Throughout high school, home life was just really terrible, like probably the worst that it has ever been, and I remember every time I'd leave high school group, like I'd cry because I didn't want to go home. In 2019, things were at a breaking point in my household, so the girls in the college group at the time allowed me to move in, and I was like 15 or 16, so they allowed me to move in, so I actually moved in a lot sooner than most people, because it was just that rough. So I'm in the ministry house now, and I'm doing the ministry house thing, and I'm following God, and I'm like going to all these different meetings.
At the time, I was, yeah, I was doing high school group and college group at the same time, so I'm thinking that I'm on top of the world, and I'm like this cool Christian, but then in 2022, things in my life started to kind of go downhill, where I started suffering again. I kind of gave up on my life, was struggling functionally, struggling with my word, wasn't really talking to the Lord, had a lot of bitterness towards my roommates at the time, and the people in my home church, and so I moved out, and I started living for the world for a good year, and was doing everything that the people in the world did, and knew that that wasn't the good choice, but I still kept going, because I was like why, like why not? I did the God thing, and it didn't work out, so why not keep going? So I did that for a good year, and then December 3rd, 2023, I was in my room, and I, it was a Sunday, so I'm just on YouTube, and I see this sermon pop up. There's this pastor that I respect in Philly, and he records his sermons live on YouTube, and I saw it, and I clicked on it, and it was talking about having an intentional Christian life, and as soon as I had clicked on the video, the first thing he was talking about was having good healthy community, and so he's talking about having a good healthy community, and I didn't get, I didn't, I wasn't there for long.
I heard community, and I turned it off. I was like, my bitter heart couldn't, my bitter heart couldn't, couldn't, couldn't handle it, but God, yeah, He wasn't done with me. I turned it off, and I remember laying down on my back, and I'm looking at the ceiling, and I'm just, just kind of chilling there, and then I hear this audible voice, the realest thing I've ever experienced in my entire life.
It was weird. I hear this audible voice that was like, go back to church, and it freaked me out. I was like, what is happening? It freaked me out.
I remember feeling confronted with how I was living my life for that year, like I quite literally was living my life like I didn't have the Spirit, like God didn't save me, and I remember feeling just very disappointed in myself, and I wasted no time after that, and I texted the girl that was mentoring me for a while, and I said, you know, tomorrow, do you have time to hang out, and can we go to home church together? My eyes have been opened. That's what I told her. I said, my eyes have been opened.
What blew my mind about that first meeting was everyone treated me like I never left. People who I know that I've hurt shed tears at my return. You know, people were still interested in what, what I did was, what was going on that past year, and what led me to come back, and I also was very honest about my experience, and was telling everybody my business, and was like, this, the world is just not what it, what it, what it is out to be, what people make it to be.
I had the opportunity to come back to the ministry house life, and I was actually excited this time, because I really wanted to do things different than I did before, so I moved back in. Yeah, I think one of the biggest things that I was learning throughout my life, and just kind of through the experience of leaving and coming back, is that God is very purposeful with what, who he puts in our lives, especially when it comes to community, and also I didn't believe for a long time that community was good. Through other people in community, God has shown his faithfulness, just because people, yeah, people who had the ammo to like, cut me off, did not.
I know I was somebody that was hard to love for a very long time, so just the fact that other people had the, even just the capacity to like, continue to love me for all these years, I think that for me, helped me realize that, one, it's important that we are in each other's lives, and then two, that I also have that capacity with God in my corner to go and fight for other people, and through that experience, it's shown that like, yeah, that is what changes people's lives, is people in community loving each other, and so, yeah.