Okay, so I'll just get the question out of the way for all of you. Yes, I live with my grandparents. Now you are probably asking why I do? Well, I'll explain all of that through my testimony.
When I was around five years old, my parents got divorced. My mom was diagnosed schizophrenic and bipolar, and my dad was a drug addict and abusive. The court declared for me to go live with my mom while my older brother, Xavier goes and lives with my dad. While I was living with my mom, we never had an actual home we stayed in - which means we lived on the streets. My mom would date men that would hit her and also hit me almost every day. We would often try to run away from them and go to a protective women’s shelter, but most of the time the boyfriends would find us. I know what your thinking...that must have been scary. Well, it was.
After a while, I asked the court if I could go live with my dad, and they agreed. When I went to go live with my dad, he met a woman named Lanora, and she soon became my step-mom. After a while, though, my dad started being abusive to her. He, also, was abusing his prescription drugs and became addicted. Soon after, my father started to not take care of my brother and I. I had to make my own food and do my own laundry at age eight. Things got progressively worse over the next three years. At some point I wasn’t eating, I was sick a lot, and wasn’t even going to school.
When I was 11, the police came to investigate my absence and put me in state custody. That’s when my grandparents picked me up, and I started living with them. The first year of living with them wasn’t the greatest. I was in shock and don’t remember much. But what I do remember was when I went to church with them in Oklahoma, there was a girl named Jessica who became one of my best friends. She helped me through a lot in a time that I needed it. She invited me to a church camp that summer, and that was the first time I fully understood who God was and accepted him to be my Lord and Savior at age 12.
After that day, my life has forever changed. Though it is never easy to fully understand life without my parents, even as messed up as it was, because of my grandparents love for me, the incredible friends, and godly people in my life, I have been on a steady path of not only catching up but continuing to grow in life and my faith.
Later, I moved in 7th grade to Wichita, Kansas. We went searching for a home church. The first one I went to was First Church of the Nazarene, and I felt so welcomed. I made fantastic friends, and I have a great youth pastor that has led me in great ways. I don’t know where I would be if I didn’t have these amazing people and Christ in my life to help me through everything.
I have had the opportunity to share my faith on a few mission trips. I have gone to Nicaragua, New York, Kentucky, and Tenessee. I pray I help change lives and that there are more to come. Also one summer, I was able to go to Israel and walk in Jesus’ footsteps. My wonderful youth pastor baptized me in the Jordan River, and it was a very life-changing event. I also had the opportunity one winter to go to an event called the "Yes Conference," which was all about missionary work in our everyday life and getting us ready to go out and share the message of Jesus.
A verse I have found to help me through and encourage me is Romans 5:2-5 which says:
"And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us."
I know that even though there have been some times in my life I have experienced suffering that because of those times God is and will continue to use those painful times and the times where he has given me hope to buildmy character day by day as the Holy Spirit works in and through my heart and life.
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