I was 14 years old when I started to question everything. I attended a traditional church every Sunday with my family where I sang in the choir and dressed in a white robe to help with communion. I would sing the hymns and listen to the sermons and believe without question.
I went to school throughout the week where I was met with one boy who was a strong atheist and always used to ridicule me for being a Christian. He would put me on the spot with questions that I felt I was not equipped at the time to answer, and so every day a little bit of my faith rolled off of me.
I started by questioning the divinity of Jesus. Every time the preacher spoke of him I would say in my head, “enough about him… what about God?”. I thought maybe he was just a nice man that did good things and that people had lost sight of God by constantly praising him.
And then I started to question God altogether… and that’s when my life became quite dark. I started to believe that life was hollow and that there was in fact no meaning to it. That there was no actual point and we just existed by random circumstances. That my life itself was pointless.
I found myself crying every night due to the fear of there being nothing, not even darkness, just nothing at the end of my life.
It got worse, I stopped eating and quickly turned into a walking skeleton. I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety and completely lost sight of hope.
I would call out in prayer through tears, begging for God to answer me, to tell me that he was real, to reach out and hold my hand. Just anything. I just couldn’t bear the emptiness I was feeling anymore.
One night I remember wanting it all to be over, I put my pillow over my head and I held it there, crying into it. I cried myself to sleep.
The next part of this testimony is hard to believe, and I still think that even those closest to me struggle to comprehend that it might be real. But it is the truest part of my life and I have reached a point where I would rather I shared it, than kept it to myself any longer out of fear of how people may feel about it.
I woke up to a figure at the side of my bed that was radiating light. It was so bright that I couldn’t see its face or its body, just pure light. And I wasn’t afraid. I was the calmest I had ever felt. It was as if my mind was completely at ease.
And then this feeling of immense love washed over me. Something that I am sure I will never feel again in this lifetime. Pure Agape love. It washed out all of my doubt, all of my fear and pain. I felt completely happy, completely whole.
Then I was sent back to sleep, as if I had been given a strong sleeping pill or likewise.
I woke up afterwards and screamed, my normal instincts kicked in and I was overwhelmed. I ran to my mum to tell her what I had seen. At the time I thought that it was an angel. I told her that night that I didn’t feel depressed anymore, that I was happy.
My mum then told me that the same night she had gone to a house group and had told them what I was going through and they had prayed for me.
I am now 27 and lead worship at my church. My experience still holds no doubt in my mind to this day and I am still learning new things about it. I love God and I love Jesus Christ and know now that he is divine, all loving and all encompassing.
2 years ago I went to an Easter service where I saw a picture. The picture was of Jesus. He was radiating light. It was an image of what the disciples had seen when Jesus appeared to them after his resurrection.
Matthew 17:2
“There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light.”
I started to realise that what I had actually seen that night was Jesus himself. After all of my doubt in him, he still stood by me and filled me with his love.
I will always, always believe in Jesus Christ.
I hope that this helps someone else to do the same.
