MY TESTIMONY
One of the things that causes people to be somewhat turned off by religion is that they tend to confuse religion with a relationship with God. There are things that we do as religious people like go to church, pray, worship, this and that but through all that we lose focus on what’s really important…Which is having a relationship with God.
I grew up in the church most of my life and I had all of the outwardly appearances of what I thought it looked like to be “saved.” However, It wasn’t until I got older that I recognized that under all that religious paraphernalia was a heart that was not yet purified and a person that still struggled very badly with guilt, un-forgiveness, bitterness, despair, and the social, emotional, and cognitive effects of abuse that no one knew about. Even though I carried this burden for years, I still helped out in the church and attended service every Sunday. As a result, I continuously struggled with living one way at church and another way everywhere else. I was basically practicing the spirit of schizophrenia because I was teaching myself how to live my life as two different people. Eventually, I realized how close I was to the image that people said I was saved, but how far I was from a relationship with God and then I knew it was time to make a change.
When I began college at Penn State, everything that I ran away from in the earlier years of my life hit me all at once, and I realized that I couldn't face things on my own anymore. On September 24, 2006 I had my very first bible study with Duane Moore, and I finally got enough courage to tell someone all the hurt and pain that had been on my heart for many years. I felt like a burden was lifted off of my shoulders. Later that week, as I was sitting in my room reading my bible, I began to pray to God, telling Him that I knew something was missing. I questioned Him asking, “What aren’t I getting?” As I was saying these things to him, he took me...