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Jackie's Testimony

I was raised in a semi-religious family, and we went to church... The first memory of church was in a meeting hall at a nursing home. I was playing with toy snakes during the service. I later found out the pastor was asked to leave because of a disagreement with the church board. Fastforwarding to age 12, I recall when my dad was a drunk. He was healed of it when a tornado passed over our house. He was passed out in the bedroom while we my mom and sister where in the living room. We were in a house church of about 10 memebers. I was being convicted because I was starting to rebel against my parents. I struggled with cursing and other bad things. At age 14, the house church disbanded and my sister started to go to an Assemblies of God church. By then, my dad had gotten saved, and my parents started praying for me. My dad talked to the youth pastor about me, and he came to my door a few days after wanting to talk to me. I was busy sleeping at 5 pm. I told him I might come the next Sunday.

I did several times, and then attended a Wednesday night youth service. The pastor preached on salvation, and I went to the altar and said the sinner's prayer. Up until then, I was interested in roleplaying and "Magic the Gathering". While I never really did follow any other religions, at the time I did enjoy shopping at stores like Hot Topic (which I now think is just a wanna-be punk store) and other taboo things.

So, I had finally gotten "saved." The concept was nothing new to me...I was enjoying reading authors like Robert Jordan, and I was highly interested in studying the Bible. One day, the youth pastor was preaching on the Holy Ghost and the baptism of the Holy Ghost, which really captured my interest. I started to pray for that and for God to show Himself to me. Well, He didn't at all in church, so I went out and got in my sisters car--and then it hit me. God's Spirit flooded me and broke down all the walls I had put up around my heart. I remember crying for two hours or so, and I'm not even the crying type. I continued on in church, learning and going through different struggles including love and lust, sexual sins and backsliding. I have questioned my faith in God and even today I am still figuring things out.

I started to help the youth pastor with running sound equipment in the youth service and God has blessed me with all kinds of music to play for the services. Currently, I am 21 years of age and I am not sure where God is calling me next, but now we are starting to have some "punk" kids in attendance--I feel God may be calling me to stay in youth ministry for a while longer.