my testimony

I was looking through my computer and I came upon the testimony I had written about 2 years ago. It definitely made me think. It's so important to evaluate the steps you are taking in your life. Reading my testimony challenged me to take a look at where I am in my life and in my walk with God. Have I grown since then? What steps have I taken and what boundaries have I made so that I won't repeat the mistakes of my past? Well, here is my testimony:


Self-Sabotage. The word followed me wherever I went. It was the theme of my father’s lectures, the topic of my therapist’s sessions, and the lesson of my Sunday school class. And now it is the antagonist of my story, a story of forgiveness, a renewed vision, a promise, and a journey of finding what was once lost. The songwriter of Amazing Grace said, “I once was lost, but now I’m found.” I say, “I once was lost, found, lost again, and now I’m found and praying never to be lost again.”


High school: the core of drama, new experiences, and the formation of identities. It’s a place you do not only learn about the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, but experience it daily as you take tests of knowledge, character, and life. Moods, fads, and friendships seem to fluctuate erratically and make one wonder how things could change so drastically within 24 hours. For fifteen years my life had been pretty predictable and it was pretty much smooth sailing for me. I had been brought up in the church and have never known life without God. I grew up doing bible studies with my parents. I had all the “Sunday school answers”. Little did I know that God was about to rock the boat.


The summer after my freshman year would forever change my life. My family had made the decision to attend a new church. The transition wasn’t difficult, just different. It was my first Friday night youth service that I truly encountered God and I witnessed with my eyes the movement of the Holy Spirit among kids my age. Teenagers filled with the Spirit, speaking in tongues, proclaiming the power of prayer. These teenagers around me opened my eyes to what I was missing. I realized that I was missing something in my walk with Christ and that I yearned for whatever that was. That night I received the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues for the first time. Since that night my enthusiasm for the Lord grew tremendously as I took part in a Christian club at my school called Harvesters. Living up to the name of the club I tried my best to tell people about my faith, inviting friends to youth group, and being a friend people could turn to while praying for opportunities to bring people to Christ.


My sophomore year of high school would be a year I would never forget as I took part in the District Fine Arts Festival, organized by the Assembly of God. The theme for that year’s festival was “Sacrifice,” and I had spent weeks seeking inspiration through prayer for the piece I was to create. I then received a revelation from God which instilled in me a relentless desire to produce a worthy drawing that embodied my vision. I worked assiduously for a whole month, frequently making revisions and refining the symbolism behind each aspect of my drawing to create the message of “Sacrifice.” It was to be called, “Cleansed by the Blood,” and it illustrated 1 John 1:7 which says, “…but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. (NASB)” All that work was rewarded at the district level by its advancement to the National Fine Arts Festival, which was held in Indianapolis, Indiana and attended by more than 13,000 people. It was there that I witnessed the real power of God through my art. The support and encouragement I received from those that attended the festival was overwhelming. A countless amount of people came up to me, telling me how my art touched their hearts. I thought to myself, “Wow, I can really make a difference.” If the comments weren’t enough I left Indianapolis winning 3rd place nation-wide in the Visual Arts category. I felt God carrying me through that competition from the first time he gave me the idea all the way up to even now when my drawing continues to minister to its viewers. I was blessed and grateful. I developed a stronger faith and came to the realization that I could enter the ministry as an artist. Leo Buscaglia said, “Our talents are the gift that God gives to us… What we make of our talents is our gift back to God.”


It was at that moment that I found purpose. God would use me in great ways and I wanted to be his instrument. Satan saw that he was losing me. He saw that my heart desired for what God desired and he began his plot to regain what was lost. As he attacked my family and friends I felt the blame. I felt like Job having things one by one taken away. My choices: Curse God or Curse Myself. It was a win: win situation for Satan. As betrayal and mistrust entered the hearts of my friends bitterness arose and wounds were inflicted. Disrespect and discourage filled the thoughts of my family. Arguments occurred one after another between my parents and fights broke out between my friends. School seemed like just another thing to add to the list of things going badly in my life. Nothing was going well. I sought distractions from anything or anyone. My pain and bitterness cocooned itself until a monster of depression emerged forth. But I would not show it. To everyone looking on the outside I was still my happy positive self. At school, life went on and I was still sought after for advice and consoling words. I had to be strong. I couldn’t show people that I was broken.


