My Testimony

I was born and raised in the church, I said my little “sinner's prayer” at 8, was baptized, and participated in church activities all through my childhood and teen years. As a kid, I was really shy, real meek, didn’t really have friends, I got teased, I was just awkward. I mean I can always remember being different and never quite fitting in. So fast forward to middle school, I started hanging with a group of girls and we really became friends. I came out of my shell, I started cussing, talking about sex, thinking about it, and masturbating. Honestly, I had been masturbating since I was a really little girl. This is so embarrassing to talk about, but I want to point out that most people with lust issues were triggered by something really young. I didn’t even know it was masturbation until I looked it up, because it wasn’t the “normal” way most females do.  I noticed that whenever something sexual triggered in my mind I used to do it, even as a little girl, for as long as I can remember. Some people might think that's really strange for a really young girl, but actually it's not all that uncommon, which just goes to show that, “we are born into sin and shaped in iniquity (wickedness)”- Psalm 51:5. So fast forward to high school, we moved from Decatur to Conyers. I was loud, crazy, I would cuss you out in a minute, I had become disrespectful to my parents, teachers; couldn’t nobody tell me nothing. I remained a virgin all through high school, I was known as a good girl, I thought sex was nasty, I had never even kissed boy until I was 17.

Well, all that changed in college. I went to Georgia State, and I lost my virginity within the first three months. I started having sex and got my first boyfriend, and I fell head over hills in love with that boy, and he broke my heart. So I moved on and my next boyfriend did the same. He broke my heart so bad. I used cry myself to sleep every night for a month and a half. I was in so much pain, I wanted to die. I used to pray that God would take the pain away, but he didn’t, and I started to become numb, but I would go back to them for the sex. I developed an appetite for sex; sometimes that’s all I wanted do, and all I used to think about. Like I would be in church thinking about sex. My behavior really changed; my tempter just got so bad. I would lose my temper for everything. I decided to transfer my sophomore year of college to Albany State University, and I did my junior year of college. It was my first time at an HBCU and when I got there, I had a blast…..

I always have been a sucker for a cute face, and I met this guy. I was completely done with both of my exes and I decided that I needed some sex. He was cute, we chilled for a little bit and we got busy, and he ended up being my first “cut friend.” A cut friend is someone who you casually have sex with. This boy never even took me out on a date. That just shows you how this world has blinded our eyes, I didn’t even make that boy work for it; I just gave him the box. I started smoking weed and getting drunk, and I carried on like that for about a year, then my life just started to spiral out of control…..

I moved off campus to my own apartment, and I started smoking way more, drinking way more, and I was having way more sex. My motto became “I don’t give a ****.” (I really did care though, it was just easy for me to say, cause I did not want to deal with me, I wanted to always be right and I didn't want anyone else to tell me the truth about myself). I had become a bad girl. If you ever seen Bad Girl's Club, I acted just like those girls, I did what I wanted, when I wanted, and I’d probably cuss you if you said something. I  didn't care about anything or anyone but myself. I would get sloppy drunk and high, and have sex because it had become filler for me. If one guy was acting up there was always another I could call. I'd always say things like,"I'm way too pretty to be stressing bout a ni**a." But in all actuality, I was so hurt from all the men who had treated me wrong, who I allowed to disrespect me and cheat on me. I just adopted this mentality that men were dogs and liars. I had been lied to by almost every man I loved. There was always some other girl in the picture, so I just accepted what I thought was reality and learned to adapt. I couldn't let anyone see that weakness in me, so I played tough, I let guys think I didn't care. I didn’t want to deal with myself or what I had become, so I numbed all my emotions by these things. I had slowly began to lose control. I just felt so angry, so unhappy, and so empty. I kept trying to fill an eternal void with things that are passing away, only Christ can fill that void. "For everything in the world- the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, comes not from the father, but from the world. The world and it desires are PASSING AWAY, but whoever does the will of God lives forever".- 1 John 2:16-17.  I thought every girl was jealous of me or did not like me, I would literally walk into a party and be like, "I look better than all these b****es in here." I was a pretty girl, but I was so ugly on the inside. The only way to describe my heart was just black. I was one of the most prideful, conceited, vain, mean, and hateful people around. Most of all, I was insecure. I pointed out every other girl's imperfections and their weaknesses to hide my own. I wanted to argue and fight with everyone, and I didn’t want anyone to tell me anything about life and I didn't want to hear that I was wrong. I was never wrong, according to me. Not only that, I rubbed off negatively on people, people tended to cuss more, smoke more, argue more, want to fight more hanging around me. I encouraged my friends to be promiscuous, and to keep a steady stream of guys, so they could play them. My mentality was even though I'm not gonna sleep with him, I'm gonna get this simp to buy me some stuff and take me out. There was no shame in my game. I was a sinful mess. I wasn’t hanging with the wrong crowd, I WAS the wrong crowd. 

