Power in Weakness

Whenever I used to think about testimonies, I would always hear these amazing ones that seemed so powerful and so moving, but I would never know how to explain my own. I never thought my testimony would matter until now and I never thought it was good enough or powerful enough. I have never shared my full testimony with anyone, so you are the first to know. I am going to be very vulnerable and real as I share this, so to whoever is reading, you will know more about me than you may have wanted to. But this is my story, this is how I found God. I pray this reaches you in all the right ways.

I am the typical Christian who grew up going to church. I don’t remember a weekend that I wasn’t there. In middle and high school, I went to the service directed toward the age group and made a lot of friends. These friends inspired me, yet I still somehow didn’t know what it meant to have a relationship with God. I got baptized at 10 years old not even knowing what it meant to be baptized. I found myself going to church just because I thought it was the right thing to do and I enjoyed the friends I had made.

When I was 15 years old, I lost my motivation for church. I stopped going and I was pursuing my very first boyfriend and my high school friends instead. I still kept in touch with my church friends, and one of them I used as a “mentor” of sorts. So when I had a problem, I would go to her. When I was 16, I decided to take it all the way with my high school boyfriend. I felt immense guilt after the fact and I didn’t know what to do. I was supposed to be the girl who went to church and the girl who stayed sexually pure until marriage, or at least that’s what I told myself. I decided I needed guidance, so I reached out to the girl I used as my mentor. We met up and when I told her, everything changed, and not for the better. I didn’t get the help I was seeking. I felt judged and I was under the impression that there was nothing I could do. From that moment on, I got the cold shoulder from her and her family and eventually they all stopped talking to me and removed themselves from my life. I never knew what I did wrong, but to this day I haven’t gone back to that church.

I left church entirely, apart from holidays or the occasional times I would go with my parents to a different church. I didn’t take the time to know God in any aspect. I would pray sometimes, I knew God existed, I believed, but I didn’t care to have much part in it. As high school continued and into college, I was single for the first time in a long time. I was damaged and carried a lot of trauma from the relationships I had been in. I had also gotten on birth control early in high school and it caused insane depression and anxiety. This started my sexually impure journey. I wanted to feel loved and I wanted to feel wanted, so I chased after men. They gave me the temporary fix of attention I felt I needed, and then the moment I was alone again, it was dark. My depression was out of control and there was never a day where I felt like an actual human. A best friend of mine passed away and it shattered me, I felt like I was losing people left and right, I never felt like I could catch a break or that I belonged anywhere except for drowned in my sorrow, and my body was the only thing I had left to give to people. I threw my burdens on others just hoping they would pick up my pieces, but I would only get thrown back down again. I couldn’t control myself.

When I was 18, I started going to church with my sister a lot. It was a college group filled with young adults who loved Jesus and showed it. I wanted it to help me so bad, but I put up a front and never showed these people what I was really feeling or going through. I was reading my Bible a lot more too, but I wasn’t internalizing what I read. I realized later that it was because I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t care. And that made me spiral even more. In June of 2020, when I was 19 years old, I finally got into therapy. I was a wreck. Everyday my depression and anxiety on a scale from 1-10 was a 10 or more. Therapy was the only thing that could finally keep me sane. But I took therapy for granted, some days I never even wanted to have those calls with her. I wanted to get better, but I was addicted to the pain and the sadness. But in therapy, I learned coping skills and healthier ways to combat my mental health. I finally got on a much better track and could function more normally than I had been able to in a long time and she helped me with my faith too. But the depression never went away and the anxiety was always creeping. I stayed sexually impure and I stayed making decisions that did not portray me as someone who had a relationship with God. I realized later that I didn’t have a relationship with God at the time because I wasn’t trying to. I was back to doing it because it was the right thing to do and I liked the people around me.

As I was continuing trying to heal and get out of my self-made darkness, with little success I might add, something happened that I never thought would. In August of 2021, I was raped for the first time. In that moment, I couldn’t find words, I couldn’t move. I was frozen. There was no way out of it for me. I guess you could call it a “tinder date gone wrong.” It changed me. I was scared and unsure, more than before. I went entirely numb. I had no emotions, I couldn’t cry, I was impulsive, I didn’t care about what I did or what the consequences were because I couldn’t feel it. I was just lucky I still had the birth control in my arm to prevent more consequences. Rape leaves people with one of two things, sometimes both: complete shut down or becoming hyper sexual. I had both. It sounds so opposite, but I needed male attention. I wanted to feel loved and having that intimacy with someone made me feel safe and made me feel wanted again. I only loved my body because of these men, but my mind was nowhere to be found. In January 2022, I had a close encounter to rape. A guy I was talking to at the time had a friend visiting and his friend tried everything he could to get to me. He was touching me and all I could say was “stop,” but I wasn’t heard. I was crying, trying to get away from his hands. I only got free when the guy I was talking to saw the tears on my face and pulled me away from his friend. I went home at 5am crying the first real tears I had cried in months.

