My Testimony
I'm Jennifer I'm 21 years old and my family taught me about the lord when I was young... I went to church with my parents and I watched a cartoon show of Jesus' miracles etc.. I always knew about Jesus but I didn't really know what it was all about. When my sis came into the world my parents stopped going but I continued when I got a little older with my aunt and friends. I never thought that going to church was really necessary, I thought that as long as you prayed that is all that matters. I know now that, that's not the case because Christianity is a relationship with Jesus you have to grow. Church is a wonderful thing it helps you grow, to give thanks, you get to know your brothers and sisters in Christ, prayers and helps me know that I belong, it just makes the week better. Plus Lord wants us to go because if it wasn't important then he wouldn't have made it.. My friends situation was that I had tons of friends when I was younger but the more I grew up the less and less I had. They all didn't come through with their promises and just didn't bother with me anymore. People always would make fun of me because I was heavy and had glasses.. Middle school I had a really hard time.. I have curly hair ,we would comb it and it went into an afro, the kids would call me names. I struggled for a long time with that. I always would be nice and try to be friends with them though because I knew that it was just useless to fight with others all it does is get people hurt and make matters worse. The more and more I got older and lost friends the more I got used to it and the more I went to the Lord. He became my best friend and comfort for getting through the school years and is still my Best friend to this day. He's the best friend anyone could ever have. Little did I know that Lord was teaching me to not put so much trust into people because they are human and will fail you, but that he doesn't fail. He will always be faithful and love me and be there for me no matter what. That was one of the best lessons ever because he was shaping me to not repay evil with evil but to show love and let love overcome evil. The people eventual didn't make fun anymore either. My grandpa was like a second father to me, I went everywhere with him and my grandma.. He had leukemia and diabetes so he was slowly dieing. We kept having to go into the hospital when he got near the end. One night when we were visiting him he was fine than later that night we got a phone call of a nightmare...His heart stopped and they kept pumping and trying to get his heart to restart.. I went nuts cause I saw him in there with tubes and them working on him trying to revive him. My heart was broken , I was such a mess.. They were trying to calm me down but I couldn't help it ,I was so bad I almost went through the slider door on the hospital to get back to the car... My ma and grandma stayed there and waited for the news. I prayed and prayed and prayed asking him not to take my grandpa away that I didn't have enough time and especially my sis she was only 4...My dad ,sis and I went home and tried to get some sleep. When I was in bed I prayed and pleaded saying if there was a God to please not take away my grandpa right now [I didn't have much faith but just enough to always go to him in prayer] that I would do anything and to at least give him a year or two. I of course wanted two but one would be better than none. I must have talked with Lord for 30 min that night and I will never forget it.. The doctors said that he died and came back. They had to pump him 4 times! They thought he would have brain damage but he was total normal minus the day that happened and 1 week he was in ICU. He was in a coma for a little bit as well. He didn't remember the day of it nor the 1 week he was in icu [that's all the brain loss he lost.] Main thing was that he was alive, I have NEVER been the same since. Lord changed me he got rid of my doubts and got my focus on him. He lived another 1 and a 1/2 after that horrid night. After he died in 1995 my friend came over , she's really an evangelist. I always thought she was nuts for reading the bible and I didn't like that she would preach the bible every min. Well that day she sat me down and I brought my sis over. My friend asked me if I have been saved. I didn't understand at all why I needed to be saved so she taught me and we prayed the sinners prayer. I didn't know how special that was but I see that she loved me and I'm thankful for that. One thing though is that she continued to put it all on me at once. We went to church and she was trying to get me to read the bible, I stopped going to church because I still had the theory that it was just as good just praying.... I never wanted to read the bible because I could never understood it. When I was younger if I had questions about it I would ask my dad. He would always tell my some of the stories, I thought that was good enough. That was my BIGGEST mistake ever...If I would have learned to read the bible and not just listen to just the stories I would have been even further in my relationship with Jesus. Music is a big part in my life and I always loved love songs as a kid and always loved Michael W smith as a little kid. I got to see him in concert at universal in the 90s, he's wonderful. My music went from oldies as a little kid [that's what was always playing in the house], to love songs that wink 96.9 played in the early to mid 90s, to the backstreet boys and more secular music in 97-2001.As time went on I got into more and more harder stuff with more and more negativity to it but I always wanted to make sure that it wasn't devil worship creepy stuff... In 2001-2002 I listened to all the newer stuff like The Calling with some Christian artist like 12 stones ,letter kills, blindside, switchfoot etc. Well I love to help people so I joined the