Today continues our new series where we have a guest blogger who shares their testimony with us! Becca Simmons is a friend to us and she is a junior at NC State University. She is currently majoring in Animal Science. Her testimony is a blessing and you will be captivated by her transparency and story! Part Two is coming tomorrow so stay tuned!
With great JOY in His salvation,
Leeanne
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I grew up in a big family with 4 siblings and both my parents. I didn’t exactly grow up in a Christian family but we did attend the important holidays and maybe some other Sundays if we all felt like getting up. I wasn’t taught the Word, and never really understood what it meant to be a Christian.
Around the time I was 16 my family had stopped
going to church, but I kept going most Sundays. I went to youth group and even
attended mission trips every summer. I thought I was doing what I was SUPPOSED
to be doing as a Christian. Right? Wrong.
I can’t put my fingers on the first time I really
felt depressed but it was probably around the time I was in 8th grade and had
just switched schools. In high school, as the years went on, I got more
depressed and withdrew more and more from my friends and family. I started
going from guy to guy, hoping that something would fill the hole that I felt was
growing bigger. By the time I was a senior in high school, I had lost pretty
much all my friends because I was just never in the mood to hang out. I started
partying and drinking and doing all sorts of drugs, just because I WANTED to
fit in so bad. I was dating a guy at the time, and did all sorts of physical
things with him just to feel wanted.
Then college came around. I was so pumped to
FINALLY make some friends, and then maybe my depression would just disappear.
Right? Wrong again my friend. Freshmen year of college was one of the roughest
years. I started hanging out with all these different people, joined a
sorority, slept around, partying it up, I started doing cocaine pretty heavily,
hoping that something would finally make me feel whole and happy.
Unfortunately, everything I did just made my depression worse.
My sophomore year came around, and I was back
‘friendless.’ The only person I really had in my life was the guy I was dating,
but that was purely a physical relationship. I didn’t know where to go or who I
could turn to that would just listen. I started cutting myself to ease the
pain, started planning how I would kill myself. One night, during winter break
of my sophomore year, I had just gotten into a huge fight with my mom. She told
me she hated me, and I finally decided that enough was enough. If my mom hated
me, then I must really be unlovable. I got into my car, and started driving
like a maniac. I told myself that if I drove fast enough into a tree, then
maybe, just MAYBE, it would kill me instantly and all this pain would be over.
Now I know that it was all the Holy Spirit, but at
the time I couldn’t have told you what stopped me from crashing my car that
night. When I went back to school after break in January, I was lifeless. I
would literally crawl out of bed, only looking forward to the next time I would
be able to get back into bed. I didn’t want to live anymore, but I was too
afraid to kill myself because what if death was worse. So I just existed, and
man it was horrible.
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