Those experiences flipped a switch in me. I was so low. I needed saving. I got back into reading my Bible and tried to actually internalize what I was reading this time. I watched church only occasionally because of it being online due to Covid. I decided to run to God as my last resort to the possibility of healing. I knew I needed God, but I didn’t quite know how to reach Him yet. My sexual tendencies slowed down and I found myself becoming disgusted with my actions and I carried a shame that couldn’t compare to anything. I knew I needed to stop. I wasn’t satisfied with the life I was living and it was eating away at me. I continued reading my Bible and praying more often, but I was never able to bring myself to fully commit. I was still numb and all I could do was go through the motions of every day. I couldn’t feel a connection to God because I didn’t have the emotions to. But I knew I was tired. My body and my spirit were so tired. I was stuck in a loop with no way out.

In June of 2022, I had decided to stop sex entirely. I wanted to wait until marriage, or at least attempt to. Sex was not satisfying me anymore and all it did was bring me down. I figured the best thing to do was to get rid of it, so I did. At the end of June, I went to Vegas with my friends to celebrate all of us being 21. It was fun in the moment, but I couldn’t help but feel darkness everywhere we went. It clicked in my mind why they call it “sin city.” My spirit did not like it there. The day I got back, I remember praying and praying because I felt so dark. That night, I had a nightmare not even an hour into my sleep. It was more real than a dream and I woke up with my hand out, yelling “stop!” as a vision of the devil filled my eyes. From that moment on, everything changed. The devil didn’t like that I was choosing to remove myself from his world, sex, clubs, all of that. God pulled me away from the devil’s grasp in an instant. In July, I got my birth control taken out. The same day, my emotions came back and I felt like a human for the first time in the 6 years I had the birth control. I also realized that I don’t remember anything from August 2021 to the day I got it taken out. If I remember anything, it’s like a dream and blurry in my mind. But I was able to actually start a real relationship with God and feel everything I was supposed to. My life turned around entirely and God saved me from the life I was leading with the devil by my side. I was pursuing God with everything I had and He came through with healing and love. I have never felt anything like the love God has for me. I was so blessed.

I wish it would have ended there, but life works mysteriously. In October of 2022, I was raped again. This time by someone I knew. I was drugged and taken to bed. I had no concept of time and no control over my body. He knew I was re-saving myself for marriage and not on birth control, but he didn’t care. I told him “no,” but it was like I never even said it. He paid no attention. That night I had nightmare after nightmare with him sleeping against me, all like the one I had in June after Vegas. This man was evil and I could feel it. I only remember parts of that night, but it caused me severe PTSD and flashbacks so intense that I had to move out of my apartment and back with my parents because I couldn’t be alone. I cried out to God begging that my flashbacks would stop and begging for release from what I was feeling. Then I found the verse 2 Corinthians 12:9. That was all it took. He answered me with something as simple as a verse. He answered my cries and brought me closer to Him. My body and my mind healed quickly after, and to this day, He gets me out of my flashbacks as soon as they start. He moved in my life in ways I never thought possible. He reminded me that He is faithful and that despite the situations in my life, He is good and He will never let me down.

I got re-baptized in March of 2023, this year, and the weights were taken off me. The joy of the Holy Spirit has no comparison. Now in therapy, my depression and anxiety are no higher than a 3 on a scale of 1-10, and a 3 is considered a bad day for me. God took my pain and replaced it with joy. I rest easily in the fact that I am still here and that my trauma and my choices didn’t destroy me. God saved me from myself. He saved me from the evil that came into my life. He made a way in my life and showed me what I never understood from the beginning, a relationship with God. He answered my questions about a relationship with Him without even having to ask. When I was weak, He made me strong. I may have known that God was always there and I may have always somewhat believed in Him, but I ran away. And when I ran away, He came to get me like He has always promised. When I was in my darkest moments, He was the only thing that could save me despite me trying every other way I could think of. Nothing compares to the life He has created for me.

2 Corinthians 12:9 “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

-Ashley ♡