#humilty

I mean, you're worse than Vladimir of Moonlight lovers, and he's over two hundred years old! I can hear his voice whispering from the mansion:

What is your Testimony?

comment or message on how God has changed your life ... 

it all began for me when i decided to break up with my boyfriend of 9 years.

It wasn’t so great in the end, and we’d both been basically alcoholics that enabled each other. I remember it was new years eve and i was single and sober. Not too long after i decided to head to the next town to see some friends. next thing i know i am doing much harder drugs than i was initially doing. 

i was giving my body to men that did not love me and who did not really care about me. it came to the point where i would sober up and sleep for days. it was not good. i remember always needing more, and i just had to have some more. more drugs, more drink, more sex. 

that did not satisfy me at all. it left me wanting more. to be honest looking back it seems like such a bad dream. 

earlier in 2020 i got way worse than better. and eventually i let a friend use my car to never get it back. to this day it is out there in the world. right now i do not care about it, but i do hope that whatever bad and negativity that is associated it will go with it when it blows its course. 

late january i had sobered up after having a bad run in with a guy i was using with. he kept wanting to have sex, without even saying it, i knew it. it got way too weird for me and i couldn’t handle it. all of january i was partying, sleeping in my car and at random peoples houses, and even staying up for days on end driving around with no gas money. what was i doing? 

my good, sober friends would let me crash for awhile then i’d be out the door again. i ended up coming back to my mom’s, slept for 2 days and was coming down. i had no alcohol, no drugs, nothing to sustain my fix that i thought/felt i so desperately needed. 

i remember being at that guys house and was glad to be in my room where i have clothes and a bed and a house that has food. i had forgotten all about eating. my health was bad but i still kept myself going. i drank water and slowly got back to eating. 

the only thing that would help me was coffee to feel a rush and be awake and make it through the day. 

january 30 or 31 i attended a bible study at a local church with my mom and aunt. she didn’t asked and was actually surprised that i wanted to go. i honestly needed something to get my mind off of things and to be with genuine people. plus i was hungry and maybe i was needing Gods word more than the food in terms of sustenance. 

i met some wonderful ladies and i kept attending every month until the virus hit. 

i noticed odd changes, first in behavior, then in thinking and i even landed a job a few hours away from where i live. i began reading the bible more and even looked up bible study plans and sought God for a good month. 

with my work i kept with my sobriety and my walk with God. 

the virus hit and i couldn’t leave, since my job was a few hours away and my Tribe had went on lockdown with no movement in or out of the reservation, except through the barricades with approval. 

i was at a friend’s but i ended up back at my moms - i did something stupid and almost got in trouble - i learned my lesson. thank you jesus. 

after i landed my job, not too long after i had gotten accepted to and enrolled in CCU online seeking a degree in Communications. I chose that for my background in radio, and will seek a job in radio or telecommunications or journalism job field afterwards. 

the only thing i have left is my sobriety and my online classes. but even those are a blessing. i bible study every week, and keep the Sabbath day. I diet with intermittent fasting and keep a sleep schedule where i get 8 hours of sleep. 

from druggie and alcoholic to about 4 months of sobriety. because in those months of staying with a friend i wasn’t completely sober, but was sobering up. 

as we enter another month, i am glad to say I love Jesus and am thankful for saving me from disaster. my walk with God is a daily thing and I am at peace and have love in my heart. in the process i had to forgive others as well as forgive myself. It has not been an easy road, and I didn’t expect it to be. But with God’s grace, i am sufficient, loved, blessed, and a whole new creation. I praise God for my testimony, i pray you are bold enough to share yours as well!

by Thomas Somerville

"After that, He poured water in a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded." - John 13:5

In the present state of society it is hardly possible that we should fall into so gross a delusion as that which, for a season, possessed the minds of the apostles. We know that our religion is not the path to worldly honor and prosperity. But there are various symptoms by which a proud aspiring disposition may still be discovered in those who profess to be the disciples of Jesus. As often as we see them swelling with a fond conceit of their own abilities, intoxicated with prosperity and looking down with contempt and insolence upon their brethren; as often as we see them eagerly struggling for rule and preeminence, dictating to others with unwarrantable authority, and angry because their favorite opinions are not implicitly adopted; as often as we see Christians prone to resentment, ready to apprehend injuries which never were intended and to exaggerate offenses which are frivolous and the effects of inadvertence rather than of malice; as often as we see them envious, turbulent, and active in vexing and disturbing their neighbors -- then it is that we behold that haughty and domineering temper which stands in direct opposition to the genius and tendency of our religion.

We obey the spirit of our Lord's precept when we attain the practice of humble and condescending charity. There are many who do not altogether neglect the duty of charity but still have not attained that species, or kind of it, which is recommended by the example of Jesus. They consider indigence, or want, as the only legitimate claim to charity. When they give alms to the poor they think that they fulfil the great law of love. This is a very meager and partial view of our duty. Alms are a part, often an essential part, but by no means the whole of charity. It ought to be the study of the Christian to minister to the comfort as well as to the necessities and wants of his brethren. Many opportunities occur for the exercise of sympathy and tenderness where alms are not required. We may exercise the former when we have it not in our power to bestow the latter. To communicate counsel and direction to the ignorant and perplexed, to patronize the friendless, to pour consolation into the heart pierced with sorrow, to encourage the feeble-minded, to solicit with address the confidence of the man who is ready to sink under obdurate and concealed grief, to bear one another's burdens as well as to relieve one another's wants -- this is to fulfil the law of Christ.