How Did Your Spiritual Journey Begin?

wow, what a powerful testimony! thank you for sharing.

My Journey began when a friend at work gifted me a Bible and i started to read it.. I read it all.. And by the time i was reading Romans 7 it clicked in my head.. I understood the Gospel and embraced it with great joy..

Simple story? Yeah but the Word has it's own Power.. Especially when the Holy Spirit is working on your conscience..

Beautiful simple story Adstar, some in common with my own. Different triggers but it was something of a bolt from the blue for us both, sounds like you weren't knowingly seeking the beautiful truth/knowledge at the time either.

Before this i was terrified about the future for my adult sons and daughter, I no longer have those fears and hope they will turn to the LORD while there's time. Blessings and all that's good to you and your family.

So glad i asked you Magenta, you know this forum well and that's great advice. After reading your comment i took a look at my opening comment to see if it could be edited, sadly it can't. Wondering if i replied to it with a new comment/outline, might it sort of sticky to my opening comment? Really doubt it but hope you might know for certain.

Your panels are so creative and lovely, the one you did for me is gorgeous. Ditto me about the sleep issues at our sort of age, wasn't much of a sleeper when young but definitely much better than now. Feel really thankful now if i can sleep 3 hours in a row, i go for the catnaps when sleepy too.

Real cheers for the excellent advice, thought you'd come up with some good ideas. God's blessings and big hugs from me, hope we can chat in a thread soon

Taken a look at your testimony Jimbone, you've been a member of CChat for a decade at least, which is wonderful.

Have downloaded your testimony and will read it soon, real cheers for inspiring some ideas for future stuff i post here, God's blessings to you and your lovely family

You can always change direction in a thread and as people respond the thread may go that direction but it is so unpredictable LOL plus new people to the thread may just keep responding to your opening post which would detract from the new direction, so perhaps starting a new thread would be advisable, though that might depend on how patient you are with trying to correct to the new direction. Creating threads is really not my thing though I have seen many derailments LOL.

When I saw that image I thought of you right away as you had mentioned not feeling well and needing extra rest... the image was so lovely I did very little to it, though I did completely swap out the face. The original face had eyes closed and I like that one with the direction of the gaze suggesting, to me anyways, looking up to the Lord as one prays... I have a tendency to tell myself little stories about the ephemera I am using in my collages LOL

Grrr! If that's your hashtag friend, you wanted to share but Facebook won't let me access it without creating an account. Know i'd have loved it too but don't want to join sites like Facebook, Twitter etc.

Anyway, hope all's good with with you friend, God's Blessings to you too

"I have a tendency to tell myself little stories about the ephemera I am using in my collages LOL"

They are gorgeous sweet friend, creative, artistic and pretty techy too by the sound of it. Definitely can see what you're saying about looking up at the Lord, makes me love it even more.

Your advice is excellent again about future threads, maybe specify two or three related topics in my opening posts in future. Well, I'll test it in one first and see how it works out, like you, i like to have some idea how things might work out before getting really ambitious.

God's blessings and a big hug friend, all that's good for now, my little cat wants her tea

Greetings friend, it bugs me when sites try forcing you to become a member, especially those who don't need to as they're already huge.
Just seems greedy and spiteful to me, i am not a number, i'm a woman!

Yep, i did just misuse/abuse that iconic line from The Prisoner. Maybe copy and paste a saved text explaining the possible issue when posting an important comment? However, that could be tricky, think you probably post a lot of serious stuff.

Stellar advice again sweet friend, don't think i'll create loads of threads but the ones i do, think i'd prefer they largely stay with the original theme. Maybe only introduce another theme if it's closely related to the original.

You are thoughtful and smart, think we'd be great friends in real life. God's blessings, massive hugs and love for now

"Got a grip on your words. Very competitive and high-tech world we live in. A lot of good,
and a lot of not-so-good. I try to post interesting things as there is a great diversity among readers.
Finding some harmony shall always be a challenge."
God Bless.

