Jessica Let Us Worship 2024

Hello, my name is Jessica and this is my testimony. I would like to start off by saying that life for me was not always easy. And in fact I still have my days that are difficult, but now I have learned to lean on the LORD when those difficulties come my way.

I was born into this world to a mom who didn't want me and she had her ways of showing it. Several times in my childhood my mom would just up and leave me and my dad, then when she got tired of doing whatever she would be doing, she would come and beg my dad to take her back, and for many years my dad would take her back. Then when I was eleven years old my dad had enough and demanded a divorce. When my parents went to court for their divorce, the judge asked my mom if she wanted custody of me, she refused and said that she wanted nothing to do with me. Then the judge asked my mom if she would like to have visitation rights and again she said no! So in the end my dad got full custody of me, which made me pretty happy because I was a huge daddy's girl, but I couldn't help but wonder what I did to cause my parents to get a divorce in the first place. With my mom blaming me for the divorce for many years, saying that if I hadn't been so sick growing up, and taking all my dad's attention away from her, then she wouldn't have had to go out and cheat on my dad all the times that she did. I was hurt, lost, angry, and confused.

To back up a little bit, I grew up in the church, went to Sunday school and church every Sunday, and kids church every Tuesday night. So I knew about God and Jesus, but I never knew what it was to have a true and intimate relationship with Jesus! I became angry and bitter with Jesus, I couldn't understand if Jesus was who the church claimed him to be, then why did I have a mom who hated me. Why would he allow me to be born with so many health issues that would push my parents away from each other?

After the divorce, and my dad got full custody of me, things got bad again, my dad was angry with my mom for all that she had done, and he didn't know what to do with his anger so a lot of the time he would take his anger out on me. Now I'm not saying I was a perfect child/teenanger, because I wasn't, in fact I was far from it! After the divorce I began to severely act out, I started to smoke cigarettes, I started to have sex with boys, and watch porn on the computer, I would also skip school. I was angry with God and with the world. Or so I thought, but the real truth is that I was angry with my mom, I was hurting and because of it I lashed out. When I was nineteen I started going to the bar, I would drink a little bit but didn't really like the taste. A year later I was introduced to weed. I thought I had found my happy place, weed made me happy and made me forget all of my problems. But it didn't stop there, because when I was twenty I got pregnant with my daughter, then I had her when I was twenty one, I thought she was the light of my world but soon slipped into a depression and started to ignore my daughter.

I would invite my boyfriend at the time over to my place and go up in my room and be intimate with him all night and then sleep all day. I wanted nothing to do with my daughter, I would leave all the care of my daughter up to the workers that were put in place by child services. The final straw for child services was when my daughter was admitted to the hospital due to her heart condition and I left her there by herself for the nurses to care for her. I had left her there like this for two days. When I did show up to the hospital, I was told that I was to go to the child services building, because they wanted to talk to me... I was not sure what I was going to hear, well I was in for a shock because they were taking my baby girl into custody. I was hurt and upset, and blamed God for the longest time...  When I should have been turning my life over to the LORD, and trusting Him, instead I was running away from him and pushing him away. For a little while after I lost my daughter, I was permitted visitation rights. I started to fight to get my daughter back, I even got a legal aid lawyer... While going through court, one day I came home from court and while I was puffing on a joint, it came to me that even though I loved my daughter with all of my heart I was in no condition or mental state to take care of her! So when I went back to court, I told my lawyer that I wanted to sign my daughter over for adoption, though this was very hard and broke my heart, I knew deep down that I was doing the right thing because I wanted my daughter to have the very best life ever, and I knew that I couldn't provide that for her!

While all this was going on I had gotten engaged and married a man who wasn't my daughters father. In fact besides knowing that he wasn't her father, I honestly didn't know who her father was and still don't to this day! Shortly after the wedding my addiction to weed got worse, I started to steal to get money to pay for my drugs, and then I started to cheat on my husband. Sometimes I would just cheat on him for something to do, and other times I would cheat on him to get money to support my habits. This became a lifestyle for me for a couple of years, at times I would even leave my husband for a few days or a week, and then beg him to take me back. I did this to him around 47 times, then finally I fell in love with another guy and my husband and I got a divorce. At this point in my life I was a full out drug addict doing whatever I could get my hands on. I didn't care how I got it or what it was doing to my body. I would smoke,sniff,and shoot up. Anything to get that next high, so I didn't have to feel or think about life. On top of this I was still struggling with my depression and hated life with a passion. There were many times that I couldn't go more then a couple of days apart without cutting myself, or burning myself, or trying to kill myself. Life had no meaning for me!

