Hey guys! I know it's been quite a while, but things have been kinda crazy here. I leave on my first international mission trip next week and start school the next week. With all the planning that has been going on, I can't help but think about everything that has happened in my life. I am a firm believer that where we come from helps shape us into what we are. God uses situations in our lives to teach us and mold us.
Now, part of preparing for a mission trip is knowing your testimony really well so that you can tell it to whomever you meet. I decided that I would take this opportunity to share mine with all of you.
So here goes...
My parents got divorced just after I started kindergarten and were both remarried within a year. I went from being the oldest child to having 3 older brothers within a couple of months. My family grew to a massive number counting all the step-relatives. My parents had joint custody of my sister and I, so we spent most of our lives growing up bouncing back and forth between our two houses. Growing up, my sister was pretty much the only physical constant in my life.
My dad became a pastor around the same time as my parents divorce and as a result I've pretty much been raised in church. I accepted Christ at the age of seven, and despite coming from a broken home, my faith pretty much went untested until I was 13. That was when I learned what it felt like to be the victim for the first time in my life. Someone I trusted very much, chose to objectify me and put me in a position where I had to defend myself against family. I was lucky though. I was able to stop the situation before it became something much more extreme and was able to remove myself from the situation quickly. However, it did require me to talk to the police about what had happened and most of that side of my family did not believe my story. Some of them still don't. I lost a good chunk of my family as a result of that event and as a further result, I developed a lot of trust issues. I began to think that whoever was around at the time would eventually turn their back on me, an issue that has stayed with me through the years.
Since then, I have graduated high school and moved away to college for 2 years and moved back home to transfer schools. Also since then, I developed more trust issues and moved out of my mom's house after years of having my physical appearance critiqued and my faith demeaned. During my first year of college, I went into a depression where I would only leave my dorm room to go to class and most of the time I spent in my room I was in bed. I had friends, but I barely hung out with them. The turning point in my depression was when I went to a christian women's conference called E-Women. God met me there and pulled me out of my rut and back to him. I finally saw that He hadn't pulled away from me, I had run from Him. Yes, I could talk a good talk, and as a result few people really knew what was going on in my head, but I didn't really believe what I was saying. Not completely. At that women's conference, I was captured by God once again and started living for him. It was shortly thereafter that I found the strength and courage to finally walk away from the harmful relationships that I was taking part in, both with family and my then boyfriend. a few months later I started this blog. In the past year I have met more friends that build me up and have continued weeding out the relationships that were pulling me away from God. I have also taken a leap of faith and quit following my own path for college and started following His path for my life. I will start classes this fall for a degree in Christian Counseling. I still don't know what God has in store for me, but I know that what I have gone through in my life will be used to help others.
That's why I started this blog. I wish I was reading something like this when I was depressed and feeling like I was the only person going through what I was going through. If one person reads this and says "hey, I'm not alone and I can make it through too." then my prayer has been answered.
Until next time,
Your Fellow Water Walker,
-Ashlee
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