Forgiven and Redeemed
For about a year, I struggled with severe depression and anxiety. I battled with suicidal thoughts, panic attacks, and self-harm every single day. I would wake up every morning wishing that I hadn't. Often, it would take everything in me to even get out of bed in the morning. Just being alive felt like a chore. During this time, I also struggled with an addiction to masturbation and pornography. I was covered in sin, shame, guilt, and overwhelming sorrow. I felt so much nothingness in my existence.
During this time, I became convinced that I was bisexual. I soon had a girlfriend who also internally struggled with a lot of the same things that I was. Every night that I went to sleep, I wondered if she would still be alive when I woke up in the morning. I was living in such darkness alongside her. Soon after I decided that I was bisexual, I became very confused about my gender as a whole. I started to feel like I wasn’t supposed to be a girl, and the world told me I didn't have to be. I wanted to be “true to myself,” but how do you do that when you don’t even know who you are?
Eventually, my mental health became so bad that my parents took me to a mental hospital to be assessed. I was put into a weeklong outpatient program. Every morning, my parents would drive me all the way to Grand Rapids, MI, and pick me up at the end of the day. They were determined to fight for me. I’m convinced that the prayers of my parents and their peers are what kept me alive.
During the program, I met with the campus chaplain. I told him my story, and he shared Psalm 13 with me. In this chapter, David describes feeling forgotten by God and defeated by his enemies. Despite his circumstances, he still chooses to trust in the Lord and His goodness. When I read Psalm 13, I felt like someone truly understood my turmoil. However, the difference between myself and David was that within his immense hardships, he still had hope, and I did not. I wanted to possess the same hope that David did, and it challenged me to seek after God in a deeper way than I ever had before.
After the program ended, I was doing much better. It was the beginning of 2023, during SEEK, and my whole world began to shift. I started to see God for who He really was and decided that I never wanted to live a life without Him in it. On the third night of SEEK, Tuesday, January 10, 2023, I was saved. Really, truly saved. I fell to my knees with my forehead on the ground, and I wept before the Lord as I heard Him say, “My child, you have been gone for too long; it's time to come home.”
On that very night, my place was secured in the kingdom of Heaven forever. I was forgiven and redeemed, and the enemy had lost the battle over my soul. For the rest of my life, I will live every day as a daughter of the King. The fruit of my life will no longer emulate immense brokenness but instead, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. I’ve tasted and seen the goodness of the Lord, and I will spend the rest of my days here on earth spreading the good news of Jesus Christ, my savior.
Do you feel your story can serve as a hope and inspiration to others? Share your story at mystory@radiant.church.