calling's Street team. They always had pictures on there of other groups and guys that people liked .Well one of the pictures ,I saw a guy and I really liked his look. I didn't know what his name was who he was or anything. In 2002 or early 2003 or so I don't remember but I found out what his name was. It was Ville Vallo and he is from the group H.I.M. I was so caught up in his looks that I wanted to see how they sounded and of course I wanted to know what H.I.M stood for. I never could find out but on their bios they had things about Christ so I thought they were ok... I listened to them and got their cd end of 2003 I think. I got so wrapped up in the cd that I was having bad terrible thoughts, I always had bad terrible thoughts as a kid but they were so much worse when I had the negative music going thorough my head.. Their name always bothered me but I thought that their cd was awesome. Every time I would look on the internet I wouldn't find anything related to their name. Well I found out what their named stood for early 2004 it was "His internal majesty" .I had a feeling that it was from the bible but I didn't know what...I looked more and more, it bothered me so much but I could never find on the internet what the name was. During that time Satan camouflaged what the name meant and stopped me from finding out. I still listened to them and more sins took place like Idol worship, cussing etc.. I could never figure out why I was having the negative thoughts. I was so in love with his voice that I didn't want to stop listening... The holy sprit convinced me that this is not good listening to this but I still never found out what the name was.... It bothered me so much that I was surfing the net and had an urge to look it up again. It got me frustrated ,it was bothering me that I couldn't find it. So I prayed and said Lord help me find out what their name meant ,please "help me". I did and it was another name for Satan. My sister and I snapped the cd in half and put it in the trash. That night I was surfing on the internet and I found a Christian site with the sinners prayer on it. I thought oooo this must be the prayer my friend did a long time ago with me. The first line on it said that If you found your way here that Lord was calling you and talked about what it was and why you need to say it. That got me, so I rededicated my life to Christ. After that I was TOTALLY changed. I was still struggling with something's that Satan had camouflaged but I overcame my sins only by praying to the lord to give me strength to stop." I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me"-Philippians 4:13.Then 2 months later or so Passion of the Christ came in theaters. I went to see it with my friend. I couldn't stop crying.. After that when I was talking with my friend I told her I would like to read the bible but I never can understand it. She gave me her bible and I been reading since. After that lord told me to get back in church and to get baptized, I did both. I went back to my church that I used to go to as a little girl and I got baptized on July 11th 2004.I been growing in Christ and he's shown me so many things throughout my life that I have noticed now. He was trying to bring me back to him all along if only I would have listened then I would be even further in my relationship with him. He's taught and shown me new things. So those of you who who are struggling keep seeking the lord he is not going to give up on you, he will revile himself more and more to you. Those of you who don't know the lord you are missing out on the most wonderful gift and relationship ever. I'm not saying it will be easy because its not but we have the gift of eternal life to look forward too and someone that will help us with anything we need. I have also learned that even if I have doubts that I could go to him and he will help me and lift me back up. My good friend Sarah who gave me the bible, listens to joyfm. Well when we went out shopping she put it on. She helped me listen to Christian music. I help with the youth group at my church cause I love helping. Well when we went to ice skating Elise put joyfm on. Slowly I got into all different Christian artists and music. I started listening to Joy and I found TONS of awesome artists. I got rid of almost all music that had cussing in it because I found out that ,the negative music I was listening to was what was corrupting my mind and heart. Like Jesus said whatever you put in will eventually come out. I went to fye and got credit back and bought good Christian cds of the artists that I fell in love with that JoyFm played. My friend also told me about tvulive.com so I started watching that daily too. With both joyfm and tvulive.com I found all the awesome artists and been collecting all their cds. Joyfm and tvulive.com has been a blessing they help lift me up and refocused my thoughts to things not of this world ,and on wonderful Lord Jesus. Lord has also shown me and have helped me share my faith. I have always had a problem with that but i'm slowly coming out of my comfort zone and lies of Satan. It's a process but I know with the Lord that anything is possible and that if I keep on seeking the lord I will prosper. Remember everything happens for a reason, Lord always takes the bad and makes it Good. The hurricanes are an example....Charley came through My town and killed it...Just before charley hit I prayed and lord told me it was going to come my way and that he had a task for me.. So I knew it was going to hit. My dad knew as well. We were boarding up while the rest of my family didn't think it could happen just like a lot of people here. After my dad and I boarded and got our most important possessions. My dad put the tv back on and yelled out a curse word and my ma said what because she still didn't think it would hit. I knew something was wrong because my