My Testimony

Hello everyone, my name is Hannah, and this is my story.

I’m a college student, artist, sister, and daughter, but most importantly, I’m a born-again Christian. What is a Christian? A Christian is a follower of Jesus Christ. Christians believe that Jesus came into this earth perfect, flawless, and lived a sinless life. Jesus not only lived a perfect life, but He sacrificed Himself for us and rose from the grave three days later. Jesus is the Son of God who created you and me and has sacrificed His Son for His children in hopes that we would believe in Him. This is what was instilled in my family ever since I could remember. I live with my loving parents and my older brother who are also Christians, and at the age of four years old, I also surrendered my life to Jesus. I wanted to know, experience, and live out that same forgiveness and love that Jesus offered the rest of my family. Life, however, has its ups and downs. Christians are viewed as perfect people who have no fear or anxiety. We are looked at as judgmental and righteous, but we are sinners like everyone else. We struggle with temptation and sin, but the difference is we have the Holy Spirit alive within us who fights our battles. I’m here to tell you my story, and I hope that I will encourage others who have gone through the same trails I have. 

Growing up I was homeschooled, and most of my friends were from church. My childhood was a great one, nothing significantly severe happened then, which I am incredibly thankful for it. Things started to change when my family moved from Connecticut to Kentucky in 2014. I was in the midst of middle school, and I left everyone and everything I had ever known back in Connecticut. My relationship with Jesus up until this point was stagnant, but when my family moved away, that was my first faith shaking moment, and the first time I had ever experienced a fear of the unknown. After a year of settling into my new home and getting to know new friends at my church, I went to my first student camp. At camp, I decided that I wanted to get baptized.  A month later, July 12th, 2015 I was baptized, and that was when my faith in Jesus started to grow deeper. Between student camp and getting baptized, it lit a fire for Christ in me. That following fall, my mom was going to attend a Bible study at our church, and she asked me if I wanted to go with her. I ended up saying yes, and we went that following Tuesday. The women in this study welcomed me with open arms, despite it being an adult woman’s Bible study and I was only thirteen at the time. For the past five years, my mom and I continued to go every Tuesday morning, all year long. I have grown so much in the Lord because of this group, and the women have poured an incredible amount of encouragement and wisdom into my life. I wouldn’t trade this study for anything; these women have seen me at my best and my worst. They probably know more about me than any of my friends do, yet they still pray over me and love me for who I am. 

Along with the Bible study, I had joined a leadership team in my youth group, and I was a part of that from my freshman year until my senior year of high school. Being homeschooled, I hadn’t had as many opportunities to share the gospel with other students my age, but the leadership team taught me a lot about being a light for Christ no matter where you are. At this point in my life, I had felt at home in Kentucky and life was good; I had made new friends and got involved as much as I could in the church so that my relationship with Christ would grow deep. I had the best group of friends who loved and supported each other. I had known these girls since I moved to Kentucky and we all became close. However, in the fall of 2017, I started dating. My boyfriend was good to me and for me at the start of our relationship, but my friends disagreed with some things he had said. Things got out of hand and instead of confronting him, I got blamed for everything that happened. Throughout the following months, I lost those friends one after the other, due to something I wasn’t even involved in. This caused me to fall into a state of depression and anxiety, and I blamed myself for everything and I hated who I was. I was gossiped about and I lost even more friends outside of the group because of it. Due to the whole situation, I became insecure about my body and personality, but my boyfriend at the time liked me for who I was which put a band-aid over my insecurities. During that time, I put all my energy into my relationship with my boyfriend, but our relationship became very unhealthy and toxic. I had become distant from God and my mind was focused on my loss of friends, not my relationship with Christ. My boyfriend was bringing me down spiritually which didn’t help because I was already falling away from Christ. By the time our relationship ended, I lost myself and everyone who I thought supported and loved me outside of my family. I didn’t know who I was anymore, physically, emotionally and spiritually. I made decisions that year with the loss of my friend group and boyfriend that I had regretted, and all my joy was gone. I fell into a pit of guilt and shame and I didn’t know how to get out of it. I felt like God hated me and that I didn’t deserve His love. However, throughout the following months, my family was there for me and helped me get back up to find myself again. 

A month later, an opportunity opened to go on a mission trip to Madrid, Spain. I had dreamed of going on a mission trip before I graduated high school and that dream was about to come true. I went on this trip in April of 2019 and it changed my life. After going through two hard years, I was able to put that thought aside for a week and focus on growing God’s kingdom. God allowed me to go in detail on what I had gone through over the past few years with a group of girls in Spain, it was in that moment that I was able to find closure and comfort. Since going on that mission trip, I have still been on a journey to find my joy and who I once was, but in hopes, I would find a better version of myself. When I had moved to Kentucky, I originally prayed that I would have a story, unintentionally I prayed that God would give me something hard to go through. I had no clue what I would end up going through because of those few prayers, but now I know my story. It’s God’s story. A story of love, redemption, and joy. It’s one I’m still trying to figure out, but now I know how faithful God has been in my life. He has given me all I need, not a group of friends, not a boyfriend, but Him. God is all I need, and with Him comes love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-25) Exodus 14:14 says “The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.”, this is a verse I have clung to throughout the past five years. It reminds me that no matter what I do, I just need to give it all to God because He has the best plan for me. My story is not over yet, and I’m still learning and growing from my past. However, right now, I’m leaning on God and putting my all into my family and college work. While I still miss those girls, I know God will bless me with new friends who will support and encourage me to be a better version of myself; and I hope that someday, God will provide a man for me who will lead me in Christ and love me completely. One day, I will look back on my life and see how small my struggles were because my God has always been bigger. I hope that through my story, someone can find encouragement that no matter what you’ve gone through, God is faithful, and He will never leave you.

I am Hannah, and this is my story, so far.