As a Christian I still was aware that I had to be God’s light in this world of darkness. My therapist once asked me who I went to for strength and help. She made me realized I had been giving so much of myself to keep up this “strong” act that I never renewed myself and with time I had become brittle and fragile. The devil’s attacks slowly chipped away at me until all I had become was a depressed, worthless, troublesome girl. I looked in the mirror and only saw the reason why everyone’s lives were screwed up. I wondered why I didn’t have the ambitious spirit and strength to be the daughter my parents wanted. I wondered why I after so long of being a “good friend” how I could break the trust of those close to me. I even questioned Jesus’ sacrifice. I rejected his forgiveness not because I lost faith in him, but I lost faith in myself. I felt I was unworthy to receive such an honor from God so I politely refused. The little light that I did have in life was flickering and shadows were creeping from all sides. I let myself go. I was no longer living, but just existing. I had committed suicide. Although my heart was still beating I had killed the person I used to be. I sabotaged myself by doing all that was possible to not succeed, which was do nothing to fix my problems. I just basked in my worthlessness and cried because I was the victim and offender. The devil thought he was triumphant. But he underestimated the word of God and the word of a father.


It was a Saturday morning when my dad woke me up and sat down on the bed. I could tell he was getting ready for one of his oh-so-exciting talks. I was preparing myself to do a lot of nodding. He then said, “You know what the best way to become a failure is? Trying to please everyone. You don’t even have to please me. All you need to worry about is pleasing God. If you follow God, things will be much easier. ” It struck me. Although I had never disbelieved God I didn’t completely trust Him either. If I had honestly trusted Him I would have relied on Him for my strength as opposed to relying on myself to be strong and perfect. Without Christ I can do nothing. It was then I realized that I had to “approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. (Hebrews 4:16) (NIV)” I had to do things God’s way if I ever want to succeed in life.  I knew God was the reason I had never physically committed suicide, because deep down inside I always remembered my drawing. I always remembered that God had a purpose for me. Now, I am not claiming that since then my life has been hunky-dory, but slowly but surely things are getting to where they need to be. Re-evaluation and realization has brought me to the point where I stand now. The horizon looks bright and sacrifices made to follow God’s plan will be rewarded. One by one I hand things over to Jesus so that he may completely heal the wounds and restore what was damaged. Waking up with a clean slate is one of the things I am most grateful for. I live today with a desire for God’s best. For once I was lost and now I am found; was once blind, but now I see my worth in Jesus Christ my Lord and Savior. This concludes my story for now… for I do not know what God has in store for me next. Until then I will share this chapter of my life at every opportunity the Lord gives me.  

the warriors women were meant to be

A woman with a noble character is worth more than diamonds and rubies. The men around her have their fullest confidence in her. She uses her resources to their fullest potential and she does not rely on her looks to get things done because she knows that physical beauty is only temporary. Does this sound like the view of women in the post-feminist world we live in, today? If not, that is because this image of women was written in the Bible around 950 B.C. Unfortunately, even after the efforts of the Feminist movement, America still wants to hold on to the idea of women being vulnerable sex objects.

Although there are women who are trying to change the way they are viewed and represented, because of media, pop culture, and the American gender code, their efforts have been unsuccessful. And when women are center-stage they are dressed in attire that would make many people blush. Oddly enough, this is not only accepted but expected behavior for the female species in today’s culture.

It is the current culture’s popular consensus that molds the gender code we live by. The writer of We’ve Come A Long Way, Maybe complains that it is the “gender code that tells girls that their primary concern should be with their appearances and with attracting boys while telling boys it’s not their appearance that counts but how many times they ‘score’. (Sonia Maasik and Jack Solomon 561)” Where did this ideology come from and why is it kept? For a country that says, “In God We Trust,” America seems to completely reject God’s image of women. Just by turning on a television set one can see that women fall into three categories. Women are either hateful, bitter feminists, or vulnerable, naïve girls, or “wonderfully dressed” half-naked women.

Instead of women rising up above the sexually objectified image, they spend their days wallowing in it. Some even actively identify with it. As a country we have taken the God-given identity we possess for granted. Even supposed feminists have conformed to this sexual persona. “Post feminists, who regard themselves as representing an evolution within the feminist movement itself, not a movement away from it, have argued that being proud of her body and using it to get what she wants is part of a woman’s empowerment, and so have applauded the new erotics as a gender code advance rather than a regression. (Sonia Maasik and Jack Solomon 562)” How does that make sense? Culture says that women are to have sex because that is what the men want, so women decide to fight this by using sex as a tool and are doing so by choice. Is this supposed to give them power?

