my testimony
At first I was reluctant to share my testimony with everyone but I feel like the Lord wants me to do this. My testimony contains my innermost feelings and stories, and it also has made me the person I am today. I hope that God will use this to help all of you with anything you may be going through.
It all started when my dad found out he had cancer. I actually wasn’t sad or scared at all when my parents told me. I knew he was going to be okay and I didn’t even consider the fact that he could die. After that day it was a long and hard road for my family. He went through chemo and hormones, which ended up changing him…forever. My dad has always had a bad temper but it became so much worse after he got cancer. I was going through a change in hormones and he was dealing with changes in his hormones also; which caused the perfect storm. He was really extremely vicious toward me…all the time. I can’t say exactly what he did but just know that he was very mean, and even though he treated my other family members badly as well, I got the brunt of his anger. My mom would try to stick up for me every once in awhile, but that only caused him to get angrier.
I started to act out by swearing, cheating in school, wearing my skirt extra high and my tops extra low. I was looking for satisfaction from guys because I felt like my own dad hated me and I had really low self- esteem. At one point I went through three boyfriends in three months, trying to fill the emptiness I felt inside, but it didn’t work.
Instead of my friends encouraging me to do right, they were encouraging my bad behavior. They weren’t true friends and I knew that I couldn’t talk to them about what was going on. I was in the “popular” group of the school and I knew that in order to be one of them I had to act like one of them, and my home life gave me a reason to do so.
Like I said earlier, at that time I was going through major self- esteem issues and the way my dad treated me just made my self-image so much worse. I felt like the world would be better off without me and like I was a terrible person. I wanted control in my life so I considered anorexia, cutting, and even wished I had the guts to commit suicide. Luckily though, God stopped me before I did anything.
All through my life I had always known God and said I was saved but it was only because I wanted to go to heaven. I didn’t care at all about a relationship, until one day when I felt like I couldn’t take it anymore, and He was the only one I could turn to. I remember getting on my knees, crying, and telling the Lord that I couldn’t handle it all. The feeling of being hated by my own family, hating myself, and then having no one to talk to about what I was going through was too much for me to handle. Then He took it all away; the terrible emptiness that I felt inside, and the depressed state that I was in.
From that day on, the Lord started to gradually pull me out of my bad group of friends and give me the most amazing ones that I could ever ask for. They hold me accountable and I can talk to them about anything. I decided that having true friends who love the Lord is way more important than having ones who cause you to compromise your values. God changed everything about me since that day; I am not the same person that I was.
Now, I’m not going to tell you that everything is perfect between my dad and me because it absolutely isn’t. I know that I’ve had a part in our arguments and I’m working on getting better. Every time I look at him though, I see the things he did and said to me. I always say I’ve forgiven him for the hurt he caused, but in my heart I know I haven’t. A few months ago I found out that his cancer is back and I got really scared. The doctors said he had about 5-10 years to live and I was afraid that our relationship wouldn’t heal in time and that he would become even more mean than he became after his first round of cancer. Also, the last time he got cancer, I hate who I became and I didn’t want that to happen again. After much prayer though, I know now that I have the Lord to lean on. I am leaning on Him for help with any pain that I feel or any struggle I have because I know now that I cannot do it alone and I never will try to again.
