My Testimony

So..I've never really sat down and wrote out my whole testimony..which might explain why it's pretty weak when I half-tell it to people, haha. Actually, I don't think I ever fully realized how and why I accepted Christ. Pretty bad of me. But I was compelled to yesterday cause I feel some witnessing opportunities are coming up..actually, I know they are. Haha. So umm.. here it is. The first draft (keep this in mind haha). I need to do some editing. Give me advice (what I should talk more/less about, whether there's "Christianese" incomprehensible to nonbelievers, etc.) please!

So..here goes. Don't judge me, haha.
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Before I came to know Christ, I was really a broken person. I always had this really faint, small voice, and whenever I spoke, there would be a good chance people wouldn't be able to hear me. So I struggled almost daily with being heard and always having to repeat myself throughout childhood and adolescence. My aunt and other people would ask, "How is she ever going to get a job with that voice?" Such comments, along with insensitive jokes people often made about my voice, caused me to feel handicapped, abnormal, and incredibly frustrated with the voice I had and who I was. I grew up feeling disabled by my voice and all that I had to experience because of it. As a result, I was always trying to prove myself to people and show them that, despite my voice, I could do everything I set my mind to. I was obsessed with my image, I gloried in acceptance and popularity, and I worked extremely hard in school for good grades and set my mind in the 4th grade to becoming a doctor, for the prestige. It was an unhealthy obsession that cost me my self-respect. I let other people determine how I saw myself, and my life was centered around this need for acceptance from family, friends, and schoolmates. I pushed myself to look and act like other girls, no matter how unnatural it felt. I felt satisfaction when a guy would look me up and down in approval of what he saw..but at the same time, something inside me would scream, "I'm not who you think I am. I'm disabled, weak, and have struggled with a barely audible voice my whole life. I can't be who you want me to be." Throughout my life, a voice inside me would constantly put me down, telling me, "You're handicapped. Your vocal cords and words are always going to hinder you..no matter how hard you try." I experienced intense turmoil and frustration with how I was made.

The period of my life from the end of elementary school to the beginning of high school was a particularly rough time for me. I experienced a great amount of hurt when my friends began to betray and reject me, and I lost my ability to trust people again as a result. I was also dealing with greater insecurity issues when people began to be less accepting of my voice. Instead, there was pressure to be outgoing, to have lots of friends, and to start interacting with the opposite sex. Frankly, I didn't have that kind of self-confidence or zeal for life anymore. It was a dark time in my life, and I was losing hope in myself and what life could possibly have in store for me. The only satisfaction I got was from my achievements in school, so I lost myself in my studies just to get that hard-earned "A" or another scholastic award.

In the summer after a very difficult and lonely first year of high school, my best friend invited me to her church. I was hesitant because I had begun adhering to Buddhism and believing the Buddha had the power to grant me and my family good fortune. But my friend told me she didn't want to go alone to her new church, so I decided to just accompany her. Not long after, I started going with her every week. The people there accepted me for who I was, something I hadn't felt for a very long time. I felt safe at church, and I felt more at home there than anywhere else I could possibly go. Somehow, I also always had an inkling in my heart that there was a God, and I just felt a desire to go to church..to find Him. It's like the verse in the Bible that says God has written eternity in our hearts. There was this longing in me for something greater than the life I had..a purpose to it all. I found it in the goodness and the righteousness of God's Word, the joy and love I saw in His people, and the warmth of His presence; it all touched my heart, and I accepted Christ because He was the only way to God.

I was someone who used to reject God, and reject His people. But still, God was merciful enough to find me out even when I rejected Him. He rescued me in a time in my life when I needed Him most. I came to church a girl who was depressed and hopeless, with deep insecurities because of many betrayals and emotional scars from a frail voice. But God gave me hope for life, and in who I could become with His help. He rescued me from my despair and made me joyful again. In the past year, God has brought significant healing to me. He has spoken to me not just by His word, but prophetically through other people, telling me that He has seen all the hurts and pains from my past and that He wants to bring healing to me. He's told me that my voice may be soft, but that my whispers to Him are like "the roars of a lion." He's told me I am like a "beautiful pearl in a deep ocean" and that His own beauty rests on me. God has touched my heart so deeply with His love, and each word from Him brings immense healing to me. I believe He is very noticeably turning the brokenness and pain in my heart into beauty and maturity which I can use to bring healing to others. And He has allowed me to become so close to Him in a way that I can truly say He is my best friend. I come to Him with all my problems and burdens, and He makes me new again. He's the only one I can count on, and I know His opinion is the only one that matters. I've given up the approval of others and choose meekness and humility before man in favor of honor from God. He's turned my life and being around 180 degrees, and I owe Him all my life, and my whole heart. And now that I've looked back on life before I found God through Christ my Savior..frankly, I never want to go back again.