really, really bad days. I have a lot inside me to share but sharing is not easy. It requires a strength that I don’t have, not on my own anyways. That’s where my faith comes in to play.

Jaded – a simple word which speaks volumes. Life has definently jaded me. My heart has been broken and bruised and the saddest thing is that I know I am not alone, not by a long shot. Once I was healed enough emotionally to share my story I have come to know so many more like me battling everyday to survive. Jaded by life, sickened by our secrets.

To tell my story I had to find a place to begin. For me I wanted to start by telling about where my life began to change. It was Easter 2005 my mom asked me to go to church with her. I had to make myself go, at this time in my life God and I were not really on speaking terms. Here I was sitting in an unfamiliar church on Easter because I felt I had to be there. I know I didn’t’ really have to be there but sometimes when a a parent asks you to do something on Easter Sunday you do it and you pretend to like it. I can’t recall the sermon but I do know that at some point the question was asked if anyone wanted to accept Christ into their heart. I believed at that time that was a door I longed since closed. I was baptized at the age of 13, I did at one time pray and talk to God often but it was never a priority growing up and it wasn’t long before I had forgotten that commitment I had made. Here I was 29 years old being asked if I wanted to accept Christ into my heart. It stirred something inside of me that Easter Sunday but I wasn’t ready. A lot had happened between 13 year old Mandy and 29 year old Mandy I had become this bitter, angry person. A few days passed, my mind and spirit was uneasy still to the question posed. Then it happened, I began to pray. First I spoke to God telling him that I was sad, lost, angry. Angry that I was so angry and sad because I was so sad. I went round and round with God but slowly I started to feel differently again. It’s hard to explain the feeling of the Holy Spirit to people who have not allowed themselves to be touched by it but it’s just a feeling that takes over the core of you. I began to listen, to really feel what God was trying to say. Several months had passed now since that Easter Sunday and I felt like I needed to go to church. I needed to learn more. I had an urge to grow. There was a coworker that would often talk to me about her church and would invite me to come. I didn’t know it at the time but her invitation was a seed that had been planted deep inside of me. I said a prayer on Saturday night “God if I am suppose to go to church the next morning then wake me up.” Keep in mind at this time my faith was weak and I needed signs. I went to bed and did not set the alarm. Now I am a person that loves my sleep. I can easily sleep 10 to 12 hours straight on the weekends so I did not believe that I would wake up before noon on Sunday morning. I went to sleep with a smile really thinking God would not show up.

8am Sunday morning guess who wakes up? You got it…me. I open my eyes and am wide awake. I lay there and my first thought is God does exist and then my second thought is Oh Crap! God does exist! I feel at this point I have to get up and go to church, after all that was the deal I made the night before. Up to this point I have not mentioned my husband but I am married and at this time we had an 8 year old son. In our years of marriage we had attended church maybe a handful of times but we had not spoken of God or church or religion at all for a very long time. My husband was a little confused when I got up out of bed that morning and said I was going to church. He asked me what church I was going to and I said I guess I will go try my mom’s church again and off I went. I think my husband just rolled his eyes and laid back in bed thinking this must be a phase. I grabbed my keys and got in the car. I headed down the road fully intending on joining my mom at her church. I was sitting at a stop light getting ready to turn right, I looked over to my left and I saw the church my coworker had so often invited me to, the Dodge City Church of the Nazarene, in that split second I turned left instead of right and pulled into the parking lot. I really felt God saying this is where I needed to be but I was arguing with him because I was scared. I have social anxiety disorder and I don’t go into strange places by myself . It was totally out of my comfort zone but God was very persistent this particular Sunday morning so I got out of the security of my car and went inside. Thankfully service had already started because there was no way I could have dealt with any “greeting” process that goes on at most churches on Sunday morning. To a person that suffers from anxiety its terrifying to have to deal with all the hand shaking and good mornings and questions about who you are and how have you been. It makes me want to run and hide. I could hear singing coming from the sanctuary so I slipped inside and took a seat in the very back. I started to loosen up a bit because I do love music and this Church and a band you could call it, complete with electric guitar and drums. People were smiling and moving to the music. I relaxed, I didn’t feel alone. When the sermon started the pastor began to preach on things that I had been asking in the weeks prior to in prayer. I remember sitting there and really realizing God was really speaking to me because the pastor would ask a question to the congregation that would be word for word what I had asked God in prayer and then he would give an answer. I could not deny what was happening. I just sat there in the pew and started crying these silent tears streaming down my face. I had no control, I felt the presence of God all around me and I didn’t understand why or even what to do next so I just sat there in aw and disbelief and listened. When the sermon had ended everyone stood to sing one last song, I stood and tried to act “normal” and pull myself together, then out of nowhere the coworker who had always been asking me to come visit this church walked up beside me and gave me the biggest hug, I lost it, I hugged her back and just let all my emotion go. We stood there crying and hugging and I didn’t even care who saw.

Before this day I was always a person that needed proof of things, looking back, I realize God was shooting off some fireworks for me that day and I saw them. I felt the “boom”. I had no doubt. I drove home from church that day just taking it all in trying to make sense of it all. I was filled with peace and confusion all at the same time. The next several months I was able to take all that emotion and start to make some real change. I was reading the Bible and understanding it and I was trying to change my activities and how I acted on a weekend night. I just tried to be all that God wanted me to be. I thought I had it all figured out. I was sailing along at lightning speed. Do you know what happens when you sail along at lightning speed? You crash.

It didn’t take long before I started to learn that being a child of God was hard work. It became very hard for me to do the right things. I wanted to go out and get stupid drunk and feel no shame but now I knew better. I wanted to participate in gossip at work and stir up drama, but now I knew better. I started to learn that to follow God I needed to love my enemy and hold no grudges. These were things I just could not do. I had lived over 29 years of life, I hated my enemies. How could I ever get to a point of turning it all over to God? I didn’t even know what that all meant. I believed that was just a saying. No human could turn their lives, their whole lives over to God. The joy started to leave. I became angry with God for showing his face and then making it so difficult to see him again. I began to be consumed by all the bad things about myself like I wasn’t pretty enough or thin enough. I had anger issues and deep resentment towards a lot of people. I quite reading the Bible. I quit going to church. I basically threw my hands up in defeat. But how could I explain how much God had went out of his way to get my attention? I couldn’t’. I didn’t feel worthy of the blessing. I told God I was sorry and I just let depression take over.

You might think that should be the end of my story and at the time I really believed it was but God had other plans for me. I had thrown my hands up in defeat but God was not letting me off the hook that easy. I had seen the top of the mountain and experienced the dark of the valley. I had to learn and grow to get to the top of that mountain again. I can honestly say as I write this I have not made it to the top of the mountain again but I am working on it. I continue to learn and grow. I wanted to share all that I have learned on my journey because I don’t believe God put me on this earth to remain silent. I pray what God has revealed to me can help so many others on their journeys.