this is my story, this is my song

to anyone reading this that I don't know, hey!!! I'm so glad you found this because now we get to talk about some kinda boring stuff with a really cool ending!

So I'm actually a very boring person, which is fine by me because at this point I'm trying to stop caring about me and start caring about Jesus. Testimonies are hard sometimes, but necessary, so here goes!

Picture a tiny little girl, sitting in her mom's bed. The sun's shining through the white curtains and they're reading bible stories together. The little girl doesn't really know this yet, but her mama is telling her the gospel, pure and simple. Something about that story touched the girl's heart, because she asked her mama if she could believe too. So they prayed together, and the little girl was saved.

That was me. For the longest time, if anyone asked me what my testimony was, I'd just kind of shrug and mutter something along the lines of, well i was raised in a christian home and i got saved around five years old and yeah, stuff. But that's not what a testimony is, I discovered. So let's keep going...

When you "get saved" when you're young (really young), I think that's one of the scariest places to be in. I was surrounded by people who all believed the same as me. I could recite countless Psalms and even a whole chapter of Phillipians by age 10. My family is the most loving, kind, and spirit-filled family I know, and I regret to say I lived complacently in that. Sure, I knew the right stuff. I witnessed to some of my friends if I wasn't certain they knew Jesus. We went to church and I loved learning about the Bible. But was my heart really in it? All I know is that I was in rebellion toward God, toward my parents, toward authority, and I was content to play in my mud puddle when God was offering me an all-expense paid vacation to the most beautiful beach.

And then death entered the picture.

Death didn't just enter; it slammed into my world and rattled my windows so hard a few of them burst.

My grandfather passed away a few days before my tenth birthday, and seeing my family (my father especially) mourn his loss affected me in ways I'm still trying to understand. He was such a pillar in our family and a spiritual giant, and it was hard for me to understand what was going on. After that, my uncle was abducted and murdered, my aunt was diagnosed with breast cancer and passed away, my great uncle and aunt both passed away, a few other relatives I wasn't as close to passed away, and my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer and after fighting valiantly, went to be with Jesus two years ago.

And amidst all of that the doubt flooded in. And the lies and the rebellion crept in and curled their icy fingers around me. I had not built good habits in the faith yet at this point (I was eleven or twelve); I didn't read the Bible, I didn't pray, I didn't really think too much about God except on Sundays, and so I had no defense against the poisons seeping into my life.

Would a good God take away all these people so close to my dad? Especially when my dad is such a good follower of Him? 

I remember one night in particular: my mom, fed up with my venomous attitude and words, brought me in to see Dad for a talk. During that talk, he somehow knew to ask me about God and I was so uncomfortable. Writhing under my skin uncomfortable because he got me to admit for the first time that I had started to believe that yes, God existed, but he didn't really care about me, or about anyone on the earth, so why should I care?

That's why I say getting saved at a very young age in a Christian home is so dangerous.

During this time, we had been attending a church where I didn't have any friends because all my friends were from co-ops and other organizations, and they went to another church. We switched to Heritage in fifth grade, and I loved getting to go to Sunday school and Keepers with my friends. Thankfully, I was able to see past my ignorant views with the guidance of my parents and an amazing sixth grade bible study leader (thank you so much, Staci!) and I came back to the foot of the cross, trying to throw myself back into church the way I had always gone to it. Even so, I was now thinking about church as a social event where I got to see my friends twice a week. (Sixth grade bible study was truly special though, and I harbor a special place in my heart for the book of James because of it!)

I got into youth group and middle school. And I hate this part of my testimony because it's so convicting to me: All I remember from seventh and eighth grade was school and my friends. (Well, more like I was finally making friends; I had a few close friends but it was the first time I actually wanted to have other people over and hang out.) Apparently youth had little impression on me? I think part of this was because of a higher level of internet activity on my part, and I didn't attend any church camps or retreats really. It's not that I didn't believe in the Gospel, no, I loved it. But I was very, very, dangerously apathetic.

Here's where my snow globe started getting shaken.

The summer before my first year in high school, I was so excited. I was going to go to a worship arts camp for the first time and I couldn't wait. A couple weeks before I was scheduled to go, my mother flew out to California to see my grandfather, because he'd gotten very sick and was in the hospital. I thought, He'll be fine, we'll see him when we go out after my camp.

But I never went to camp, because we decided to go to California as fast as possible when we learned that my grandfather wasn't fine. It was a long, hard drive, me hating myself for feeling bad for the camp experience I was losing out on when we were going to possibly a funeral. We didn't do anything really fun that trip, except drive a lot to the hospital and sit in the ICU and eat the cafeteria food and watch the olympic trials from the hospital televisions.

