My Testimony (part two)

I always wanted to wait until I was 21 to start drinking. I did pretty well for the most part. It was a couple weeks before my 21st birthday that I had my first drunken experience. It was new, fresh, different, but above all, it made me forget about all the problems I was going through. I had a history of alcoholism in my family line so I was just destined for failure since I went into it blindly. I began to enjoy drinking more and more, and finally, more than I enjoyed actually living sober. One drunken night led to another. Drinking gave me courage I didn't normally have. Little did I care that it was impairing my better judgment. I can't count how many times I'd had a drunken night, binging with friends, only to end up back at my apartment with a guy. Someone I knew from high school, someone I'd only spoken to a couple times, someone I'd just met... it didn't matter. I wasn't in the right state of mind to care who I went home with. I was on a road to destruction.

Then one night changed my life... I brought home an old friend from high school. We were both drunk. Things started getting intimate. We had sex. He didn't bother putting on a condom. He was too drunk to realize this was what he NEEDED to do... I was too drunk to care... A few days later, I noticed it started to hurt when I would urinate. I figured I probably had some sort of yeast infection. It would go away. I was sure of it. It didn't. It got worse. It got to the point where I would either bite down on my hand or bite down on a wet washcloth to muffle my screams. I didn't want to wake up my roommate. It felt like a flame was being held to my genitals. It was making me physically sick. My muscles were stiff, I felt tired all the time. I knew something was seriously wrong. I dreaded drinking anything other than beer because drinking meant I would have to later urinate, and at least beer numbed me enough that I wouldn't feel the pain as bad when I actually had to urinate. I noticed sores were starting to show up. I did my research.

Before too long, it was blatantly obvious... I had received Genital Herpes. This guy, who I cared nothing about, had just given me an STV (sexually transmitted virus). According to the world's views, this is a virus that is incurable. Let me say that again... There is supposedly no cure for Genital Herpes. But I believe in a God that heals physical ailments. But those who don't know God, don't know that that is even possible. I didn't believe at the time. I sunk into a deeper depression. What little bit of hope I had for my life had diminished. I went to a clinic to get it tested, but I was so infected they couldn't even take a sample from me, but the doctor unofficially told me that was what I had acquired.

Realizing I had it, changed my life forever. It was a process. It began with hating myself. Hating the guy. Hating life. I had no reason to live anymore. I'd already destroyed myself to the point of thinking no one would ever want to be with me again. I was tarnished. I was a disgrace. I was in shame. I only told my best friend, who just so happened to be my roommate, out of necessity. She knew something was going on, she could hear me crying my eyes out, screaming every time I'd go to the bathroom. Other than that, I didn't want ANYONE to know... what a shameful thing, right? It took a long time (a year, to be exact) until I was able to turn my life back around, see it for what it REALLY was... an obstacle to overcome. One drunken night. My, what a night can change...

I had told my leader about it prior to going on the encounter and she insisted that I begin to pray daily for this, if I wanted to see physical healing. So every time I would go to the bathroom, I would rest my hand at the base of my spine and say a prayer. Every. Time. I went to the bathroom. One of my expectations for this Encounter, and probably the biggest aside from restoration back to God, was to be physically healed of this shameful thing I'd acquired! And I wasn't sure if the healing would actually happen or not, but I prayed faithfully, I was hopeful that it would be gone, but I still had that small fear. "Yes, but you deserve what you got! So what if he decides NOT to take it from you?" I would think to myself. What a load of crap!

Then one night at cell group, we were watching a clip of "The Passion of the Christ" and (as I've mentioned before in a past blog entry) it was the point where whoever he was came up to Jesus on the Cross and began to taunt him saying, "YOU claim you can destroy the temple and rebuild it in THREE DAYS?!"

And that's when God spoke to me. He told me, "You know, Des... The Encounter is three days... Your body is a temple... I'm going to destroy your temple and rebuild it." I was so excited to have heard this! Why? Because it was clear as day what it meant. No worry or fear to try and dance around it and try to "make it mean something else" just so I could get confused and inevitably not accept it. It was clear as day. I told my leader. She got chills. She was now in agreement with me.

SO... On the Encounter, I can't really tell you a specific point when I was completely healed of it, I feel as if God was taking it from me from the moment I was praying every time I went to the bathroom. But for the first time in the history of NWCs Encounters (and I had NO IDEA of this until I'd gotten there)... they had a physical healing line. ANYONE who had ANYTHING physically that needed to be healed, these powerful women in Christ would pray over us and we would be delivered of our physical ailments. HALLELUJAH!!! THAT... isn't coincidence. I don't believe in coincidence. Everything happens for a reason! God knew how much shame I'd had from receiving this disease, HE knew how badly I wanted it gone...

In faith, I'm going to save up some money so I can go and get my official test done, just for the doctors to say to me "What are you doing here? You don't have any disease." I believe it. Absolutely. Without a single doubt.

Thank you Lord, for your powerful healing hand. Thank you for removing my shame COMPLETELY from me to where I can be so bold as to even talk about this. YOU know what a huge feat that is for me because YOU know EXACTLY what I was going through. I thank you that you never left my side. Not once. Even when I felt so alone, you were right there just waiting for me to turn around and run back to you. You're so so wonderful, Jesus! I'm so in love with you.

There's still more to my testimony, people! So hang in there for the next part. But as of now, I gotta go get to working with Tracey! (Good thing I'm already over here >.< Cut down on drive time.)