Christian Testimonies

As a child I went to Church, not by my own will… but because my Mother made me go with my Aunt and Cousin’s. I never really learned anything when I went; I was just there because I had to be. At the age of twelve, I left the Church and got lost in this world. By the time, I was thirteen I was smoking weed, cigarettes, and drinking Alcohol. I also started skipping school to get high. I would tell lies to my Mother about where I would be at and what I was doing. I would not come home when I was supposed to I thought I was grown.

Masturbation. This is the thing that many people do but don’t really talk about, especially women. It’s looked on as not ladylike and not pure. It’s a shameful thing for many women and men alike. I struggled with masturbation for many years but this wasn’t the only sexually immoral thing that I was enslaved to. I started masturbating as early as 7th or 8th grade, but overall my imprisonment to lust started as early as 4 or 5 years of age. When I was a little girl, I had a friend that I played with. Something must have happened to her because it was from playing with her that I had my first sexual experience. After this one time experience, I wasn’t the same , and I developed homosexual tendencies as well. The seed of lust was planted and grew to maturity in my heart. I went from “humping” the floors, to sexually stimulate myself, to full on masturbation, which became my most shameful secret. The frequency to which I masturbated and the degree to which I did it was so bad that I actually ended up tearing the tissue on my clitoris. This sent me into depression for months because I thought I had mutilated myself. I had contemplated suicide because of it but I still didn’t stop. The real battle began for me when I desired freedom.
In the summer of 2005, while on a mission project, God began to work in my life. When I was there, I met a woman named Kate, who shared her testimony of being delivered from masturbation. This was huge news for me because, until that point, I had believed that I was the only one in the world who did it. Somehow I bought into the lie that I’d never be free and that if I ever told anybody what I’d been doing nobody would love me or at least they wouldn’t look at me the same way. I had a lot to confess. You see I was enslaved not only to masturbation but to pornography, sexual fantasies, and a lot of other things I wanted to keep on the dark.
During the days that followed, God was pressing me to bring it to the light, to confess it. Fear was also there with me. You see, I was afraid to expose myself. This fear wrapped around me like a boa constrictor in order to keep my mouth shut. I was so shamed and afraid of being condemned that I’d be scared to write my struggle with masturbation in my journal because I feared someone would find it. I was in torment. I heard a message that talked about keeping things in the dark. That was the word I needed and I had courage to tell somebody. The first person I told was Kate. Next, I told my roommate and few other girls at the project. I later confessed it my own sister, but this confession was only half the battle.
Then I tried to break free, I found that those same desires tracked me down like a Mississippi Slave catcher. I had never had so much temptation to sin by masturbating in my whole life. I kept giving in and giving in. It was hard to last one day, much less two, without doing it. This lasted from June 2005 to September 2005. Until for 2 and half months, I managed to stop. Temptations were strong. There were times I’d have to run out of my dorm room or find a public place to be in because I couldn’t be alone when I was tempted. This was huge for me because I was used to falling to this sin daily. However, I backslide due to unforgiveness. Sin had a snow ball effect in my life after that because an old habit had revived. Old habits revived because old reasons why I masturbated revived too. I’d masturbate like people eat comfort food. I’d do it because I was bored or upset. It was like how an alcoholic drink is to a drunk— I’d do it to forget.
When I fell after a time of victory, I was constantly taunted with: “See you’ll never be free. You’re always going to be like this.” This sin would seduce me to lay with it then condemn me when I did. I’d struggle trying to go to God. I felt so dirty and so full of despair after I gave in to my own sinful lust, that I’d pull the cover over myself to hide. I didn’t want God to look at my filth. I hated it. It was like an abusive relationship that I couldn’t get out of and didn’t know how. I was losing hope. This lasted from late December 2005 to May 2006.
After this, I run into a ministry that talked about being free from sin. The victory for me came one day as fear was telling me “you may have stopped for now. But you will fall” But God helped me realize something that I hadn’t before when He told me “You never have to do it again.” I never knew I was free from sin. That I actually had a choice. Therefore, I never had to do it anymore. The reason why I have that choice is because of Christ who has made me free from sin. I didn’t have to perform every whim of my own sinful desires. Now I’ve been free for three years. I’m free to talk about it. I thought I’d go to my grave with this sin.