My name is Daija and by God's grace, through Chesster, I am able to share and provide in part my own testimony. A testimony that is not a Nobel Prize winner, but in the Creator's hands will no doubt touch some of you on an effective level--a level where God will speak to you through a testimony He gave me.
All my life I've been a sinner--until now and further into the future when I reach my grave, I will always be a sinner. However, this sinner is gonna be in heaven one day. I am going to be in glorious Heaven with family and friends (and with Chesster) someday all because of God's love for me. A love that moved God not only to verbalize it but to put it into action for the entire world to take history of it.
All of us have sinned and better than just pulling Romans 3:23 out of my pocket, tell me or better yet confess to yourself if you've ever broken one of the Ten Commandments: Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness (lie), Thou shalt not covet (desire to have passionately/physically) another's possession-- Must I really go on? We've all used God's name in vain, one time or another. I myself have broken nearly all of the ten commandments, and I'd go as far as to say all before the age of 9, but don't be so surprised I told you...I am a sinner.
Yet, I was a devote sinner in church for most of my youthful life April 4 (about to be 5 years) ago. I, being sixteen now, was 13 when my granny died of breast cancer ("a generational cancer" that runs in our family) and that was the first time I have record of me ever praying to God (intentionally and by myself) for Him to not only save her from the agony of breast cancer, but to also prove to me his existence by healing her. My first self-prayer was a selfish prayer and "If you do this God, I promise..." prayer. We've all prayed prayers like that one.
Promise Prayers, I'd call them. Some of our Promise Prayers have been answered and if we're being truthful we broke those feeble promises that were attached to them because in truth we just wanted a "get out of jail free card" warranted by the "Big Man Upstairs." However, mine wasn't answered.
My granny died in 2014 while I was running around my middle school building for the very 1st Day of basketball practice. It was a memorable day because in my failing sprint I remember not being able to keep pace as my body was suddenly overwhelmed with fatigue and out of nowhere, I busted into tears. My coach pulled me aside and asked why I was crying as I finished up (last) and all my new and unmet teammates left us alone to talk.
I couldn't offer an answer then for why I had suddenly been hit by the fierce need to let everything go, but soon practice ended and I climbed into a grave, solemn car. "Granny's dead," my Mom stated with the thick voice that lingered after nonstop hours of crying. I hadn't known what to say then. I just looked out the window clenching my teeth in bitter silence and my sister unhappily (and in tears herself) turned and demanded from me, "Daija, why aren't you crying--are you not sad that granny's gone?" Truth was--y'all are the first one to know this--I did cry for my granny not only during practice out of nowhere but in plenty of pleading prayers to God to intercede.
After, Granny's death I was deeply depressed and closed myself off to deal. My family thought I didn't care anymore, that I was going through this teenager stage, and that I was without feeling for anybody. But truth was I was mad, I was pissed (I would have told you back then).
Why are you so surprised? I didn't want to have anything to do with God after that. Maybe this doesn't surprise you because you would have done the same, ay? Or maybe you have... Maybe you've too cut God off because if He was real...how could he let someone close to you die...how could that be a loving God...
Am I hitting to close to home? I'm not trying to hurt you or condemn you, but I just want to let you know I was there too. I was sitting in darkness and confusion wondering where was this God that my granny had told me that loved me. Where was He when she was ailing? Truth was He was there all along. And the self-same truth goes for your situations past and present. God was there and he's there now. I wish I had known that then, known Him before my granny was diagnosed, but that wasn't the case.
My granny was the glue of the families. When she died, what use to be a close-knit family is now a family I see once or sometimes twice a week. My granny use to get us all dressed up for church since my cousins and I could first remember--that's where my granny always wanted to go. My granny started churches, preached at churches, and brought them to life. She was the only reason the entire family would sometimes be seen in church in the very front two rows on a Sunday Morning. I don't think I ever missed a day at church with my granny, but I do know I never fully ever enjoyed church with her before she died.
After we buried her (body that lived no more than 50 years into old age) months went by in mourning, I had to quit basketball to be there for my mother who had recently miscarried from all the stress (no doubt) of chemotherapy, moving granny to live with us in our house, and taking care of her ailing mother in gnawing despair.
Then one day I just got up and went to church, an old, familiar church I had been shipped to on a yellow bus by my granny when I could show my full age on one hand. Franklin Road Baptist Church.
My current home church now, was the first place I felt and encountered the presence of a loving and real God.
I don't remember the sermon, and I certainly don't remember the preaching, yet I do remember becoming a steady bus rider learning more and more about Jesus as I went. I prayed the prayer of salvation asking Jesus into my heart alone one night when I woke up from a horrifying and paralyzing dream--even reaffirmed that belief as the years came along.
I told you before I am a sinner and I still am. I was a wicked sinner in elementary and I grew out of "childish things" by 7th grade. God saved me from furthering a more lustful than loving relationship, He rebuked me on what I indulged in with my eyes and ears, and God gave me a heart, a passion, a spark to desire to know him more and more. To know him so much that I would be overcome to not only have Him to myself but to share him with others.
God is nothing short than amazing. He is real love, true love. He's there even when you don't think He is there. He hears you when you don't think He's listening or can even hear you. And He's closer than you think.
By God's grace I avoided a road that could have taken me down a path of drugs, sex, early pregnancy, outlandish rebellion, and destruction. Jesus saved me and THE TRUTH IS...HE CAN SAVE YOU.
By dxijx_sxnders14.