My Testimony

Tony asked me to write a little bit of my testimony from this past week of 24/7 prayer...so I did, and I thought I would put it up on my blog as well since I am just SO EXCITED and filled with so much JOY. Some of it is a repeat from my post below but that's just because I copied and pasted.
Reading over what I had written, I realized that this was not me writing my testimony, but God, Himself, revealing His Awesomeness, Faithfulness, and Love through these words.

I am COMPLETELY transformed:

Coming into this week of 24/7 prayer, I was so lost. My emotions were running wild, my commitment to Christ was wavering back and forth, and I was completely on the verge of giving up on thinking that God had something amazing planned for my life.
I had no idea that He had something planned for this week of prayer and I had no way to prepare for it.

It started off this past Sunday at Crossroads; Rod’s first Sunday back after being in Israel. When he talked about drinking the Living water as opposed to the Stale water, something hit me so hard and I found myself on the floor at the front of the gym broken down and sobbing uncontrollably. The worst part is that I fit every characteristic of someone who drank from the stale water. This sickened me and at that point, I decided I needed to change things, but I didn’t know how.

Over the past few months, I had been dealing with so much loss and was so emotionally distraught, and had some hostile feelings toward certain people; people I didn’t even know. I had been so unhappy and discontent and felt dead and empty almost every single day that I woke up, it was getting unbearable.

That Sunday night, Chelsea invited me over for dinner at the boiler room, and unfortunately, something happened right before we ate and I got really upset and distracted. I almost lost it at the table so we went and talked it out for a while and I knew that it was time for me to make some big decisions in my life regarding how I treated others, thought of them, and just let go of things that were pulling me down. I just could not wake up one more morning feeling such despair over my whole life.

I went into community prayer that night feeling so unsettled and discontent. I had had enough, so I just cried out to God to make me clean and give me a taste of the living water because I was so sick of this horrible way of life that just got in between my relationship with Him. I wanted to make things right with certain people so at that moment I decided that I was going to go way out of my comfort zone and let God take over my life and heal what had been broken.

Not one minute later, God performed a miracle that only He could do. Someone I barely knew asked me to pray with them, and in that time, so much healing took place and I felt a huge weight lifted off of me, that I had been carrying around for months. It was amazing to be reminded that the discontentment and jealousy and negativity that I was feeling was all part of what Satan wanted for my life. He wants to destroy the love and relationship that is supposed to be between God’s children. God did not intend on any of His children treating each other with anything except love. This was so eye-opening for me.

After that happened, I was on this high and feeling a sort of joy that I’ve never experienced in my whole life. It was so encouraging and I knew I had prayer that night scheduled for 2 hours from 12am-2am so I could not wait to get back in there and rejoice and celebrate what He had just done for me. The room happened to be open at 10 so I went around 1030pm and stayed until 2am, and in that 3.5 hours, my heart was completely transformed.

A year ago when I signed up for prayer, I had no idea how I was going to make it one hour of that week just praying. That night was the fastest 3.5 hours I’ve ever had. I just laid there and cried to God, sang to Him, read His word out loud, and just praised Him over and over again for the loving kindness and mercy that He has given me, which I clearly have never and will never deserve.

Since that night, I have had extremely low moments, but overall, am walking around feeling the chains that have been holding onto me for so long, broken by God’s faithfulness. This week I have decided to give everything up and let God take hold of my life and do with it what He wants. Along with letting go of things that seemed so important to me, mainly people, I also have been fasting since this past Sunday. Between that and living in prayer almost every chance I’ve been given, I have never felt so full when it came to my life. I’ve already begun to feel God calling me to different places, and have been able to let go of so much of the pain that I had been holding onto for way too long.

I’ve never felt God’s presence in my life so much. Between my prayer slots and community prayer, I’ve been in that room praying to Him for about 10 hours, and having that intimate time with Him, just talking and being honest and honestly searching for Him and longing for Him in my life, has made me really feel what being a transformed follower of Jesus Christ is like.

Satan is always going to try to tear me down or get in my way or get me to question the Lord’s faithfulness. This will be a constant battle. But after this week of prayer, I am confident that I will forever be a whole-hearted, follower of Christ.

If someone asked me a few months ago where I would be today, I definitely would not have answered them with how I’m currently living my life. There is no way I could have fathomed feeling as loved and fulfilled as I am now. I feel almost lighter and can’t stop smiling. I didn’t even know how to pray before a couple months ago and didn’t have much faith in the power of it, but being given the chance to fill my life with prayer, is really how everything changed for me.

If what I’m feeling now is even a little droplet of what eternity with my Father is going to be like, I can’t wait for that day to come.

Psalm 30 is the exact description of my journey up to this point of my life.

Be Blessed, friends.

xo