Testimony: How God Saved Me From Death

 

Hello, you probably saw my post about this on my IG or not, welcome either way to my side of the internet. When you read the title, you might suspect I'm being dramatic. I can be but in this case, I'm not. I wouldn't even be here blogging right now if it wasn't for Him. That's a part of what testimonies are (if you're not familiar with them) you're so grateful for everything you've been through and how much God has done that you can't help but tell people. How else are people supposed to know about the miraculous changes within us if we stay quiet? 

But that's what I was being shamed into doing by the devil "be quiet Renate, your testimony is so shameful, do you really want to put it out there?" Yes, God asked me to (several times yikes), and I'm going to obey and I'm no longer listening to you anymore, so get out of my head and go way!

Testimonies are intended to uplift, impact and show God's glory, and honestly, I'm not exactly sure where to start because I've said it aloud for the very first time in 2020 but never wrote about it. I mean when God gives you a command it hardly comes with instructions so, let me just pray first for some guidance.

*elevator music*

Okay, I'm back and I've got the perfect verse that relates to my story so much that I was really surprised to find it the first time I shared my testimony verbally.

13My enemies did their best to kill me,

but the LORD rescued me.

- Psalm 118

[Disclaimer: It's long, so if you read all of it; thank you. If you take something away from it God bless you and if you relate and want to talk about it feel free to contact me on IG or email tfocreations@gmail.com there's a summary at some point below]

The Way Out

'Ack Ro' by Jaki Irvine @ Kerlin Gallery Feb 2020

I remember so vividly the day I was walking home from secondary school (high school) on a hot day in April trudging up the hill that goes up to my estate and I was so depressed at the time. No one and I mean no one knew, I could have won an oscar but that specific day was when I found out I was going to die.

I was in my last year so I was balancing exams, studying, and trying to find out what college to go to and essentially my purpose. I had a meeting with my guidance counselor every now and then, we would look at courses that I could possibly choose but because my grades were so low, I was even lucky if I got into any one of them. She asked me something though that I couldn't answer even with the longest amount of silence given. "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?"

All I saw was black. It was strange, it was like I couldn't see past my exam period and all I could say to her was 'I don't know' because it was the truth. But why was it when I was walking home, I thought about that moment again and a voice told me "it's because you're not going to live past 18 years old" and you know what?

I believed it. There were so many people around me dying young at the time during my teenage years, Paul Walker (Fast & Furious), Heath Ledger (Joker / 10 Things I Hate About You), Cory Monteith (Glee), Robin Williams (Mrs. Doubtfire), Michael Jackson. I along with the world witnessed them all die young so I just accepted that it was my fate too. 

I would go home and spend hours on Tumblr, it's like Instagram and Pinterest in one but on a desktop. Everyone had their own space to post and repost other people's photos but there was the explore page where you could find everything. I used to find the prettiest of pictures and live vicariously through them until one day I came across some sad quotes, then I started seeing photos of people romanticizing depression, then images of self-harm, and so on and I ended up in some rabbit-hole. I could have got out pretty easily, avoid Tumblr altogether but I could actually relate to these images, it's like I understood them so much that I let myself get lost in it because it sort of felt like home. 

The Beginning

Negative Film by Luke Ryan - IG: @35mmbuzz

I would pinpoint the beginning of my depression from my third year into high school. I went to an all-girls school and it was an unspoken rule but it was pretty obvious that everyone had a go-to friend (even the teachers did) or a best friend. That one friend you go to the lockers with, have lunch, and sit beside each other in every class. I had one for two years and then she left in the summer. It was when we got back to school that I realized with her being gone despite having other friends who were outside of my class group, I was alone. Ultimately, the days went on and it started to affect me massively, my grades dropped, I had no interest in school, my family only saw me at dinner time because the only people I considered friends were on this virtual website called Habbo (if you know, you know!) and we used to talk for hours. 

Online I felt like I could be myself, the real me that no one understood in real life but the same internet that I adored also became the death of my innocence when I stumbled upon explicit content on Tumblr. I didn't know it was a thing (yes we were taught sex ed but they never mentioned this) until it was right before my eyes. At first, I was like "excuse me, are you two lost? why are y'all having sex for everyone to see on my feed?" Until it started coming up on my feed more often and it became a regular occurrence until I realized I couldn't stop looking at it, I needed to see it every day. I ended up being addicted to it for three years after that. It brought me so much shame, I felt dirty and stained all the time. 