Sorry you had to go through all of that. I was diagnosed with schizophrenia back in 2010 after I felt like I was losing my mind. Ended up going to a mental hospital for a week or so. I remember being in the room next to the padded bedroom. There was a woman in there hitting all of the walls and screaming for hours. I was in a facility with some really nuts people. They ended up moving me to a safer area cause I was quiet and smiled a lot. They thought there was something wrong with me cause I smiled too much...When I did enter that facility originally I literally thought I was in hell. Felt like I was in hell too. My mind was burning and they kept feeding me pills, not knowing my diagnosis. Just trying anything to sedate me. They ended up bringing me there cause I threw a doctor and a few nurses to the ground cause they kept trying to give me pills. They strapped me to a bed and injected me with something and I knocked out and woke up at that hell place. When I got transferred to the safer area, a big black woman let me read her Bible. It was probably the only thing that soothed my mind and there was a glow about her. I played ping pong with a few asian girls who were there volunteering just to help out with making sure the patients were enjoying their time there. Eventually my God father and God brother came and rescued me and let me stay with them for year. I was literally right back to college the next week after experiencing that and I got a job as a dog handler at a doggy daycare probably a month after that. Looking back, I had no idea how I was just able to keep going. My mind was destroyed and I never was the same.

Then in 2015 I was rediagnosed as schizoaffective because of how high functional I was and then this year I got rediagnosed to bipolar, which I think anyone in the world would rather be diagnosed bipolar than schizo anything. Just due to the stigma.

You'd be surprised about how more advanced mental health treatment is becoming. Pretty soon, they may have something for you. You just got to believe there is nothing wrong with you, cause there isn't.

Sean,
I'm sorry you had to go through that. The shot the nurses gave you was probably a Thorazine shot. It a mood stabilizer. It's wonderful you've been healed.

Sean, i hope you dont mind me asking what part of the Bible did you read first and when did you notice a difference?

What I'm really hoping is that I'll end up being rediagnosed to nothing, cause when I first met my nurse practitioner a few weeks ago, he was convinced that I had nothing wrong with me after he evaluated me. It's been quite a journey of just psychiatrists having one initial evaluation for 30 minutes the first time I meet them and then, 15 minute who calls of "do you hear anything that isn't there?", "do you see anything that isn't there?", "do you have thoughts of hurting yourself or others?" for like 14 years. Sometimes I was able to squeeze a few concerns in there but it took me getting a Christian therapist a year ago, where I had to have 45 minute face to face conversations with, twice a week for a year, to find out that I just have mood swings. She even has a brother that has schizoaffective disorder and she said that I am way more high functioning. She said normal people don't know how to find the resources and obtain them to get help like I can. So I've processed a lot of past trauma with her over the year that would come up in thought and I haven't been more healthy, except for this excess weight on me but that is in the process of going away since I'm currently weaning off of three psych meds that cause weight gain, after finding a new nurse practitioner who is kinda like a psychiatrist but way better. He even recommended that there are natural options that he can get me on, instead of having to take all these pills with so many side effects. So God is in the works right now. it's been quite a couple months, so I'm just trusting that he wants the best for me.

Thanks for you empathy/

By the way, I've never heard voices, I've never seen anything that wasn't there and I never harmed anyone after that experience. So diagnosing something something where they don't have the symptoms is just wrong but just being able to live after that, even almost getting married with a schizophrenia diagnosis is crazy to me. I was someone with a schizophrenia diagnosis with all of my best friends in a 9 bedroom house, I did live in a Harry Potter closet though and I was really proud of it. I was working, paid rent, drove an astro van. Very independent. There was nothing schizophrenia about me. I just had to take pills every day before bed. That was the only difference.

The psychiatrist have been known to do that. What was it again. There is like 3 different theories on psychology all with a different root causes and a different way to treat the very same illness.

