I grew up attending Sunday School in Winnipeg, Canada with my Christian mom. In my mind, Jesus was a young man with brown locks who shepherded sheep with a smile on his face. But then when I was seven years old, we went to China and I was molested by my uncle’s driver. No one tells a kid how to deal with abuse – it’s a taboo subject and I didn’t know how to react. I wasn’t sure if what the driver did was wrong or if it was to be expected. When I was eight years old, I was home-schooled in China by an American Christian family and they made sure that God was part of my every day. I would learn about Jesus in my math and reading comprehension homework and at the time, it seemed so easy to believe in God because He was literally everywhere. However, my mom and I moved back to Canada when I was nine years old to join my dad. He had relocated to Vancouver, BC and suddenly I had to deal with the culture shock of moving to another country and the loneliness of making new friends in a foreign school. I thought I had lost God because my teachers no longer talked about Jesus at school, and my mom and I stopped attending church on Sundays since my dad was against Christianity and their marriage was shaky enough. At night, I began living out my molestation over and over again. I was scared and couldn’t tell my parents in fear that this would only force them to get divorced (childish fears at the time, I supposed). When I was twelve years old, I became anorexic and starved myself in an attempt to control some part of my body, since my mind had betrayed me. By thirteen, I was a bag of bones and diagnosed with depression.
That same year, I was invited by a friend at high school to attend his Friday fellowship at church and I warily accepted. Surprisingly, it wasn’t the Bible studies that drew me back to God but rather, the music. At church we sang about an almighty God who could make the mountains tremble – who was indescribable, uncontainable. I wanted to know this God again, and so I began praying and reading my bible. There wasn’t a specific conversion date for me. It was just a growing need to know God better, which led to a deeper relationship and I gave more of my heart to God until He had it all.
Today, at sixteen years old, I teach Sunday School to some energetic grade one and two’s. Some weeks, I’ll play the piano for the Sunday service upstairs. I thought I was unworthy of love – having been molested, then becoming anorexic and depressed. But God has so much grace and I’ve come to realize that even when I thought He had left, God was always by my side.
* I’m getting baptized in April and I’ll be sharing my testimony. But I thought I’d post it here first. : )
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