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MY TESTIMONY

In 2011, I was lost. As a senior in high school, I felt depressed and just wanted to get out of my school. I discovered I had developed depression and anxiety, and started going to a therapist. All I knew was that I lacked any measure of confidence and cared way too much about what people thought about me. A year before, I started smoking marijuana to numb my nagging, empty emotions. I had started feeling depressed when I was sixteen, and because of my worsening depression and anxiety, I numbed my pain by smoking weed. I didn’t cry for an entire year. The summer before I turned seventeen, I smoked every day, several times a day. I stayed in my room most days, trapped in a mental prison. After much advice from the people around me, I started to escape that prison when I decided to quit smoking weed. I also decided to quit because I had become suicidal and didn’t know how to handle life anymore. One night at my house, I told my brother I was going to kill myself. He was a voice of truth in the darkness I couldn’t escape. He said that “killing yourself is like giving God the middle finger.” Even though I didn’t have a personal relationship with God, I didn’t want to do that because I grew up loving God. Quitting weed was difficult because after a year of hiding from life, I became addicted to the high. Adjusting to life without weed was a new challenge, and I was basically a zombie in school the rest of my senior year with a few moments of great joy. My sister was fooling around being silly one night and I was in another one of my stupors—not wanting to smile, laugh, or be around anyone. She didn’t accept that fate for me and wanted me to join in on her fun. She drew an upside down mustache with eyes on her chin so she could take a chin-face picture for her friend, upside down. After watching her be so carefree, I eventually let go of the darkness that was clouding me, and gave into joy. The joy I felt helped me connect to God’s presence inside of me. We laughed while making silly videos of us dancing and singing. I felt like everything was going to be okay now because He was there. That night, I chose to live in His light from then on and let my beautiful light shine, once and for all. I gave my life to Jesus Christ when I finally let Him into my heart, after years of pushing Him away.