My Story/Testimony

Hey there! Like I said in the header, I'm going to be giving my testimony, because God has been doing a LOT in my life especially recently. First off, I recently went to the hospital because of a pretty bad asthma attack, which I found out later was more of an anxiety attack than an asthma attack.

 I was extremely scared and it shook me to my core. I honestly felt like I was going to die at the hospital that night because the mixture of the asthma attack, anxiety attack, a dangerously high heart rate, dizziness, and some other side effects caused by me trying to handle my asthma created this awful feeling that seemingly wouldn't go away. They gave me medicine to calm me so I could sleep, but I convinced myself that if I gave in to my fatigue I wasn't going to wake up and I would die in my sleep because of how I was feeling. My way of handling that was fighting the urge to sleep, even though that was my body's way of resting from what had just happened. I finally gave in to going to sleep after hours of being at the hospital, and my very drugged-up self was brought home to sleep in my own bed since they finally got my heart rate down at about 4 in the morning. That all happened on a Sunday, and I was finally able to go back to school that Wednesday. My asthma seemed to be better when I got back, but what I didn't realize is that most of my problem originated from anxiety, not asthma. My problems seemed to be better the rest of the week, and I thought I didn't need to keep taking the medicine they gave me at the hospital.

 I felt like I was fine and it was just a momentary struggle caused by my asthma. But my attitude changed that Saturday when I began having the same problem that I had in the first place. The first time I had an asthma attack I was riding in the car bringing my friend back to her house. That Saturday I was riding in the car because we were going to go shopping for groceries and run some errands. I was starting to breathe hard and I felt the same way I had felt when I was in the car taking my friend back to her house. The medicine they prescribed me to calm me was left at my house, because I didn't think to bring it with me. I thought I was fine and didn't need it anymore. I ended up having to be taken home by my brother (who was in the same area we were in) because I couldn't shake this anxious feeling. I had to take a dose of my preventative inhaler (which I wasn't using at the time either because I thought I didn't need it) so that I would be able to breathe better.

 The rest of that week my anxiety got worse and worse everyday. I took more and more doses of my pills, because I could take them every six hours at the most. I was taking three a day, and the medicine made me so tired and lethargic that I didn't want to do anything but sleep. At first, I was okay with the thought of just "sleeping off my anxiety". But it got to the point where I didn't want to do anything but sleep. I felt at peace only when I slept, and I wasn't even eating. When I did eat, it wasn't that much. I ended up losing about 10 pounds. I hated the way I was living, because I didn't want to keep sleeping all day, but when I was awake the only feeling I had was anxiety. I finally got to the point of feeling so helpless that I thought there was no hope. I prayed and prayed, and it seemed like nothing was happening. I got angry and asked God why He wasn't answering me. I even prayed that if He wasn't going to help me feel better and really didn't want me to get through this, that He would just take me to heaven to be with Him. I felt that if I wasn't going to be healed from my extreme anxiety attacks I would rather die so I could just be in a place where there is no more suffering or pain. The Wednesday of that week was Christmas, and my sister in-law got me a devotional titled "Walking With The Lord: Turn to God in Times of Trouble, Transition, Healing, and Celebration". I started reading it that day, and I started crying on page one. I felt like I could relate so much to what it said and I felt so at peace.

 However, I still had some anxiety troubles later in the week. I was wondering why I was on this spiritual roller coaster\: feeling at peace when I prayed and asked God for help, then not being able to feel at peace when I went in the car, then reading a page in a great devotional and being brought to tears, then not being able to shake those anxious feelings. I was so confused. My mom and many family members of mine have gone through anxiety, so they were loving and supporting me through everything. My mom said, however, that I had to not let my anxiety control me, I had to control it. That was terrifying. The thought of me trying to control what seemed to be out of my control completely. That Sunday came, and we went to church. I can't describe how moved I was. The sermon was about how Mary had to surrender her worries, questions, and control over to God in order for God to work through her. Now she is esteemed for being the mother of the Son of God. I was amazed at how God put me right where I needed to be, right when I needed to be there, with a message that seemed like God talking straight to me through the pastor! The pastor talked about how being in a place where you don't know what's going to happen next can be a scary place, and I thought "AMEN!" He asked if anyone had ever been in a place where they were shaken to the core, and I thought "Yessir! Right now!" Everything he talked about, directly related to what I was going through. I couldn't hold back the tears (yes, I cry a lot when it comes to spiritual things, haha). I got home and I just felt like I wanted to know everything there is to know about God, the Bible, God's will for my life, EVERYTHING. I started texting people who had been praying for me and supporting me recently, thanking them for everything they had done and letting them know what God was doing. Can I just say, I'm overwhelmed at the amazing, supportive, loving, Christ-like people in my life.