Before that experience I only read a little over half of Genesis but after that experience, I went back to partying again and living my old ways in from 2010 to 2014. Near the end of 2013 I started reading the gospels from Matthew onward. I got annoyed that each gospel was kind of the same (even though now a days I realize they aren't). In April 2014, after a few times going to church and my friend Josh hearing me saying that when the Pastor speaks I feel like he is talking directly to me, he knew I could hear God speak through him. I don't remember what happened before he asked me this but I remember him explaining the sinners prayer, so I left him and went up to my room and said the sinners prayer for the first time by myself in private and accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior. After that, the main book I listened to was Proverbs cause I wanted to be like King Solomon. When I moved in with my mother and brother after that moment, I didn't really read the Bible all that much. An Uber driver realized I was a believer after something I said in his car and after that we became really close and he invited me to his church that weekend and the day I went there I became apart of the choir. The only time I would really spend time in the Bible was at church. A few years later I ended up getting the audiobook NIV Dramatized Version and would listening to that every night before bed for a year, even falling asleep to it and waking up to it. Even after that I didn't spend too much in the Bible. In 2019, I was invited to a filipino youth group even though I was like 31. They had people in there up to 40. I got really involved again but they kept trying to force feed me their food when I was on a strict keto diet and because they wouldn't stop, I had to leave. In 2020 I became a patrol officer and got really into Christian music for the first time ever and would listen to it daily. After first, it was really hard for me to listen to it but now a days I listen to it every day no problem and I sense a healing sensation from it. 2020 to present day I started reading the verse of the day in the Bible app and I made sure to watch my Original church ever Sunday and Wednesday that took me in the year that I accepted Jesus as my lord and savior. I have watched them weekly ever since, except for this week for some reason. My pastor even reached out to my on Tuesday to check on me, so the Holy Spirit was probably telling him to shepherd me this week. In 2022 February I read the entire New Testament in a week while I was transitioning between jobs. I also read it again later on that year and started reading the Old Testament more even though I knew all of the stories. In early 2023, I read the New Testament again and started reading more of the Old Testament. While I was working at Disneyland in mid 2023 I was reading Exodus and I was convinced that I had to tell as many people there about Jesus and kind of save them from their enslavement, I was on a mission to free them from the mouse. I ended up quitting because I was having mental health issues of paranoia. When I was there I read Bible plans from the Bible app every break that I had. It was a very strange place. Right when I left I got a Christian therapist who specialized in trauma therapy and once I felt comfortable I just told her every dark situation I've ever been though, including getting molested by a woman at the age of 6 and a gay man at the age of 19, along with being taken advantage of by a gay man when I was blacked out drunk at the age of 21. During this year I have read every single book in the Bible, some of them many many times, along with composing 52 songs. This entire year I spent in the Bible, pray.com, worship music every single day, trying to get healthy, along with seeing all types of doctors. And now I spend every day doing Christian activities. Just got a job again this week and so I miss spending the day spending every waking music seeking God. Those are the main points I remember. There has been many other Christian moments like earlier in life and between that time but that is the gist of my story in my adult life.

I noticed a difference the first time I read the entire New Testament for the first time. My heart fell in love with God while reading Paul's writings. Right before that I repented sexual immorality for the first time and I was free from pornography and masturbation for a year and a half. I never felt closer to God than I did during that time in my life. I have been trying to replicate the experience ever since I gave into the temptation to watch pornography in October 2023, after I went to an old atheist friends house and we watched The Wolf of Wall Street. Never watch that movie. Almost a year later, the beginning of September I repented from sexual immorality again and God knew that my heart turned to him again, even though I spent the whole year in the word. After that God allowed me to go on a date for the first time in ten years. It didn't go well and I told her that I decided were not a good match and I was accepted here and I only believe I was accepted here because I repented from sexual immorality. I have tried going back to church during this year and it was like me going to. house of Pharisee's but ever since I repented, I'm welcomed again. I just don't want to g o back to the church that shunned me. It hurt me but that pastor reaches out to me weekly. I email him after every sermon or throughout the week.