Autumn's Testimony
I haven’t always been Pentecostal just for the last two years ....... I was baptized as a catholic when I was 6 years old but we never really went to church my dad just claimed us as a catholic and we knew our religion but we only went to church 2 to 5 times a year.
When I was about 12 years old I began questioning his religion I didnt understand if they said your body is a temple do not desecrate it but yet its traditional that Catholics pierce their child’s ears as infants..... Or it says you should be fully emerged in the name of Jesus Christ and we were sprinkled in the name of the father the son and the Holy Spirit. Well my dad did not approve of my questioning especially when I asked him why we pray to the virgin Mary instead of God.....
There were many things I didnt understand but he had no answer for them. We went through many battles in my life over the years I got diagnosed with tuberculosis and had to take medicine I no longer have it but will always test positive for it. A year later my dad got diagnosed with spinal meningitis the doctors said he wouldn’t live more than a week because it entered his brain.
I feel like God has always had his hand on me. My family and I had prayed for him and God healed him. My dad has always been abusive but after he recovered his abuse got worse and he was never the same. He started threatening my mom and I, and I started questioning if there is a God why am I going through this.
I was 15 when he started telling me I need to take a bottle of pills and end my life. I got into many types of drugs to deal with my depression and started drinking when I was 16 my dad told me again just end your life your not my daughter I don’t care about you, so I took a few ecstasy pills and overdosed. I woke up in the hospital to see my father standing there he said if your going to overdose next time do it right and I knew I would never please him he kicked me out of the house when I was 17 years old and I was a mess he continued to call me and say the same things he knew would hurt me and I would continue answering thinking he would tell me he was sorry and he loved me.
I tried many churches that year and still was struggling in finding myself finally he called and told me he hated me and I just couldn’t bare it anymore I was living with my two friends and there son at the time when I decided to end my life I figured I would do it the next morning when their son went to school so he didnt have to be there. I prayed that night to if there is a God send me a sign let there be a reason for me being here.
I got on the computer that night and a man that I met when I was 15 (Aaron West) saw me on the internet as I did him and we emailed each other at the same time he wanted to me meet me again and invited me to friends day at his church so I decided to give life another chance and took it as a sign from God. I felt God so strong the night I attended new life tabernacle it was like for the first time in my life I was at the right place at the right time.
I stopped wearing pants and cutting my hair and I built a relationship with God. Five months later I got baptized in the name of Jesus Christ and two months after that I received the Holy Ghost. A year in a half later the man who brought me to church Aaron west asked for my hand in marriage we have been happily married for 9 months and I feel like God used my husband to save me. I will be attending new life for 3 years in October. Although my dad and I still don’t talk God have promised me that he will change and be saved look what he did for me he gave me a second chance at life and delivered me from drugs and alcohol so that I can be saved if he can do that I know he can do all things!!!!!
I also feel like sometimes things may seem bad but they end up being better than what it could have been. I recently found out that the woman that raised me since I was 6 months old isn’t really my mom. I ended up finding my real mom and she is a mess and I would of never met my husband nor found God if I lived with my real mom. So sometimes it doesnt seem for the best but it is. I wouldn’t trade my step mom for anything I don’t think I would of made it living with my dad if I didnt have my mom to lean on she is amazing. My step mom and my dad are divorced so she is out of the situation as well.