My Testimony

I want to share with you what the Lord has done in my life and the work he is doing in me right now. My story with the Lord really began when I was 14 years old. At the time I could not see it, but God was taking away everything I had and everything I knew in in the busyness of this world in order to draw me close to him. He was preparing me for an amazing journey he wanted me to take part in with him. From the time I was 14 to 18 years old God was working mightily in my life. They were the hardest years I have ever gone through but they were also some of the sweetest and most incredible years. In just 4 short years I was diagnosed with a pain disorder called fibromyalgia, I was also diagnosed with anxiety and depression and I was anorexic. My world felt as though it was completely falling apart and I was in control of nothing. As the pain got worse so did the depression, which led to me starving myself more as I tried to feel in control of something in my life. I would cry out to God and ask him why he would be allowing me to go through so much pain…I did not understand. But the longer I was in it the more I began to seek God more and more. Just to get through days were I could not get out of bed because the pain or depression was too bad or I just felt too weak, I would pray and read my bible. My prayer life with the Lord grew in to something I HAD to do to survive, to make it through each day. God became my only friend, my only hope, and my only joy and peace. He had never felt so real to me. I could feel him holding me as I held on to his promises that he was seeing every tear that I was crying behind closed doors. My love for the Lord was growing more and more each day as I depended on him more, but I was missing something. I still was not surrendering my pain and struggles to him, I was just asking him to take them away.

On April 3, 2011 The lord called me up on to a stage in front of about 80-100 high school students at a church youth retreat to share my story with them of the journey the Lord had been taking me on for the last 4 years. I had never met most the people in the room and I am terrified of speaking in front of people and on top of that I had no clue what I was going to say. I told God “no way!” but he kept telling me to go…finely after several minutes of me saying no I hear him loud and clear and he tells me that he will heal me if I go up there… “In my timing I will heal you”. I walked to the front of the room and I began to share my story of what the Lord had been doing in my life and what he had been bringing me through. I told them that I surrendered all of it to him and if it was his will for me to live with the pain for the rest of my life I would still praise him and that my desire was that he would just be glorified though my life. That day the Lord healed me. The Lord also told me that day that he was going to use me to bring healing to other peoples live.

Now I jump ahead to May 9th, 2011 just one month later. I fly to CA from my home in Virginia to visit a friend. It’s during Rock The House. The Lord stirs on my heart in a mighty way to stay in CA and join Impact. I never would have been able to step out in faith to join Impact, leave my family without even saying good bye, and leave my jobs and all my friends, if he had not shown himself so faithful to me through my life and the moment when he healed me. For me Impact was just an answer to prayers so when God put it in front of me I made the choice to step out in faith a trust that he would provide everything I needed and that’s just what he did. I had not tuition money, he provided. I had no place to live, He provided. Food, clothes, He provided. Just a few short weeks later the opportunity came to go on a mission trip. I had no money for it but I knew that the Lord was calling me to go out on the mission field and that if he wanted me to go on that trip that he would provide. It took me giving everything I had but the Lord met there and he stirred people’s hearts and I was able to raise about $2500 in one night. God is so faithful.

I went to Nigeria Africa and was able to experience God in a way I never had before. He showed me just how BIG he is. The Lord allowed me to be apart in the amazing healing work he was doing there. Over 260 people experienced the Lords healing while we were in Nigeria. I remembered something the Lord had spoken to me just a few months before as a prayed for the first person who God healed. She was a blind woman at the leprosy center where we were on outreach. As she began to tell us the colors we were wearing with her brand new eyes the Lord had given here, tears ran down my face and God spoke to me and reminded me of when he healed me and how he said he was going to use me to bring healing to others. So as I sat there staring into this woman’s eyes God said “This is why you are here” My heart broke and that’s when I knew my purpose and calling; to be the Lords hands and feet and to bring his hope and love to the lost and hurting.