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"My parents got divorced when I was five. My mom never said anything about God or going to church, she left that decision up to me. God was this distant guy who supposedly made the world and told us what to do. I hated God. I blamed God for everything that was wrong in my life. I thought, if He created me, how come my life isn't good?
Five years ago I was 13 years old and I had a lot of friends. We were party people, that's all we knew. I had a lot of issues at that age. I tried to kill myself, was into self-mutilation and a lot of other creepy stuff. I thought that was normal, how else was I going to get rid of the pain? What else is there besides drugs, alcohol and lustful relationships? It all seemed normal but I was miserable and felt really, really alone.
Me and my boyfriend broke up and then God started showing me stuff. One of my friends told me to come to the Crossroads to see a show and I was like, whatever. She did get me to come a couple times but I wasn't into it much. I didn't really like the people there because they told me I should stop doing the things I was doing. So I avoided the Crossroads for a while. I found myself with no friends and I had no where to go, everything just started to crumble. God started talking to me and telling me that the things I was doing were wrong and I was like, who are you to tell me what to do? Since I didn't have anywhere else to go I started coming to the Crossroads again. I went to bible studies and would get really mad because every time I went God would talk to me through the scriptures. I would get really angry and say to God, I'm trying to get closer to you and you're telling me I can't do this and that! He started molding me. It was a continual process. I got to know Jesus. He showed me that He could take away my pain. He let me see Himself in other people and what He did for them. I got baptized two years ago and God told me I had to buckle down and get serious about Him. He told me that this isn't my life anymore and ever since then He's been working in my life and continues to show me what I do that's not of Him.
Now Jesus is my friend. He's always there. When I feel alone, He's there. When I get crazy in the head and think no one can help me, Jesus shows me He loves me."
"Me and my brother were the only people out of all my family that never went to church. I was ok with that, I could sleep in. One of my cousins and his family were huge into Jesus. I was scared of them. I thought, why am I related to these people? Everything they talked about had to do with God.
I just lived my life the I wanted to, without God. I got into a band, that was my main focus. It was everything I did, everything I thought about. Through the band thing I made a couple of friends that asked me to come to the Crossroads. I came for a bible study, I said, I'll just sit and represent my friends or whatever. I came a couple of times, but didn't think much about it. I just wanted to hang out.
My band broke up and I didn't know what to do so I started coming to the Crossroads regularly. It was cool. The Word starting building up in me. One day my cousin called me (the one that's all Jesused out) and told me they were doing this play based on Columbine. So I invited my friends to come along and we went. It was so powerful and beautifully done. The main point of the play was to talk about where you go after you die. They showed people going to heaven and meeting Jesus at the top of a huge staircase with glorious music playing. Then they showed the person that never accepted Jesus getting sucked in by the Devil.
After that I just got it. I started to talk to God for the first time. That was the happiest moment. Then I got baptized, that was great too.
I told my Aunt that I quit the band and am now playing drums in the worship team at the Crossroads. She was so excited and told me about a vision that God gave her. She saw my dad driving in his car with religious music playing, but he was sleeping a the wheel. God told her she needed to tell my dad to wake up and listen to the music."
"I grew up in Todd Estates in Newark. There was a bus that came around from Newark Baptist Church. We would put on our Sunday clothes, get on the bus and then go swimming instead of going to church.
I always knew there was a God, but I didn't think He liked me much. My Dad left when I was 4. My only memory of him was at his funeral. I was raised my someone who didn't like my dad, so they didn't like us much and was a mean drunk.
I got into drugs. Everyone I knew was either going to jail, killed or on drugs. I didn't know any Christians.
I got cleaned up once and tried to go to church, but God was still missing. I went to rehab and they always talked about God. I get straight for a little while and I kept hearing about God all the time. So I started praying. I had met a guy once that told me to pray on my knees and don't ask for a lot of stuff. So that's what I started doing. I started coming to the Crossroads where I met Pastor Matt. I really liked it. I liked the people there. Pastor Matt has a sense of humor. I started getting it. I started putting it all together. My life has changed. Christ did the all the work."
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