Testimony of Hope & Healing.

I grew up in a home where I wasn’t raised to know Jesus… I didn’t go to church, we didn’t pray before our meals or before we went to bed, and there wasn’t a Bible in my home. I always believed there was a God, but I never had a real relationship with Him, and that was because I simply didn’t know how.
I believe everything, both good and bad, happens for a reason. I also believe those things that are bad also lead to something good. When I was fifteen years old, someone took advantage of me and manipulated me. Eventually my parents found out, and they decided it’d be good for me to go to a Christian school (Post Falls Christian Academy) where I could learn to “be good.” I have to say, that was one of the best things that ever happened to me.
God first touched my heart at the retreat the school had right before the school year began. Pastor Caleb was none other than the one who spoke that night during worship. God spoke right through Him to me the very thing I needed to hear and I started bawling. That was the first time I had gotten the smallest taste of what life knowing God was like.
The past few years, I have gone to church by choice, but still never really got close enough to have a real relationship with God. Maybe I was afraid of that commitment? I am not too sure the reason why… I think a lot of it has to do with the fact I didn’t grow up in a Christian home… it makes it really hard to believe with all your heart in something you didn’t grow up being taught was real.
This past October someone very important came into my life. He has become my best friend, and I feel like in a way he saved me from the person I was becoming. This person is Blake Ridgewell. He has influenced me to be the better person I have always wanted to be and is just so uplifting and so amazing as a person. He is the one, in fact, who introduced me to the NLY.
I have been coming to the NLY since January 13th, and it has changed my life. I have become so addicted to going and with what God has been doing for me since I have started. The second time I went to NLY, I still had the burning doubt inside of me that none of it was true. Ever since I decided to become a Christian I struggled with that. So when they did the alter call that night, I went out the doors to the right and spoke with Debby Hanks, another amazing person I have met recently. She prayed for those feelings to go away, and sure enough the next time I came to NLY it was gone and hasn’t been back since.
Everyone I have met at NLY has welcomed me with open arms and been so caring, which is extremely important to me because I don’t have that many friends outside of NLY. Not many people I have met lately have been true and uplifting people you can share true friendship with. I don’t have my family to turn to whenever I want because they are constantly out of town doing business and I am left alone. Because of this, all of the people I have met through New Life Youth are held in the dearest place of my heart and I am so thankful for every one.
This last week in particular God has really been doing great changes in my life. On February 10th, he used a girl a few years younger than me who happened to have the same name as me to tell me the exact words I had been praying to hear that entire night. On February 13th, my back pains associated with my scoliosis started acting up to the point where I couldn’t move my right arm without a sharp pain firing down my shoulder-blade. Blake asked to pray for me, and I kept praying for healing the next few days. On the 16th I went to my physical therapy appointment, as I have always been the past 5 months, and told my therapist about the pain I had experienced on Saturday, and that I didn’t feel it that day. He checked everything and said that my shoulders, neck, hips, and back were all completely in alignment and he had no explanation as to why everything was perfect after the pain I described to him. But I had one. It was all thanks to God and the amazing abilities of prayer. Just as I was finishing up physical therapy, Blake randomly thought of the pain I was in, and a peace washed over him. Right after that, I texted him and told him I had good news. I called him and told him that I had been discharged from physical therapy and don’t have to go back anymore. It’s been 2 days since my appointment and I still feel better than I have since I discovered I have scoliosis over a year ago.
Yesterday, Hannah Goodwin, Kayla Blythe and Hannah Billick all prayed for me to experience joy with God, and the Holy Spirit that is inside me since I had never experienced it as they have. Last night at NLY during the alter call I felt so unbelievably joyful inside, like I was overflowing with it, drunk off of laughter. I looked around me and saw others weren’t experiencing that same thing, but rather tears of sadness. So I closed my eyes and began to pray that everyone would have smiles on their face, be laughing and dancing… and when I finally opened my eyes again I saw just that, which just made the joy flow from me even more.
I am sure there are those of you who weren’t raised in a Christian home. You had to seek God out for yourself… maybe you haven’t fully found Him or have that nagging feeling of doubt. But if you open your heart up, amazing things will begin to happen. Don’t be afraid to ask for prayer, or guidance from a friend. No matter what you may be thinking, or the things you may choose to do, God won’t stop seeking your heart. I have come to realize this over the past few weeks that He has been with me all along and always will be. God loves each of us unconditionally, and there is no greater thing. Wherever you may be on your journey with Him, don’t lose sight of that.

Behold, I will bring health and healing; I will heal them and reveal to them the abundance of peace and truth. -- Jeremiah 33:6