MY
STORY
When I was three, I prayed the sinner’s prayer because I knew I was going to hell after watching the movie “All Dogs Go to Heaven.”
Both my parents were Christians, as was my older brother, who has Down’s syndrome. My dad always talked about Jesus and the Bible with me, but since my parents were very intelligent, I gained my worth from being better than everyone else. I concluded that all that mattered was winning, and it didn’t matter how you played the game. I had plenty of head knowledge about God, but little heart response.
In 8 th grade, I picked up the guitar. I listened to and practiced music for hours every day. I had to be the best, and music became an addiction.
I never did drugs, but I discovered pornography in sixth grade on the Internet. I shut off the warnings in my heart even to the point where my nighttime routine would be to look at porn and then read my Bible. I started having cyber sex through AOL instant messenger.
Then, in 10 th grade, something happened. Instead of being a good Christian on the outside with piles of sin on the inside, I began to want more of God.
Even though I was addicted to pornography, I would read my Bible and pray fervently every day. Instead of continuing at my private Christian school, I had an unction to attend Oakmont High.
I started praying to find an on-fire youth group. As I drove by The Rock one day, God spoke to me that I was to go there. My life quickly started to change.
I stopped doing school work and spent my class time evangelizing and my evenings attending church. However, I was very prideful and judgmental. I got my worth from beating people in religious debates instead of loving them.
After meeting Brion, Eline, and Katrina just after they started attending The Rock, Brion asked me, “What is holding you back from God?” I replied, “Music.” That night, we threw away hundreds of my records and CDs. Everyone was stunned. Soon I began loaning out my instruments and going on all-out music fasts to break my addiction.
I had a vision of revival at Oakmont, my high school, but to my dismay, Eline had a word for me: She said that God wanted my heart, and the revival would come later. I tried to ignore it, but that word started to be cultivated in my life.
There was a point that I knew things had to change if I wanted more of God. Although I couldn’t imagine life without pornography, God did, and He brought me out of it. It was hard breaking the pornography and music addictions, but God’s love broke through and I am free!
All that, and I was still hungry for God. I would have frequent emotional ups and downs longing for God and striving for acceptance. In eleventh grade, I was grounded from church because I was failing school. However, I figured out that if I worked really hard, I could graduate from high school a year early and do The Rock Internship.
There, I went through 2 years of intense discipleship, and it was one of the best choices of my life. I am a completely different person who is leading my generation.
God started a work in me back when I was three, and I am filled with joy looking ahead to what He has yet to do. I have seen the face of Jesus at The Rock. Here, it is finally safe for me to be who God has made me, and I am learning to love and forgive those around me as I am being truly loved through my weakness. |
