To start out my story with God I'm going to tell you guys the story of April 20th of 2010. That was the day I learned my dad had passed away. It was the worst day of my life. I was only thirteen at the time, and I was staying at my Grandma's house for about a week. A week before that my dad was rushed to the hospital after taking way to much pain medication. Some may wonder why finding out my dad had passed towards actually seeing him in his horrible condition was a worse day. The answer to that is at thirteen I still had a childlike mind, and I truly believed my dad would survive so the biggest blow to me was finding out he did pass away. Now at this time I still believed in God, but I wasn't close to god. Think of God and I being held together by a thin rope. At the time of my dad's death, that rope had a huge ax swung at it, and that ax didn't miss. I was holding that ax though, I was the one who tore myself from God. I didn't want to believe he was real when my dad was ripped away from me before I could even experience life. I was going to find out that was the wrong answer.
If you are going through a time where you're losing faith in God because you lost a loved one I'd like to point out the story of Job and Hebrews 4:14-16. In times of disaster, we can choose to keep following Jesus and his mercy or deny that we believe at all. I mad the mistake of denying anything to do with him. I really did not want to believe in our savior Jesus Christ. I denied so much that I tried other religions as well. I had no luck in fulfillment and healing with other religions. So, I decided religion wasn't for me and became Agnostic. I believed somebody put us on this earth, but I wasn't sure who. I convinced myself I was content with that outlook for quite awhile.
I met my now husband at eighteen. We were both teens going down a wrong road, but wow did God know what he was doing when he put us together. About four months into us dating he had already moved in with me and we suddenly found out we were expecting. Oh, and surprise its twins! It was a scary and trying time, but we got through it. We were meant to be together, and our now two-year-old Jesus loving baby girls were definitely meant to be here too!
We got married when the girls were around eighteen months old, and we both were denying God. The year after we got married God decided that he was done with our denial, and started sending us multiple signs. We couldn't deny the signs he was sending even though we wanted to completely ignore him reaching to us. A big moment for us and an even bigger moment for me was New years of 2017. We actually stayed up until midnight that night, but instead of partying and kissing I watched as my husband broke down to me and told me he was seeing the truth that Jesus was our salvation. I didn't show it to him at the time that I was wondering if he was right, and I tried to brush it off because everything in me didn't want to believe that he was right. even with the doubt that conversation made something click in me that night, and suddenly I was starting to wonder myself if Jesus was truly real. We still didn't take it serious enough and decided to still live our lives as we normally did. Then, boom, my husband lost his job. We now couldn't afford our house, and it seemed our only option was to move in with his parents. It was a scary time I didn't want to at first, and I really didn't want to leave the town where my mom lived. I hated the thought of "leaving" her, but it seemed with every solution to staying we figured out just did not work for our family. Of course, I still don't like being as far from my family, but God works in mysterious ways! God had plans for us and needed us someplace he could make those plans happen.
Moving to where we are now started us off on a path to Jesus. We started going to church regularly which caused us to start changing our lifestyle. God was working on us slowly but surely. It is quite hard to completely turn your life around like that, and to this day we still struggle with certain demons which is for another article. The fact of it was we were trying to live for God, we were trying to accept Jesus into our lives with open arms, and drive away the sins that can still haunt us to this day. The major thing I started doing to begin my connection with God was I started praying. I can say I prayed before, but I never truly prayed to have a connection, a relationship, with God. I also always prayed out of desperation. I never actually tried to just connect with our savior. Now I was praying to him every chance I got! At church, at home, in the car, in bed when I thought my husband was going to puke all over it (the stomach flu had hit our house). Okay, that last one was out of desperation, but it was answered prayer because he puked in the toilet not all over my sheets! The more I prayed the closer I found myself to God, and the less I could doubt him. I now had started a true relationship with God, but it was the tiny start to a big journey and the big day was yet to come.
The biggest memorable moment of my walk with God was this last October. It was the moment I was filled with the Holy Spirit! Our church was having a service with a special guest speaker, and other members of a sister church coming to service also. So, the church was packed full of people on a Friday, and my husband and I almost didn't go. If you know us we're introverts, and big crowds scare us. We were being pushed to go by an outside force who knew we needed to go. My inlaws took the kids for the night, and so there we were at church with no distractions and you could feel God pulsing through the crowd. Prayers were being shouted from the rooftops, and everyone was praying for one another. You could feel Gods love envelop the place, and as I felt that I felt God envelop me. It's interesting the feeling of being filled with the Holy Spirit you almost feel out of body but you feel so grounded. The large crowd no longer scared me I welcomed it. I hugged complete strangers and cried of happiness that night. It was also the night I asked to get baptized. God's love is amazing, and I can't wait to show more of it to you all.
One last thing before I end this article. My dad's death wasn't the only terrible thing that happened to me in my life that I could've used to keep me from God. I have had other bad things happen, and I also I suffered suicidal thoughts depression. God has helped me so much with healing with so many things. I'm going to be writing other articles talking about how God can help you through these trying times. Hope you stick around! God bless.