Jesus Wins

.i was thinking in the car about what my testimony is.




i've grown up in the salvation army, with parents who have served and lived within the army as well. growing up i've been blessed to grow up being taught about Jesus and who he is and what he did, what that means for me and the whole world. 
when i was eight years old i had my first (that i recall) personal encounter with God, it was at the Hillsong Conference in Sydney. from then i prayed all the time and loved being at church worshipping with my family and friends. i still remember standing next to mum listening to her sing the harmonies in all the songs. 
so i had a lot of head knowledge of what it was to be a Christian and what it meant to be saved. there was a lot of knowledge and i loved to learn about God but it was always more head than heart.
when i was sixteen i went to eastern victoria youth councils, there i sat, talking to God, telling him to move in my friends lives, because they clearly needed him and weren't close to him. then all of a sudden i felt an overwhelming sense of Gods voice telling me that i needed him too. so with the song 'it is well with my soul' being sung by all the campers i fell to my knees in tears and repented and asked God to completely enter me. i gave him everything. that was an amazingly smart decision :)
life was not perfect after that, i struggled with friendships, with family situations, with school, self doubt, there was a lot that i still struggled with, but God had my heart and that was good.
when i was seventeen, in november and december of 2010, i was all of a sudden hating everything. i was angry all the time. everything and anything set me off, i'd yell, i'd cry. it got to the point where i couldn't sleep in my room. i was actually scared to be in my room, luckily my sisters room was right next door and she was rarely in it. and when she was, there was the couch. so at the time, it was great coz i didn't have to worry about going in my room a lot coz i had other places to sleep. one night me and my mum were at a dinner party and i just sat there, mum knew stuff was going on, that something was wrong. but i couldn't talk about it, i had no words, i just hated everything. the worst i can remember this all getting was one night when mum came into my room with me and asked me if i wanted to talk about whatever was scaring me, i said no. she asked if we should pray, i was even more scared and said no, walked out and said i had to go have a shower. looking back, it's hard to believe that i could ever be in such a dark place, but i lay on the floor of my shower and the thoughts of fear and hatred kept flooding in, i didn't want to live anymore. for whatever reason.
so.positive thing. when all of this was 
going on, and i was scared and felt no 
connection to God i still would sing praises
to him. all the time. at every church service,
at every event, in the car, i would still sing
praises to God. and that's because even 
though i could not feel him, the knowledge
of his existence was enough for me. in my
moment of utter desperation and loneliness
the fact that i didn't think i could feel God
wasn't the issue. his existence was worthy
of praise. my perception of absence from
his presence sucked. but i still would worship
in whatever way i could, his goodness never
ended. his love for me never ended. even 
when i felt like dying. he is the same every day.


okay, so at commissioning 2010, all this was going on and as i had been doing a lot i was in tears, my friend hannah was with me and was like... yo man what's happening? my old youth pastor was found and he came over and spoke to me. he asked me what was going on and i told him how scared i was and how crap everything was. how i was too scared to sleep in my room. he asked me if i'd been praying, i said yeah. he asked to who, i looked up and said... to, um... him. he looked at me again and said... to WHO? from what i'm told, my face looked like not my face, it had rebelion in it. i couldn't say the name of Jesus. i was prayed for and by the end of the time these people were praying for me, i just kept saying 'Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus...' it was great! 
after this i went into my room with someone and we prayed, trying to figure out what it was that had scared me out of my room. after praying and praying, a book came to both our minds. this book had talked about evil spirits, witchery, things that are not of God. i stopped reading this book after reading about this girl who was dabbling in these things (the girl did turn her life around into the hands of God, HALLELUJAH!) but i didn't read up to that bit, i stopped at the evil stuff she did get into. i took the book outside, tore it up, burnt it. got rid of it. 
JESUS JESUS JESUS JESUS.


i think that something that i learnt from this, less than fun experience. is that spiritual warfare is so so so real. but that we have full victory in Jesus. in the bible it says that every power on earth and in the spiritual world is commanded by the name of Jesus. time and time again this is shown in the bible and in the world today.


so where i'm at now, testimonily... well:

i am chosen. i am free. i am living in the kingdom. for the kingdom. for Christ. 
Jesus won. Jesus wins. Jesus is winning.