From Rebellion To Redemption: Jessie’s Testimony

Below is a testimony from Jessie, my second daughter. She wrote it as a celebration of her spiritual birthday a few days ago. It’s raw and honest, but also a glorious testimony of how God brought her from a life of rebellion to redemption. It never ceases to amaze me all of the different ways God brings us to Himself, and all of them are beautiful. Not that every element is beautiful (sin is always a part), but God knows how to take the ashes of our rebellion and turn them into beauty. I know Jessie wrote this as a means of thanking God for what He’s done, and as her Mom, I’d just like to reiterate that gratefulness. God is awesome. And as Corrie ten Boom would say … There is no pit so deep that God’s love is not deeper still.

The (spiritual) birthday girl and her Moooooom

Without further delay, here’s the birthday girl ….

Over the course of my twenty-four years, life has been a series of ups and downs. There have been times that I felt I had been plopped right on the highest peak of Mount Everest, with the world at my feet. But there have also been times I felt as if I was climbing Mount Everest with no desire to do so, with no preparation, no warning, and no one by my side. I have, in the past, chosen to view my circumstances through a lens of victimization. Now I view my life as a great, elaborate story of redemption. And here is how it has played out so far.

I was raised in a loving, godly, disciplined environment. I claimed to be a Christian when I was only five or six years old. However, I had truly no idea what it meant to be one; I only wanted to feel like I had a place in my Christian family. I was not remotely interested in the “other stuff”.

My first taste of rebellion was just after I had completed my seventh grade year at Faith Baptist School. Over three years I had built a circle of friends and become attached to the school’s structure. I thrived. It was around this time that my parents informed me that we were leaving Faith Baptist Church, leaving the school, and moving to a different town. As we drove the road to our new house, I purposed to punish my parents for their actions, and in that moment I closed my heart.

At fourteen, I began experimenting with alcohol, and learning how to not get caught doing things I wasn’t supposed to do. I was a budding manipulator, chronic liar, and master hypocrite. Still trying to avoid being the black sheep of the family, I’d attend church services on Sunday morning, and consume alcohol on Sunday night- further driving a wedge between the person I pretended to be and the person I actually was.

Two years later, I was working at a restaurant and decided I was above modern education and that school was not for me. I dropped out. One year later, I lost my virginity. Another year passed, and I was pregnant. Six days later, I was not pregnant. God had taken my child from me and I was devastated. I knew nothing about children, had never wanted one, but still I was angry that God had been an Indian giver. I fell further from Him.

Yet another year passed, and I was in a long term relationship with a boy who wanted to experiment with drugs. I complied, once again wanting to belong, to fit in somewhere. I would lie about my whereabouts, abusing my parents’ trust, and settle in for a night of drugs and music and cultivating relationships with the wrong people.

It was exhilarating.

It was destructive.

Waking up the morning after (if I had slept at all) left me feeling depleted of joy and questioning reality itself. I could physically feel the shame welling up and I’d stuff it down again as quickly as possible. I continued this pattern of behavior until on one particularly sunny day in May, I introduced a drug to a friend and felt immense and immediate regret. How could I promote this substance that for the past year had been wreaking havoc on my body, mind, soul and spirit? For eighteen hours, on a drug sometimes called the “Love Drug”, I contemplated love. I had an insatiable desire to know what love really meant, what it looked like, and how it played out. I came to a series of conclusions about true love and promptly realized that this true love looked distinctly familiar.

I had been learning it my whole life. I had been reciting it all my years. This love was God’s love and He offered it to me countless times, pleading with me to accept it and I invariably ignored Him. God reopened my heart and on May 4th, 2012, through tears of joy and realization, I accepted love. I asked God to let me never forget the fervor I felt in that moment and I often reflect on it.

Fast forward (quite literally) to May 4th, 2016. I’ve been blessed with a husband that was, from his birth, crafted for me by God. I’ve been given a son, who is a constant vessel of God’s work of sanctification in my life. I maintain a healthy relationship with my parents, and I’m thankful for their forgiveness, consistent love and exemplary devotion to me and each other.

God has shown me that he can save someone as broken and deeply embedded in “rock bottom” as I was. He can save you. He wants to save you.

I am not perfect. I am still a hundred thousand miles away from perfect, but I’m now heading in the right direction.

I am redeemed.