It's most likely why I couldn't build strong relationships because I had so much anxiety from it "they're going to find out somehow and think I'm disgusting too" and even though I grew up in a Christian home and was aware of God, I thought he couldn't possibly like me either especially because we had stopped going to church and now I was this worthless filthy human being and that my friends, is heartbreaking. The school friends I did have were all in the stage of experimenting with boys and all our conversations would be around sex anyways but even though we'd joke about it at lunchtime instead of defiling another person, I ended up just doing it to myself.  

On top of that, I was spiraling out of control, I hated myself so much I couldn't look myself in the mirror, I barely ate on purpose sometimes I felt like I didn't deserve to so when I did look all I saw was bones and that made me want to vomit but it still didn't want to make me eat. I was so light that in school whenever we'd joke about carrying each other (piggybacks) everyone would comment on how I barely weighed anything and carry me with so much ease it made their backpack look like travel luggage. My mom to this day has the habit of asking what I ate, I always think it's because she worried so much that it stuck. At the age of 18, it dawned on me that I most likely was suffering from anorexia. I don't really have any photos from when I was 12-15 because I avoided them and told people to delete them because I believed wholeheartedly that I was the epitome of ugly. It made me sad, every day of my life was spent fighting back tears, I disguised it with laughter so no one knew the pain I was going through "she literally laughs all the time" they would say but I ended up spending 3650 days (10 years) lying to myself and others.

One thing that helped me overcome anorexia was my mom, she used to give us baths, and the last one she gave me before hitting puberty, she told me "you're so beautiful" and how I should take care of this body I'm in and it stuck. 

The only reason I spent so much time talking to strangers online was that they made me genuinely happy, they didn't judge me and some of them were older than me so I felt like I was learning from them. When I wasn't talking to them I was either escaping through music that didn't help me because they were either all sad or all upbeat/rap music that glorified sex, drugs, and alcohol. This is the same music that I would dance to in nightclubs with my school friends because it's what every 6th year (senior) did at the time. We all had different reasons for being there, to hook-up with guys, to post photos of it on Facebook to look cool but mine was to relieve the pain. It involved a lot of drinking but I only went as far as when you get tipsy because at that point for me it was like "I feel peaceful here and life is good" until it fades away and I'm back to being sad.

I also became a film buff and drowned myself in movies about romance and relationships creating another monster of its own to live in me: the hopeless romantic. Oh gosh, when I tell you that I was boy-crazy but that soon dwindled when my very own crush said I was ugly in public. Ouch. I disliked guys my age after that, they were too childish for me. So I thought let me fall in love with someone online instead, surely I can't face the same disappointment again right? Wrong. It didn't fill the void, just made it worse.

Summary

A young girl, going through depression for several years, which causes anorexia to addiction to explicit content (I don't know if I'm allowed to type the P word, I don't want my blog to get taken down or flagged) which leads to an ingrained belief of being ugly and worthless that not even The One who created her would like her and seeking validation in guys who actually won't fill the void. She consumes toxic narratives from movies that don't help her with her struggle with lust and uses music and alcohol for temporary peace. She believes her last year on earth is at 18.

The Encounter

Graffiti in Dublin City Centre (tag artist if you know them!)

All of this contributed to why I thought my life was destined to be over, I was physically heavy with sadness, guilt, and shame yet hollow like a walking grave and I couldn't take it anymore. This is how and why when the suicidal thoughts started to come around it felt natural. They would come out subtly but no one caught on when I said stuff like "hahaha, kill me/dead/dying" "I'm fine" "I dress like it's my last day""I love black because it matches my soul""I feel like death" and I would sleep a lot to escape but it still didn't help. Not even all the advice columns or horoscopes in the magazines I would buy could help me like I thought it would, I was essentially destroyed.

I was 18 during my final high school exams and it was May, to me there was no point in them but I did them anyway and after each day the method of how I was going to take my life was becoming clearer and was getting nearer. I would get these visions of stepping into traffic and find myself a little too close to the edge of the pavement some days. I was so numb that I thought nothing of it.

On one of those days, my mom comes home and says she found a church 2 minutes from our house, it was right beside the hill I'd walk past on my way home. We stopped going to church for a few years because everyone we went to either had drama or they were taking advantage of the money. After moving to more than four different ones within 10 years, I can understand why my parents just stopped. I was of course skeptical of the one my mom found so I told her there was no way she was going alone. 