The beginning of the end

I stayed in Albany one summer and my roommate actually ended up getting involved in a murder case where a young boy was killed, and as a result some guys in a gang showed up at our door with guns, I didn’t open the door, but there’s no telling what could have happened if it had not been for God’s grace. I told my roommate one night after all that happened that bad things were going to continue to happen to me because I wasn’t in the will of God. Another time, I almost got raped, yes, raped. I had been cool with this guy who sold a little weed around my way, and since I was a weed smoker, we got cool, he was cute, but I considered myself out of his league. he didn't have much going for himself, and two kids. I didn't do kids lol, but he was cute so I flirted with him, smoked his weed, and I knew he liked me, but I had made it clear that I was not having sex with him. One night I went over his house and he must've decided he was gonna get it, so me being who I was I flirted, played with him, he left the room to get a condom from his roommate and I'm like, "what you got a condom for?" But, like a fool, I stayed, and he ended up getting my clothes off and then I started to panic, cause I looked in his eyes, and I saw he was for real, and I heard the desperation in his voice. So, I decided that I was gonna scream "no" once more and if he continued I would just start wailing on him, and if he beat me up, and I ended up getting raped, I would just call the police after. I remember feeling so afraid, and he was holding both of my wrists down, and he looked me in my eyes one last time, and he just let me go. I never went back to his house again. Everytime I used to hang at his house I used to wonder what would I do if he ever got robbed, and sure enough, he got robbed one night, and there was a girl in the house. he beat the girl up, and shot at him twice, and this fool ran and left the girl with the robber. That could have been me all these times. That was clearly God's grace and his mercy on my life. Ain't no tellin what could've been the end of that. 

The day you hear the voice of the lord, harden not your heart

Around that time, God started to draw me. “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day.”- John 6:44 I was about a year and a half in nursing school, and it was so stressful. I had gotten so unhappy. My face broke out,  my weight was up and down, and I was smoking more weed and drinking more, but I had decided I wasn’t have sex with anyone else unless we were in a relationship, so because I was not getting any, I started watching porn. I had watched porn every now and then, but I was starting to watch it every day for hours, and masturbating and I knew it was shameful, because I had to have headphones in. I did not want my roommates or nobody else to know what I was in there doing. So homecoming of 2011, it went down. I got drunk, got high, got into several fights, and I realized I had become a problem. I wanted to stop being so angry, I wanted people to like me again. I knew I was I pushing people away. I had just become so mean. Deep down inside, I was just hurting, I had a lot of emotional scarring and I couldn’t fix it. I confided in my roommate again and told her I needed to be in the will of God, it had become really clear to me. On top of all that, I started developing severe anxiety and I was having panic attacks in my sleep. I would wake up out my sleep, not being able to catch my breath, this went on for months, and finally I went to go see a therapist and she told me I was depressed and I had anxiety. I told her I wasn’t depressed because I thought I was living life; I was in denial. I was living, but I was just living to die, because sin when it's full grown leads to death. 'For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."- Romans 6:23. See, life begins with Jesus that's why he said, "I AM the way, the truth, and the LIFE."- John 14:6

At the beginning of 2012, and me and my friend decided we were going to change our lives. We decided we’d go to church more and try to be a better person. I thought I was saved already, but lately I had been wondering if that was it, just believe that Jesus died on the cross for my sins, and boom I'm saved, in all actuality, I didn't know God, and he ain't know me! I ain't really want nothing to do with him that whole time, I wanted my sin, and I wanted no condemnation for it. I just started really wondering if it was more than that. I had become preoccupied with thoughts of dying, I knew I didn’t want to die sinning, because I knew I’d probably go to hell, but I kept on sinning. That’s crazy. I was scared to the point that if I did die I would go to hell, but I kept doing it because I was a slave to sin. “But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance.”- Romans 6:17

