M
I haven't really ever shared my testimony with anyone before, but I thought someone might as well know. So... I grew up in a Christian family. I became a Christian when I was about 6 or 7. I had two best friends all from 1st grade to 5th grade. Then when I got to middle school, we were still friends, but the two of them started to get closer, and started to exclude me from things. By 7th grade they were totally ignoring me and we were the only 7th graders at the church so I didn't really have any other friends. I still hung out around them, but I didn't talk much I was just kinda there. They could've cared less if I was there or not. Then I met a girl my age who just moved there and we became best friends and I thought everything was good again. And it was... For a while. Then when we got to 8th grade she moved. I was back to being a nobody. No one at my church talked to me. I tried to make new friends but they all had their own little groups that no one else was allowed in. I sill went to youth group and bible study but i didn't feel like i could open up. I didn't trust anyone. Not even my own parents. My best friends had deserted me and even lied to me at some point. But whenever someone glanced in my direction i just put up a smile and acted like everything was okay. Then things got so bad that I started to fake being sick so that I wouldn't have to go to youth group or bible study and it worked for a while, but my mom eventually realized that I just didn't want to go for some reason. She asked me why, and I lied. But it worked and she believed me. But then my dad decided to make me start going again. So I did. I felt so lonely ad left out, and there were other issues too. I started having suicidal thoughts. I wanted to die so badly, but then it was starting to be around the time of dance recital and I had a big role in that and I didn't want to let them down, so I made a plan. I would stop eating. People die that way, but it takes a while, so that's what I did. I ate only the smallest amount of food I could at dinner to convince my parents I was still eating, but not a ton. I wouldn't eat breakfast or lunch, and no one noticed. At youth group they had pizza for $2 and my parents always gave me money for that each week, but I just took it, didn't eat, then put it back in the change jar and they never found out. Then I went to the youth group's winter retreat. That was one of he most horrible weeks of my life. It was supposed to be "spiritual" and "fun" but I saw what the girls who I used to call BFF were really like. They were backstabbing liars. I was alone. I was hurt. I felt so far away from God. But I still kept up that wall. I still kept up that happy face for everyone to see. No one knew what I was going through. And I was convinced they didn't care. After that awful week, I didn't want to go to bible study or youth group anymore.. But my parents still forced me to. Eventually the time came of the dance recital, and it was over very quickly. I was done. What had kept me going was over. I just wanted to die. And when I was home alone one day, I had my chance. I went into the kitchen and found one of the biggest knives we had. I had it in my hands. I was shaking now. It felt cold against my skin... Then something in me, urged me to put the knife away. It must have been God calling me. But I felt awful. And it was difficult. I felt like I was a coward. I couldn't even bring myself to do it. I never told anyone about that day. No one ever knew how close I was to killing myself that day. So I got to high school and everything was just awful. But at that point I didn't care. I was just putting on an act for everyone and I didn't care if people ignored me. I just accepted that invisible was my life now. Then my youth group decided to go to a summer camp for a week called Gold Rush. My parents made me go. Gold Rush was a place where different youth groups from churches all go and stay in hotels and the whole thing is lead by high schoolers. So we went. And guess who I had to share a room with? The two people who were the first dominos to fall over and cause my life to fall. Although, I admit it was kinda nice having a bed all to myself lol, I thought that it was going to be just like the winter retreat. I was going to be just as miserable, probably even worse and I hated my parents for making me come. But at Gold Rush we there were lots of small groups and everyone in the groups were complete strangers. No one from the same church was in the same groups. And I got to hear the testimonies of how god had worked in other people's lives and such, and I heard some really great speakers, and God just worked in my heart that whole week. In the group I was in, I was quiet and didn't open up at all. But we went to the prayer room together once. And they had notebooks to write in and without sining my name I wrote about my struggles and what I had been going through, and they said that every day people were praying over things written in those notebooks and as soon as I had finished writing, I felt like a huge weight was lifted off of me. And my group leader must have read what I had written because on the last night she prayed for me. About what I had written. But I wasn't upset. I felt relieved that finally someone knew what was going on I'm my life. And all the talks I had heard that week really sunk in deep, and on the very last night, I rededicated myself. When I had accepted jesus when I was little it didn't mean much, but this... This was real. And people from my youth group saw me when the leader of the whole thing asked those who had rededicated to stand. And I was nervous, but I felt Gods presence. And after it all, everyone's attitude seemed to change towards me. They seemed to care. The people of my youth group that were there actually cared about me. And I felt the huge burden I had been carrying lifted from me. And that was truly the best day of my life. The day I truly accepted Christ and just let it all go. And gave everything to him. Gave my life to him. And I actually started eating again and no one ever knew I stopped so it was all good. And so here I am now... I don't have my old friends back, but I don't care. I don't need them. All I need it Jesus. And besides, I've become friends with other really cool people. And I've been able to help other people get through situations that are similar to the one i was In.