Then in 2019 I hit rock bottom and went to federal prison for armed robbery, theft under $5,000, and mischief. When I was in prison I gave my life to the LORD, but it didn't last and as soon as I got out of jail I was right back into the drugs. Right back into self-harming. Right back into throwing my life down the toilet. Then in 2022 I commited my second federal crime, I was charged with arson disregarding human life. But I will tell you that even though I wasn't serving the LORD, and in many ways didn't want anything to do with the LORD, he still wanted everything to do with me. For about a month after I committed my second crime, I was staying in a halfway house while I was awaiting my trial, it was a Sunday morning, I was awake, and as usual doing my drugs. A couple minutes after I sniffed a line, my cell phone rang, wondering who could be messaging me at 8:00 on a Sunday morning, I picked up my phone and it was a friend that I had met a few months earlier at celebrate recovery. He was messaging me to see what I was doing. Me being who I was back then I answered with, "I'm getting high." He told me to hang on for a minute because he had someone that he wanted to talk to me. I said okay and waited, I waited for a few minutes and when no one came back online, I went to sniff another line. Right after doing so my phone dinged again, it was the same guy again, but this time he had one of his friends tagged into the conversation. His friend began to talk to me about Jesus, and how much he loves me. I was basically just saying yes and sure but didn't really care what he was saying. Then this stranger said that Jesus was calling out my name right now. After that, all I can remember is crying and asking that man to lead me into the sinners prayer.

After this I started to go to his church, I would be in church and worship the LORD and pray to Him, but as soon as church was over I would get home and do drugs again, I was living a hypocritical life and didn't care. Even though I knew what I was doing was wrong, I was stuck in my ways and wasn't about to change. Along with still doing drugs, I was also still self harming all the time and at times trying to take my life, because I thought that my life had no meaning and that nothing could ever make me truly happy! So my court case went on and I was sentenced to two years plus a day, so federal prison it was, but what was amazing about this whole situation was that the prosecutor wanted to give me seven years, but between my lawyer, and support system, and most importantly Jesus, the judge only gave me two years plus a day. You see even when I wasn't totally committed to Jesus, he was still committed to me. Jesus was doing a work in my life even before I was willing to accept it.

When I arrived in prison my depression got really bad and I did everything in my will power to try and end my life, but GOD had other plans, GOD wasn't ready for my life to be over. While I was in prison they sent me to a mental health hospital for prisoners, hoping that I could get the help that I so desperately needed, I will say that while there I did go through some extensive therapy, got properly diagnosed, and got on the proper medication. All of this was great and helped me a lot, I was finally starting to feel like a normal person. I was doing good, the thoughts of self-harm and suicide were decreasing and I was stabilizing on my new medications. But in all of this I still felt like I was missing something, or should I say someone. See I still haven't come to terms with the reality that I haven't given everything over to Jesus like I needed to. I was still doing drugs as often as I could get them and still trying to rationalize that it was okay, that I was okay as long as when I was in church I was asking God/Jesus to forgive me! Boy was I wrong and I had to stop or life would never have any meaning to it no matter how properly medicated I was. So on September 1, 2023 I decided to give up drugs for good, it was a hard decision, but with the help of friends and my LORD and Saviour, I have been able to stay clean and put my faith in JESUS CHRIST! The walk has not always been easy, it has had its rocky moments, and moments where satan has tempted me by telling me that it would be easier if I just went back to doing drugs, but I know that he is the king of lies. So I command him to leave in JESUS name and he usually leaves within minutes. It was especially hard when my dad, who I loved dearly, passed away on December 15, 2023. My heart was crushed and I fell back into a deep depression, wishing that I could die alongside my dad!

I felt like this for many months, but was still trusting JESUS to keep me safe in the storm that I was facing, it was very difficult and once again it ended up self-harming and trying to take my own life. Once again though God was right there to stop me, I couldn't understand why GOD was allowing someone who hated life so much to live but would take away my father who wanted to live.

Then came September 5, 2024 the day that has changed my total outlook on life. I had heard about this revival concert that was going to be happening in Halifax, and decided that I wanted to go. So I went and was having an awesome time, then towards the end the one who was leading the concert started to speak and invited people up to the front, I could feel the LORD speaking to me saying that I needed to go up front. I was hesitant at first, but decided to listen. So I went up, even though in the back of my mind I was thinking that there was no point for me to go up because nothing was going to happen. When I got up there, with others that had came up, we were asked to kneel down and repeat a prayer. So I listened and after that, nothing had happened to me that I could tell, and in my mind I was kind of thinking see Jesus? Nothing... What did I come up here for? As I was thinking this and kind of arguing with the LORD, the speaker started to name off a couple of things and saying if this is you I want you to raise your hand so people can come pray with you, one of the things that he said was that he felt that there were five people in the crowd that in the last six months had either thought of or tried to take their own life, right away I knew in my heart that I was one of those five people that he was talking about so I raised my hand, but once again I was doubting in the back of my mind that anything was going to happen. As a couple of people came around me to pray, I felt the Holy Spirit fill me from the top of my head to the tips of my toes, it felt like my whole body just floated to the ground, and immediately I felt free from any suicidal thoughts or ideations. JESUS had completely removed it from my mind. It has been almost two months since that night and I'm still free. Jesus has done a miracle in my life that I had thought could never be possible!! JESUS is so amazing and I owe everything I have to Him.

Thank- you for letting me share and may GOD Bless everyone!