One weekend, I was on YouTube and I watched a video by a girl named Angelica Zambrano, it was about an hour long, and she said it was a testimony of how Jesus showed her hell, and I watched the whole thing and I was so convicted, the whole time, I felt like she was talking to me. I knew that I wasn’t saved. It became clear to me that God didn’t care about me being in school, or trying to be a nurse, or having a job, or anything else, he cared about my obedience and my heart. "Our righteousness are as filthy rags before God."- Isaiah 64:6. I never really thought God would really send me to hell, but that night I realized he would. If I died, God would have given me justice, he would have given me what I deserved. It was just revealed to me that night what I knew in my heart all along. God did not make all of those promises in vain. The bible says, “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? DO NOT BE DECEIVED. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites… will inherit the kingdom of God- 1 Cor 6:9-10).” Yes, it says FORNICATION. Jesus said, "whoever even LOOKS at a woman (man for us girls) with lust has already committed adultery in his heart," and we know adulterers will NOT inherit the kingdom of heaven, furthermore he said, "if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out, it is better for it is better for you to lose 1 member than have the entire body be cast into hell,"- Matthew 5:29 (This is a spiritual plucking out, not a physical one. Put the knife down). I realized God was dead serious, and he was not going to show me favoritism. We think that we are still good enough. We think God meant that hell was for other people, like murderers and rapists, but he was joking about the fornication, lust, telling white lies, taking things we shouldn't, and drunkenness; we really think God will overlook these things, “God shows no partiality”. –Acts 10:34. As stated in my other blog, "What is The gospel?", God sees EVERYTHING. "For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing. Whether good or evil." - Ecclesiastes 12:14.  I was shook. If you've ever seen the movie Drag Me to Hell then you know how the ground opened up, I didn’t think the ground would actually split, but it was just so real to me that I was just one step away from death, and that I could die at any second and I spend my eternity in hell. There was no if, ands, or buts, in my mind, I knew I wasn’t going to heaven, and at that moment I realized that I needed Christ. I had never really given him much thought, but I needed him then, and I asked God if he was really real, and he wanted me to live right, I’d leave everything behind. All my desires, all my sin, sex, smoking weed, drinking, porn, masturbation, cussing, fighting, I’d forgive people, I’d let it all go, as long as he saved me, and he did. I was 22 years old.

    

“If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold all things are become new”- 2 Cor 5:17 

I  literally felt the weight of sin come off me, I was brand new. Sin carries a weight, we don't realize it, because we're so blinded by Satan and his schemes. that's why we actually choose the darkness (sin) over the light (Jesus). That's like discovering air for the first time and going back to carbon dioxide, so you can suffocate and die. The bible says men loved their darkness rather than the light, and the message of the cross is foolishness to those that are perishing, because the God of this age (Satan) has blinded the eyes of unbelievers. That's why people cannot fathom a life without sin, because the devil has blinded you from seeing the beauty of Christ. I didn’t know what happened, but I was different. God opened my eyes, and I could see for the first time, kind of like he did the apostle Paul, "Immediately something like scales fell from Saul's eyes, and he could see...."- Acts 9:18. I didn’t have a desire to sin anymore; I stopped everything, cold turkey. I had been cursing for years and I had a mouth like a Russian sailor, but it just stopped. I wanted to please God. Everybody thought it was just a phase at first, but people really started to see a change in me, and it only came from God. I started reading my bible, because I knew that I was more likely to continue if I was in my word, and it proved true. I was no longer in control of my life; the spirit of the living God led me. I didn’t know anything really, God taught me, he sanctified me, he continues to change me, he continues to prune me, and it’s the best thing that ever happened to me. Jesus saved my life. I live my life to give God the glory, and I can finally say yes. There are no chains holding me, I’m free! “WHOM THE SON SETS FREE, IS FREE INDEED.” –John 8:36 It doesn’t matter what you’ve done or how bad you think you are. You can’t clean yourself up, Jesus has to make you clean. “Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be white as snow.”- Isaiah 1:18. There’s nothing for me to go back to. I don’t regret it, I don’t miss it. It's been a year and a half now, and it's almost like that old Brittnie never existed; she's dead. She was crucified on that cross at calvary, and a new Brittnie was raised from the dead, by his resurrection. My life began with Jesus, and, “he who began a good work will finish until the day of Christ Jesus.”- Philippians 1:6