Let me start by saying, this is probably one of the scariest things that I've ever done. To openly admit something like this in such a public way is super scary, but I feel that God is calling me to do it, and that someone needs to know that they are not alone. So here goes... As part of my membership class for Pinelake Oxford, we were asked to share our testimony through e-mail. As I was typing, the joy inside of me grew deeper and deeper, and I could not stop smiling as I looked back on God's faithfulness. Before you read this:
1) I know it's long. (If you want the abbreviated version, I'm sorry, there's not one. Every single detail in this testimony has shaped exactly who I am.)
2) Please don't blame me for being such a hypocrite in my teenage years. I definitely was. I was lost. I had no idea of the war that was waging inside of me. I just felt empty.
Thanks... now you may read...
My walk with God started when I was 5 years old at a Heaven's Gates and Hell's Flames presentation at a church in Grenada. I remember watching the scary devil character, and then the preacher pretty much said (in my five year old mind) that if you didn't want to go where the scary devil was then you needed to come down front and pray with the pastor. So, I grabbed my mom's hand and told her that I wanted to go. So, she took me, and I prayed the sinner's prayer. I was baptized shortly after that. I was saved, or so I thought. Then, when I was 12, I was at a revival sitting near the front when the revival preacher said, "You may have been saved when you were 5, but if you didn't mean it and you died today, you could go to hell." This scared me to death, so I rose up and walked to the front at the invitation. NOW, I was really saved, or so I thought. So I went through my teenage years in a youth group with my best friend where I went through the motions. I worshipped, I read my Bible, I prayed. I did everything that a good Christian girl should do, but I always felt like something was missing. I tried to fill that emptiness with a boy. When I was 14, I entered into a relationship with a boy from my youth group. Life was great. I thought I had filled the void that I felt finally. Then, as I began to still feel the void, I blamed it on family circumstances. That's why I felt empty and unloved. It was all because of my family. So, I clung even tighter to my new boyfriend.
We grew closer, and I fell in love. I was a wide-eyed, then 15-year old that believed every word that came out of her smooth-talking boyfriend's mouth. I listened and followed, and I ended up giving my purity away to him, just searching for love. The next Wednesday night at youth group, I was devastated and overwhelmed by guilt, and I ended up spilling my guts to the youth minister's wife. Because I was ashamed of what I had done and especially now that someone knew about it, we left the church. In the process of leaving the church, I strained my relationship and ultimately lost my relationship with my best friend. So, then, there I was, left with nothing and no one but the smooth-talking teenager, so I clung even tighter. We joined a different church, but we were quickly thrown out of the youth group scene and into the adult scene, and it was so tough to adjust. So, I played the part. I was the "good Christian girl" still trying to fill that void. On the outside the smile was shining bright, but on the inside I was a broken wreck.
In 2009, I married that smooth-talking boy in an overtly religious wedding. We wanted our wedding to emphasize that Christ was the center of our marriage. We truly thought He was or would be. Honestly, I think we both wanted that to be true, but we had become so jaded by "playing the part" that neither of us realized that it was all a facade. Then, the hard truth of what it takes to sustain a marriage hit. We fought hard for five years. During those 5 years, the void, the emptiness inside only seemed to grow. I tried to fight it off, I tried to fill it, but it would not go away. I tried to fill it with everything except for turning to God. I prayed, but I felt like my prayers were hitting the ceiling and bouncing back. I felt disconnected, but that couldn't be true. I was saved when I was 12. I prayed the prayer. In June 2014, my world fell apart. We got a divorce. (I never thought I would type that word, much less say it, or sign a piece of paper that had it at the top.) I was devastated. The emptiness inside turned from a finger size hole to a huge vortex of a black hole. I had no idea how to carry on. I cried out to God. Again, I felt like my prayers hit the ceiling and bounced back. The void grew. I continued in this downward spiral. I tried to run back to my ex-husband. I tried to "make things right" thinking that that was why the void was growing. Things did not work out, and I was left broken and devastated once again.
In February 2015, I was invited to attend a women's conference at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Grenada, MS, (ironically enough, the same place where I was baptized at 5 and 12). I was still searching, still broken, still trying to fill the void. So, I decided to attend the conference. As Alicia Williamson Garcia spoke, I felt God move in me for the first time in a long time. I felt the walls inside me crumbling. This was Friday night. The next day the conference continued, and as we worshipped through song, I felt God's presence like never before. Alicia sang a song called Healing in which the chorus says, "Healing comes from knowing who I am." This broke my heart into--the walls crumbled. I then realized that I had no clue who God was. I simply saw him as the big man in the sky talked about in my Sunday School classes from birth. So, I listened, and I learned who God was, and, on February 28, 2015, I surrendered my life to Christ, once and for all. On that day, I viewed it as a re-dedication of my life to Christ. My life was radically changed. The sky was brighter. Everything smelled sweeter. I walked back into my classroom, and the things that used to make me so angry before no longer did. I had a peace like never before--even my students noticed and commented on it. I was so excited, and I wanted to tell everyone I knew about the peace that could only be found in Jesus Christ. I still feel that peace each and every day.
Until yesterday (Sept. 12), I credited my experience when I was 12 as my salvation experience. Yesterday, upon recommendation of a friend, I watched a sermon entitled "The Ten Indictments Against the Modern Church," and Paul Washer warns against the dangers of the sinner's prayer and how we can so easily pray a prayer that means nothing internally and believe that we are saved, when, if we are honest, there was absolutely no life change. I had always written the lack of life change off due to the fact that I was 12. At 12, what do you really have to drastically change? But God worked in me yesterday and revealed to me that February was my life change. February was the day that I was radically changed--the day I became a new creation in Christ and I surrendered my life--my entire life to Him. Since that day in February, God has been working in my life in such amazing ways. He has led me to Oxford in ways that only He could have. He has led me to an amazing church family running hard after His glory and His alone. In my life, I have had so many ups and so many downs, but the one thing that I have learned that is constant is that God is, was, and will always be in control through all of it. His ways are higher than my ways; His thoughts are higher than my thoughts.
I will be baptized next Sunday to publicly celebrate the fact that I am now a new creation in Christ, and I could not be more excited!
-KG
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