We went and it was a small room with a few genuine people who you could instantly tell that they came together to create a space where they could just worship God. I felt like an imposter and that I would burn up any moment. But I remember the part where we all got our knees to pray and I was getting very emotional but afterward I left and it was like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

As the days went on I felt an inward change, it started with music. I couldn't listen to rap or sad music anymore, I spent the whole time questioning the lyrics and not enjoying it. I felt motivated to actually study and try at education especially after one of my teachers told me in front of the whole class "you know you're going to fail right?" so I told her "then at least I tried my best" and followed suit. I even had my final counseling session and we ended up picking a college course in Media that suited my love for creativity and I could actually see myself there.

That summer I prayed to God every day until August came around. This was when we'd get our results and knowing that I did very bad until the end, I wanted to get into that college not just for me but for my family too who I had gotten close to and I needed a certain amount of points. The day that I got them, I ran up the same hill where I was going to take my life with joy and happy tears and finally, a purpose. 

Dead and Gone

Taken during the first lockdown. Bag, shirt, shoes & coat thrifted!

Since that encounter, I now know that God is real, no one can tell me otherwise you just have to believe and see for yourself. He loves me and you, so much that He allowed His only son to die for us on the cross so that mine and your sins could be forgiven. So if you think that you can't be forgiven for things you're ashamed of from the past, He can set you free from them, all of them. He was there for me the whole time but I was the one who was in the way, listening to the wrong voice.

My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.

- John 10:27 

I didn't magically heal overnight, I was still struggling with my habits of depression even through 4 years of college but God was faithful, helping me to grow and overcome the following:

• addiction to explicit content (5 years free babyyyyyy!!!!!)
• fear of eating in public or in front of people that weren't my family. (about 5 months)
• believing that no one will love me and I am forever alone. (took 2 years)
• procrastinating by watching films and running to unhealthy food for comfort. (took 3 years)
• spending money until I literally had nothing in my account. (took 3 years)
• developing relationships with guys I don't even know in my head. (2 years)
• The devil even tried to tell me that I could be gay to see if I would go there but nope. (about 1 month)
• saying yes to everything and everyone and then resenting them. (took 2 years)
• believing that I'm shy, awkward, and have social anxiety when all of those are just other words for fear and then letting those traits make me miss out on great opportunities. (took 3 years)

 2 Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy.  

3 For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow.    

4 So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.                  

- James 1:2-4 

Because of His help, I've gotten to experience so many great things like many more birthdays, meet some amazing and not-so amazing people, and go places I didn't think were possible. I am invincible with Jesus in my life so when he led me to a church where I could grow in winter 2017, I gave my life to following Him (for real) in summer 2019 and got baptized too and now I'm doing my best every day to be like Him.

11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

- Jeremiah 29:11

8 God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. 9 Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. 10 For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. 

- Ephesians 2:8-10

I think when people don't know your testimony but they see you winning in life, they think you're perfect but I'm actually not. I'm imperfect, have fought many demons and I am loved despite it. So yeah, if you managed to read all of that, let me just tell you that Jesus is the truth, the way and the life and with Him you can live a renewed life filled with love, joy, peace, and purpose. Life isn't all happy, I still go through loss, grief, anger etc. because I'm human but I rely on God to push through and help me every day because He's never once let me down. 

That's why I'm here, 7 years later, and counting thanks to Jesus.

A Prayer from Psalm 51 to Receive God's Love:

Find a quiet space, kneel and put both hands together and start with "Dear Jesus..."

1 Have mercy on me, O God,

    because of your unfailing love.

Because of your great compassion,

    blot out the stain of my sins.

2 Wash me clean from my guilt.

    Purify me from my sin.

3 For I recognize my rebellion;

    it haunts me day and night.

7 Purify me from my sins,[c] and I will be clean;

    wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

8 Oh, give me back my joy again;

    you have broken me—

    now let me rejoice.

9 Don’t keep looking at my sins.

    Remove the stain of my guilt.

10 Create in me a clean heart, O God.

    Renew a loyal spirit within me.

11 Do not banish me from your presence,

    and don’t take your Holy Spirit[d] from me.

12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation,

    and make me willing to obey you.

13 Then I will teach your ways to rebels,

    and they will return to you. 

Amen.

Best wishes and Blessings,
Renate.