I've been wanting to put this up for some time. This is my testimony--the story of how God changed my life. If you are offended by religion or by Christianity, you may not want to read this page. However, I highly encourage you to.

I first gave my life to God when I was only three years old. I grew up in a Christian home, and went to a great church. Unforetuneatly, I still didn't have the happiest of childhoods. It started when I started school. I'd been homeschooled up through second grade, and had lived a very sheltered sort of life. So, needless to say, I didn't exactly fit in with other kids. The next four years of my life were downhill. I was teased mercilessly about everything from my lack of social skills to my religion. And that was the problem. In attempting to disguise my differences and 'fit in' with everyone else, one of the first things to go was God. Oh, sure, I always SAID I was a Christian, and for all my parents or others at church could tell, I was the perfect little Christian kid.

Anyway, trying to fit in just didn't work. I went through a period of about two years where I had literally no freinds. I generally delt with everything by going through stages of depression, then anger bordering on violence, then, finally, just submerging myself in my books. That was the worst--I began to think, why even try to live in the real world when I've got a world inside my head that's so much better?

Of course, all this time I never admitted, even to myself, that there was anything missing between God and me. For most of the life I remembered well, things had always been the same--and, after all, I knew everything a Christian had to know, right? I'd been baptized! I went to church! I'd given God my life, hadn't I? What else did I need?

Starting middle school in seventh grade was wonderful. For the first time I began to make freinds, and I could actually hide anything that made me stand out. Life began to get better--on the outside.

Near the end of seventh grade, I met a freind that was...a blessing. In a very, very good disguise. The thing to remember is, I still thought I was a perfect Christian. And I was, at least, enough of a Christian to understand what it means not to be saved, and care about any of my freinds who hadn't been saved. So, anyway, my freind and I got very close--and then I found out she wasn't Christian. I was...crushed.

Thus began the first time in my life where I'd ever prayed consistently to God for anyone or anything. I prayed...and prayed...and prayed, that God would allow me to witness to her--and for her eventual Salvation.

It was these prayers that began to spark an new interest in Christianity in me. I started reading my Bible more, and began to look for other ways to find out more about evangelism.

A short time after school ended for the year, I saw a flyer at church-- advertising a youth rally coming up in a few weeks. It included someone coming to give their testimony, a concert, then a night at a water park. Suddenly, I just KNEW I wanted to go. So I signed up.

I went to the rally (it was called Make Waves) with my church youth group, that I hadn't ever attended before. Just hanging out together was fun. I was suprised at how easily they accepted me.

To put it long and short, I ended up rededicating my life to God at that youth rally. It was comepletely unexpected to everyone--most of all, to me. But it happened that, at the end of an astounding testimony, we were called to either give our lives to Jesus for the first time, or if we felt we needed to, rededicate our lives to Him. And then it hit me--right out of the blue.

You need this, a little voice started saying to me. All these people here have something you don't. You're NOT walking with God. You don't know Him. When you pray, you pray to a big black hole in the sky. How can you expect to be a witness to all your unsaved freinds if you don't even know how--if God isn't guiding you? You need this.

I argued. I reasoned. I resisted. But I knew from the start I was destined to lose. God was talking to me, I realized, and He was right. I was afraid to make a big commitment, afraid to spoil my reputation as a 'perfect little Chrisitan' with this, but, in the biggest leap of faith I had ever made in my life, I rededicated my life to God anyway.

That was all last summer. Since then my life has changed. I've found opportunity after opportunity to witness to my freinds, I'm happier than I can ever remember being, I'm confident in myself and in God. I don't feel rejected or unloved--and I'm not ashamed of anything about me. For the first time I'm able to live like the girl God wants me to and not like everyone else expects me to. And I'm making a lot of new freinds. God is answering all my prayers, and bringing true peace and pure joy into my life--and all I can say is; thank you, God.

I wrote a poem about this. Read it here.
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