Men do not use their sexuality by unbuttoning their starched shirts to get ahead in the workplace. Women, especially in America, have been fighting to be treated the same as men for centuries. So why is it that instead of being “clothed with strength and dignity (New International Version Bible, Proverbs 31:25)” we are lucky to see a woman dressed at all. Men rise ahead in the corporate industry because of their intellect, but it seems as though women are becoming too concerned with their image instead of their character and intellect. Many women believe that being stuck in a kitchen forced women into a box of superficiality and it was their environment that kept them oppressed. It seems, however, that once women entered the corporate world their insecurities were only reinforced. Just like every new employee, women had a chance to prove themselves and solidify their place in business. Unfortunately, instead of focusing their energy in making their strengths known and looking to others to cover their weaknesses, they were more concerned with how they physically presented themselves. Some dressed like men in an attempt to be treated like such and others became a distraction to the workingmen by dressing in an eye-catching way.

Aaron Devor, writer of Gender Role Behaviors and Attitudes, states “as patriarchy has reserved active expressions of power as a masculine attribute, femininity must be expressed through models of dress, movement, speech and action which communicate weakness, dependency, [and] ineffectualness…(569)” Is this the worldview we will conform to? Women should be striving to reach their fullest potential and realize that a woman “sets about her work vigorously; her arms are strong for her tasks… She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue. (New International Version Bible, Proverbs 31:17, 26)”

Women have sabotaged themselves in this pursuit to be “just like men”. Men and women are different. Being different does not mean that they are inferior to men. Being different means an opportunity to express a different perspective on a case or an alternate method to solve a problem. It is in the power of diversity and versatility that a business will strive. The Bible and basic biology teaches that men are born from women. Women who raise their children should be guiding future generations with wise instruction. Does it make sense for those who were given the authority over future generations to be dimwitted or fearful? No, but somehow that is the idea that is being sold and bought today.

Women have given up the fight. Only a few decades ago, girls were brought up to be virtuous and “lady-like” while the boys were encouraged to stay out late at night with the “wild girls ”, just boys being boys. Today, because the battle seems a lost cause, instead of raising the standards for boys we have encouraged our girls to go with the culture flow and embody the sexual persona. Instead of teaching men to respect women we teach our girls that they are just like boys. We teach them to stay out late with the “wild guys” and use them to get ahead in life.

Women were never meant to be bystanders, but fighters. The media that surrounds the citizens of America everyday is undermining women’s true identity and the image God had set for His people long ago. In the beginning when God said, “[It is] not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him, (King James Version Bible, Genesis 2:18)” it is saying much more than what people have made it out to be today. The term “help meet” comes from the Hebrew word “`azar”, which is used to mean, “an ally in war.” God never meant for women “to be seen, not heard,” but working and fighting alongside men to create a better world.

In this war for the minds of future generations, women need to realize the true power they have. Instead of focusing on the surface’s beauty, we as a whole must dig deeper and work on becoming beautiful on the inside by developing our character and intellect. Do not let the media dictate who you are, but become the fighters you were meant to be and claim your God-given birthrights. America needs to stray from the idea of superiors and inferiors, but the idea of men and women, as one, fighting for a better tomorrow.

Works Cited

"Blue Letter Bible - Lexicon." Blue Letter Bible - Home Page. Web. 06 Dec. 2010. .

Devor, Aaron, “Gender Role Behaviors and Attitudes”, Signs of Life in the USA: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers, Ed. John Sullivan III, Boston, Bedford/St. Martin, 2009.567-573.

"Genesis 2:18 - Passage Lookup - King James Version - BibleGateway.com." BibleGateway.com: A Searchable Online Bible in over 100 Versions and 50 Languages. Web. 06 Dec. 2010. .

"Proverbs 31:10-31 - Passage Lookup - New International Version, ©2010 - BibleGateway.com." BibleGateway.com: A Searchable Online Bible in over 100 Versions and 50 Languages. Web. 06 Dec. 2010. .

Sonia Maasik and Jack Solomon, “We’ve Come a Long Way, Maybe: Gender Codes in American Culture,” Signs of Life in the USA: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers, Ed. John Sullivan III, Boston, Bedford/St. Martin, 2009.559-566.