I am so so grateful to say that my grandfather is alive and well today.

Two things that have forever changed my life happened during that three-week period in California. I started habits that lead to a serious development of depression and anxiety, and I was really bored, so I started watching sermons on my beat-up laptop.

I didn't know it at the time, but I was about to be plunged into a dark spiral of depression and anxiety that continues to plague me to this day, but the words I was hearing from the sermons (shout out to David Whiting and Northridge Church!) spoke life into my hardened heart. I also was volunteering with a friend in California at their church's VBS, and that was amazing.

I entered high school, and frankly, high school triggers me, because I had anxiety attacks all the time. Every day was a battle to get up and smile at the world. I always got my homework done, because I had developed a reputation as a straight-A student, and I couldn't fail anyone with their expectations. I didn't want to go to things because of my acne or my homework or my crippling fear about social situations. Some of this had to do with a great deal of anxiety about my fictional writing (at the time, it was published on a writing website, and I took it down in late 2016, noticing a great improvement in my mental health after that) but a lot of it had to do with I was grounding myself in myself, not on God.

Anxiety happens when you care more about what others think about you then what God thinks about you. And I am here to tell you that the judgement of the world doesn't matter in comparison to the judgement of the Father.

Here's what happened to snap me out of my funk: in California, one of my dear friends, (it's almost an insult to call her friend; she's my sister really) knowing I had missed my summer camp experience, invited me to Camp Barnabas late that summer. So I went, and I have a whole other blog post lined up about that place. But it really shook me up in an amazing way.

I don't know what exactly snapped me out of depression, but I believe it was a combination of people reaching out to me and a desire to know more about what I had heard about at camp, from my parents, from my pastor, from the sermons I'd binge-watched, and the Holy Spirit.

2017 is when I began to try to follow Jesus the way I should have been for the past fourteen years prior. Youth suddenly became very important to me, and not because of my friends, but because I wanted to learn more about God. I took notes in church, not because I had always taken notes, but because I wanted to remember what we'd talked about. While anxiety was still pretty heavy on me, I now combated the lies in my mind with scripture that had been instilled in me as a young kid. And I was doing good.

I got to go to the worship arts camp I'd missed the past summer. My dad was actually the featured speaker, and I learned a lot from the talks and people I met and the experiences. It instilled in me a great desire to grow more in my understanding of God and to grow closer to Him. On July 16th, 2017, I journaled: "I feel like right now, the me that I am is not the best version of myself. I need to make more time to connect with God."

Camp Barnabas 2017, though, was a game changer. Shout out to three special people, my barnstorm leaders Natalie and Catherine for filling me up with truth I still remind myself of today, and my "sister" Olivia for constantly encouraging me to grow more in Christ just by modeling what it looks like to joyfully follow Him in everything she does. I came away from Barnabas firm in my belief that I was a beloved daughter of the King, and I know who has the victory.

---my apologies to anyone getting bored, we're almost done!--

Sophomore year.

Sophomore year was actually very "easy" academically. I had some really fun classes, some really great teachers, some teachers that weren't so great, but a lot of great memories, like sneaking a pint of ice cream into a movie theatre, joining the youth worship team, and spontaneously getting a hair wrap. But in terms of relationships, it was very full of hardships and conflicts. After getting in a fight with my parents over technology usage (they won, and rightly so), I then found myself in a situation that left me feeling like I had no one to turn to as a friend. My "sisters" were always there for me, but they had recently moved farther away, and our lives didn't intersect unless we really planned ahead. Unfortunately for me, I was around the same people almost all week long, and I was ignored and taken for granted.

It pushed me to reach for God, and I am so grateful for that.

So now it's a year later. I'm dealing with different struggles: anxiety about the future--where am I going to go to college? will I ever find love? what does God want me to do with my life? etc, etc, etc--and conflicts in my relationships with my friends. Sometimes I wake up out of breath because I've had panic attacks while I sleep. Sometimes I pretend to have to go to the bathroom just to get out of conversations I don't want to have. Sometimes I skip reading my bible and talking to God for days on end because I convince myself that "I don't have time."

But today is February 13, 2019, and I just want to share something God has shown me for the first 44 days of 2019. During the month of January, I read through the book of Proverbs, and this month I'm reading the book of Acts. There is something so so amazing and special about reading the Bible with no preconceived notions but just to learn and be open to what God has to say! I've plastered my room and bathroom walls with verses and lyrics from songs that quote scripture so that I can remind myself of God's promises while I brush my teeth. I have my tribe of people that point me back to the cross and know how to make me smile.

2019. I'm excited to get to know what this chapter of my story is going to look like.

This is my story, this is my song: praising my Savior all the day long.

yes & amen,

abby