 I feel so humbled to think about how many people were, and still are, there praying for me, encouraging me, and pulling me through this hardship in my life. I know that, in the end, God is the one who heals my heart from suffering,

 but He was using people who I could talk to about everything that was happening to strengthen me and give me an even stronger hope. I really wouldn't have been able to get through it if I didn't have such amazing influences, friends, and spiritual leaders right beside me cheering me on. God pulled me through the hardest time of my life by being RIGHT THERE BESIDE ME every single step of the way! I didn't feel Him there at first, but He was working! I was trying to figure out why I reacted the way that I did, why in the hospital I was scared beyond what I can put to words. Why was it that what happened made me react with such fear and unrest? Why is it that I suddenly started having anxiety problems like that recently? I realized that my problem was more of a spiritual one than a physical one. I had gotten so far away from God recently and I didn't even realize that I was straying in the first place. You don't realize how amazing just being alive and breathing is until you feel like your life is about to end. You don't completely comprehend the amazing blessing that being healthy is until you start having health problems. You don't realize how AWESOME God is until you are faced head-on with His comfort, glory, and peace after a time of bitter unrest and distress. This feeling of hitting rock bottom was exactly what I needed to realize just how good I have it. I'm blessed with a Christian school to go to,

 two incredible churches to attend filled with fantastic, God-loving people, wonderful friends who have my back 100% (and who are just as random as I am),

 a house to live in, food in my stomach, a great family, (and a dad that can join us for dinner over Skype because he is in North Carolina working)

 and the list could go on and on! But I was so focused on being discontented by what I didn't have that I didn't see the huge pile of blessings that was right in front of me. My greed and selfishness made me put on a blindfold and say "I've got nothing! I wish I had this, or this, anything else!" God used this situation in my life to say, "look, you are SO spoiled and you don't even realize it! Come back to me and be content with what you have, and you'll be happier than you've ever been." From that point on, I am working to become a thankful, content Christian who talks to people about God whenever I can, and share what God brought me through recently. I still struggle a little bit with fully letting go of my past ways, but I'm making progress in becoming a better Christian than I used to be and being as close to God as I possibly can. I know that God will give me the strength to continue growing in my faith. I am so glad I have my crazy, amazing, supportive friends who I can joke around with one moment, and have a deep, serious conversation with another moment. I'm also thankful for my school, where I can talk about my faith without worrying that I will get in trouble for it. I'm thankful for this photography class I've been taking because I've found that photography might be a new hobby of mine. I LOVE TAKING PICTURES!

 I'm thankful for my teachers, pastors, and spiritual leaders in my life who I could talk to and get advice from during all of this. I'm thankful for my room, where I am able to go to be alone and do my devotions quietly.

I'm also thankful for music, because I have found so many songs that bring me peace when I listen to them. Music just calms me beyond what words can express.

 I'm grateful for my cat, because she's so sweet and it seems like she knows when I'm having a bad day. When I'm not feeling the best, she lays right beside me and snuggles close to me, and I just LOVE her to death.

 I love humor, because laughing just seems to make any day a great one. I'm thankful for talking, because I love talking. Oh my word, I love talking (in case you couldn't tell by my long blog post). If someone is interesting to talk to, I could talk to them for hours on end and still find things to talk about. But most of all, I'm thankful for a gracious, all-powerful, all-knowing, loving, merciful God who cares about what I'm going through even though He's so big and I'm so small. It's crazy to think that God CHOOSES to love His children, who are all nasty, screwed up sinners who all want their own way.

 How He doesn't just destroy me, I couldn't tell you. I'm thankful for serving a God like that, and for Him giving me a testimony to tell other people when they ask me why I believe what I believe. I could never thank God enough for that! And that, IS MY LIFE!