I know that I'm fairly new to this site, but I feel like everyone should know about my past and my walk with God. Today at my school, some people wrote their testimonies. I read them and the people I thought I knew, turns out I didn't know them at all. I found out all the horrible things they did, but reading their testimonies just made me love them more. I hope when you read my testimony it will have the same effect.


I grew up in a church-going family. I remember sitting in church, very uncomfortable and bored, and making plans to be an atheist ( I didn't know what it was called back then). All wanted to do was get away from the hymns, the felt puppets, and the lame Sunday school songs. I thought Christianity was going to church and actually enjoying these things, which I could never bring myself to do. I threw tantrums about going to church, and eventually my family stopped going regularly.

In elementary school, I didn't have any good friends. I was very shy, too shy to even answer questions the teacher asked. I remember having anxiety attacks about going to school. I hated it there. Not that I wasn't smart, I was extremely gifted in academics and still am. I just hated being around so many people, and not one of them cared about me much. In 3rd Grade, I was diagnosed with ADD and depression. I had to go see a psychiatrist every week. I didn't understand why I was different. I had to take standardized tests in a separate room with the special-ed students. People would make fun of me because they thought I was retarded too.

My lack of friends caused me to started hanging out with my brother's friends. They always hated it when I tagged along, but I was so lonely and had no other friends to play with. Eventually, I became "one of the boys". If I ever had a friend that was a girl, she wouldn't understand my boy-ish habits, and the friendship would usually end in tears.

In 6th grade I came to ECA. At first, I was ready to kick and scream in protest about going to a Christian school. I still had a distaste for Christianity. But then something happened that caught me off-guard, the people at ECA cared about me more than I thought anyone could care. I wondered why, as any person in my position would. I thought that it had to do with Christianity, and I became curious. I began to pay attention in Bible class and chapel, to find out why people could love me, a misunderstood girl with no friends. In time, I found out about Jesus and why He died and how he loved me, even more than the people at ECA do. But in the back of my mind, I still couldn't get rid of my distaste for all things Christian, meaning to say, the things at church that drove me away in the first place.

The summer before 8th grade, I went to Camp Elim with some people from school. There I found people, not just caring about each other, but living out their faith 100%. But they were happy. I've never seen such joyful people before, not even at school. I wanted this joy desperately, and I accepted Christ as my one and only Savior.

Ever since then, my spiritual walk has been high and low, but I would say rarely boring. I still struggle with trusting people, being a friend, boys, and beauty, but God is not finished with me yet. I can't wait to see what He does next.

That is so awesome! I know how you feel when you go to a camp like that and are completely awed. It's an amazing feeling. I'm so happy for you.