Through the Living Hope

So some of you may have seen from my comments on others' updates (especially Insa's) my posting Bible verses or things relating to Christianity. I understand that some of you may not agree with my beliefs. But I want to give my testimony so you all know why I can be so sure that this is true. And once I've told my story, I'll tell what I want to move on to next, and how I know it's going to happen.

Growing up, I mentally acknowledged God. My dad was raised Catholic, and my mom was non-denominational. For my second birthday (at least I think that was the one), I got the Beginner's Bible from my grandma. So on some level I've always known God.

But my family didn't go to church. Both my parent's work schedules were crazy and we never got plugged in to a church. It was also rarely talked about, so we didn't make much progress.

In January 2020, one of my grandparents had a heart attack. Fortunately, my grandparent survived. That really sparked my parents' desire to find a church. 

And then, March 2020! We all know what happened then. My mom's work closed so she was home more. That got rid of our excuse to not be looking for a church.

Near the end of December 2019, there was a shooter at a church in Texas. The shooter was taken down by armed members of that church's congregation. That story was connected to a church in my town. 

So for two weeks, we watched a livestream that the church in my town did (this isn't the actual name of the church, but for simplicity's sake let's call it Home Church). The second livestream we watched, the pastor made an announcement that Home Church did drive-in services on Sundays (you stayed in your vehicle in the church parking lot and tuned in to a local radio station that he was preaching on). From then on, we started to do the drive-ins.

On Easter that year, it was really gloomy and rainy. It would have been completely understandable for the pastor do not do a drive-in service that week and just do a livestream. But that's not what happened.

He preached out of the back of a U-Haul trailer. That's how we knew... this is where we need to be.

Once everything opened back up in our town, we started attending the services in person. And it was either June 14 or June 21 that I made the decision to surrender everything to Christ. I was baptized on a youth group retreat in July that focused on loving others.

Within a few months, we were plugged in serving in Home Church. My mom was a greeter. My dad served on the worship team and in the sound booth. I served in the nursery and eventually started helping in children's church as well.

Spring break, March 2021. My youth group went on the first retreat of that year. The retreat was focused on redefining Christianity from a religious checklist to a relationship with God. One of the nights of the retreat we were in a time of prayer. I was kneeling on the ground when I suddenly felt a wind come rushing into my chest. And you could say "Oh, it was just the AC that you were feeling!" If it was air conditioning, I would have felt it in my whole body. A wind came from above and flowed into my chest, and only my chest. I told the youth pastor's wife about the experience once the prayer time was thinning out. She got the youth pastor, and then and there we prayed for me to receive the gift of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And I know that He came.

A few months later (either June or July), the youth group went on another retreat, this one focused on us being multiple members of one body. On the last day of that retreat, we were in another time of prayer. This was the first time I ever prayed in tongues. I hadn't before because I was overthinking. I like being able to understand things, and this was something I couldn't understand. I finally stopped trying to understand and just released my unknown language.

Now we're going to go back a little bit. In late March, early April 2021, Home Church had a guest speaker from Nigeria. On the last day the speaker was here, I came to a realization.

At that time, I had been nearsighted for about six years. And on the last day the guest speaker was there, I realized... Jesus never healed blurred eyes. He healed blind ones.

Let me make this analogy: cancer has multiple stages, from one to four, with four being the worst. What if eyesight was the same? What if there were varying levels of blindness - nearsightedness, farsightedness, both of the two, and actual blindness?

So I decided I was seeking for the Lord to restore my eyesight to perfect 20/20 vision.

And I can tell, over the past however long it's been since then, I can tell my eyesight has improved a bit. My glasses started to overcorrect a little (which is why I stopped wearing contacts). But it's just been little by little.

Every now and then, I started to hear little whispers from the enemy in my mind. "It's not going to happen. Just stop seeking." And then, this next one requires a bit of explanation. I wholeheartedly believe that we are living in the final moments of the Last Days before the Rapture, the catching up of God's people into heaven, when millions of true believers will disappear in the blink of an eye. So one of the whispers I sometimes heard was "We're already so close to the end. Why would God heal your eyes when we're already this close? Just wait until you get to heaven."

But. My mother was born half deaf, and Jesus opened her ear. My dad had suffered from acid reflux for years, and he had been delivered from that. Not to mention all the testimonies I've heard from guest speakers around the world, which I can list at the end of my testimony. Whenever I hear that second whisper, I think, "If we're so close to the end, then why do other people get their healings and miracles? I will have restored vision, so get thee behind me, Satan - you have no power over me."

And that's the basics of it. If you want to get plugged in to "Home Church", you are all welcome to message me privately and ask anything, and I will answer to the best of my ability. And now, as I promised, here is just a handful of the testimonies I have heard from others, including my mom's healing:

• An old woman had to have some of her stomach removed in a surgery, and she was told she'd never eat again. She came to a certain evangelist's meeting, and he prayed for her healing. Afterwards, he asked her "If you could eat anything, what would you eat?" and she told him "Oh, I always told myself if I could ever eat again, I'd eat a Mc-Donald's cheeseburger!" So he gave her cash and told her to get McDonald's. Her family started to panic, saying she couldn't eat. The evangelist essentially waved them off. He says that later, though, he thought, "Crap! I just told a woman who can't eat to get McDonald's! You should even eat that when you're healthy!" He now has a picture of that woman with a big smile on her face and a Big Mac in her hands. She was perfectly fine.
• A woman was imprisoned in the Philippines. Sometimes when she spoke, her voice was that of someone else. Even with her arms bound, she woke up with scratches and different sized bite-marks all over her body An evangelist saw it in a news headline and felt God tell him, "If you don't go and help her, no one will." He went and prayed for this woman, and it sparked a huge revival in the Philippines.
• A young man who grew up in the church saw a lot of hypocrisy in the church and at age 14, said "F God, F Christians". He turned to a life of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. He even toured the Tri-State Area as the drummer in a band, and almost signed on with a record company. He should have died multiple times, but he didn't. He dabbled in witchcraft, Islam, whatever he could. Eventually he decided to try to disprove the existence of God. But to do that, he had to "do what the Christians do". So he joined up with a group called Youth With A Mission (YWAM) and trained there. He hated almost everyone there. But as time passed, he came to realize that God did exist, and that the representatives for God that had been in his life were just terrible ambassadors for God. That man is now my youth pastor, and I would trust him with my life.
• A woman was born deaf in one ear. The issue was behind her eardrum, so there was nothing that could be done by the medical world that could fix it. When she was around 40 years old, the pastor of her church called up anyone who wanted a healing. She had heard testimonies of three other people who had had their ears healed, and she decided it was her turn, so she went up. He stuck his finger in her ear and told it to open. She jumped. She continued to test the hearing in her ear after the service had ended. And she could hear. She broke down and began to cry. And I use my mom's story to insure myself that mine will come in time, too.