dad looked like he was starting to get tears in his eyes...later on I found out we were to have a surge of 18feet and that would drown us...When it turned it came right at us and we couldn't leave. We stayed in my house and went through the hurricane. It was really scary. I prayed and prayed having him help me every time I got scared so that he could remind me that he wouldn't kill us that we would be ok, if I just trust him. I prayed that the house and everyone wouldn't go nuts. Well down the hallway where my room is, we put matrices up and stayed in there. My parents on the other hand where watching it out of the slider door .I was afraid that the slider door would shatter , its a big one and we had to pass it to get to the other room. So I was afraid that we would get killed by it. I prayed that it would stay and it did. Then all of a sudden my closet which is connected to part of the roof of the hallway where we were at leaked and we heard a noise [my closet roof lifted off]. I didn't think it was safe so we all left and went into the garage. We stayed there while the hurricane proof garage door went back and forth and made a racket. We saw a light from the side door [I think it was a sign of hope..]. The garage door was shaking so bad and I had a bad feeling to not stay in there....I started to see light from the corner of the roof and it sounded like it would take off. So I screamed and said I didn't feel safe and I see light at the top so lets move. Dad told us to go back in the room [where the big slider is] my sis and her friend and I sat in the closet. The couch my dad put up before the storm to hold our door kept the front door from blowing off. My ma was holding the garage door because it would blow off also. Few min later the garage roof lifted. My ma then knew it was for real and told me to start praying out loud. I prayed out loud that everyone who is going through it for lord to keep us all safe ,that let it be a test of faith to trust him and that materialist things don't matter because it will fade away and we all said amen. My ma by the way doesn't pray at all...I also tried saying the best things, I could think of to help them...Little while later I prayed out loud again for the surge to not come.. About 1/2 an hour everything stopped and it was calm. The storm changed directions and left us. The storm lasted about 2 hours. We all were thankful that we were alive and in the process Lord helped me trust him and had picked me to help with prayer.. Everyone came from all over and helped us giving us water ,supplies and everything and anything we needed. Lord made the bad thing turn to good by getting everyone to help each other in a time of need. After charley because my room is a mess I put my matrices on the living room floor and I had joyfm every night and all through the day on. When I woke up one morning I heard a pastor talking and he was interesting and explained things so good. He was Charles Stanley [intouch.org], I listen to him everyone morning now because he helps me in my walk with Christ. He makes the hard things in the bible make sense ,also with the help of the holy spirit working of course. I have grown a lot because of Charles and if it wasn't for charley hitting I prob wouldn't have been listening to him. Well when hurricane Frances came we couldn't stay in our house because its not safe and so we left the state. It seemed that everyone left Florida and went out of state. It was. Anyways we kept traveling up the coast trying to get out of the storms way and find a room. NOTHING was open we must have tried everything in Florida up to Gainesville. We went in the parking lot of a hotel in Gainesville to sleep for the night. I love Joyfm like I said, they help keep me focused. So I tried looking for them or other Christian station[s] as we went up Florida. I found Joy and was listening to them while we spent the night in the parking lot. Everyone's patents were running out.. I prayed that we would find a room in the morning. In the morning I was waiting for Charles to come on because I needed to hear him...I then heard a commercial. It was a commercial saying that if you cant find a room to call a 1800 number and joy will try and find a room that is open. I wrote the number down and got out and told my dad. He called and got some numbers of motels that might be open [Jacksonville etc]. Nothing was open it was all booked up to Atlanta Georgia! I prayed that we would find a room because then if we didn't we would have to go all the way back home and go through another hurricane because my ma and rest of my family doesn't like to travel too far from home. Anyways I didn't give up there was one more number and I called it and the guy said there was nothing available but to hold on and he will check whatever is available, even if it was in the next state. There was an opening in Griffin Georgia so we got the room and headed to Griffin Georgia. If it wasn't for Joyfm to get the Gainesville station [I found out that it is new just two months which was a month before charley hit that they got joy in Gainesville] we wouldn't have found a room and would have been screwed. Joyfm has been a huge blessing to me in all aspects. See Lord ALWAYS will be there to help in terrible situations if you let him. Lots of people don't understand why these things happen ,we all wonder that but a word of advice, we aren't God we don't know what will happen if the future, he does. He does everything for a reason. We cant go and blame him for everything that happens bad in our lives. If I would have blamed lord for charley hitting my house and for not have anything open, I would have missed the opportunities to grow in my faith and the blessings he gave. So don't blame God for everything that happens bad instead go to him. Just remember he is God ,like the saying goes "father" knows best.