I had a very good childhood and was blessed with a good and loving LDS family. In middle school, I went into a deep depression. I resented that I had to exist in this broken world. I would purposefully deaden my emotions to the point of feeling completely numb, which led to self-harm and starving myself to try to both cope and punish myself. I viewed God as a distant figure who was holding my eternal family and happiness as a hostage to manipulate me into obeying His rules. While in the depths of my depression, I started having a recurring dream every few months. In the dream, I was walking into a huge dark room with Preston on one side and an unknown friend on the other. At the front of the room, a lion and a lamb sat bathed in a soft light. A feeling of absolute joy and peace would come over me as I looked at this lion and lamb, and I didn’t realize at the time who they represented. I would always wake from this dream intrigued by the joyful feeling which was such a contrast to my waking life.
In high school I started really questioning my religion. I finally decided that if I wasn’t willing to open my heart and mind to search for truth, what I had was not faith. It was fear. When I went to college, I started calling and attending different churches and asking all the questions I’d been told to “shelve” before. Over the period of about a year, I took a deep dive into the gospel of John with a born-again believer at Tri-Grace Ministries. Every single question I ever had was answered thoroughly with the Bible, without fail. This was something no other belief system had been able to do. I realized how clearly the Bible teaches about a beautiful and all-knowing God who came into our broken world as a man and died to atone for ALL of our sins (past, present, and future,) and give us His inheritance of an eternity with God. I learned these things in my mind, but still held God at an arm’s length. I have a deep love for my family and friends and have always been extremely sensitive to the emotions of others. I knew if I claimed the Bible and Jesus without religion as Truth, I would cause immense pain and damage to my relationships as a result. On Easter Sunday 2017, I decided to attend a Bible based church called South Mountain Community Church after attending the LDS church with my family.
Preston picked me up and we met up with a friend at the church. We walked into the big auditorium and the place was lit up. On their big screen was a lion and a lamb. It felt like my whole world stopped as that dream I’d been having for so many years was all of a sudden my reality right here in front of me. I’ve tried to describe it in so many ways, and it never truly captures how this felt. But the drab wall I had been building around my heart as protection was obliterated to nothing in a second. I KNEW right then that God’s hand had been in my life from the very beginning, even in my darkest moments.
I felt this new, beating heart and KNEW WHO I BELONGED TO. That was the moment I was born again in Jesus. Since then, my life has had lots of ups and downs. I went through strain in my relationships caused by leaving my religion, a miscarriage within the first few months of my marriage, and periods of intense strain and growth with my husband. Yet through it all, that absolute joy and peace within me has never wavered. God delivered me from my sin and has given me eternal healing and joy in Him. No matter what comes, my soul is forever well in Jesus.
John 10:28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.
Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
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