Sam

I was once dead and now I am alive. 

All the books in the world could not contain how kind Jesus has and continues to be in my life, but this was the most significant day. 

At around the age of 13, I began having extreme anxiety throughout every single day. At its worst, these panic attacks would reach up to 45 minutes. Between feeling like I was physically dying - the feeling of both drowning and being suffocated - and a mind so full of fear that no other thought could enter, I wasn’t truly living. I went to therapist after therapist who gave step by step techniques that could only “manage” my condition, but I wanted it gone. I watched as my mom sat by me through my episodes, feeling helpless and unsure of how to help me. I could not be consoled or comforted because I was filled with fear, pain, and insecurity. 

To give an even greater understanding of how painfully awful these attacks would be, I rocked back and forth or sat in a fetal position to grab onto any sort of stability or comfort. I would knead my hands until they were raw and my knuckles still have some problems to this day. I would claw at my throat because the feeling that someone was choking me gave me more fear than leaving my neck bleeding. I would scream at the top of my lungs, crying, struggling to breathe. After it was all over, I would be left completely exhausted. The ultimate picture of desperation.

This went on for around 4 years. Then at 17, I was freed. I was invited by some of my friends to go to a Christian youth camp in the middle of the woods in New York and to be honest, it was a miracle I went. At one point in my life, I said that I would never go to church, never touch a Bible, and never pray. In all of my experience to that point, I became angry at who I thought God was and let myself become a victim to my circumstances. 

It was not until after the meetings, after everyone else left, the music stopped and the lights of the camp building went out that I found the One who has always loved me. Two girls from my group pulled me aside and we sat on a wet grassy hill, talking about our lives and then God came in power. It was as if I was given new lungs and knew what it was like to breathe for the first time. My pain and anger turned to compassion and forgiveness. I experienced God’s love for me and His closeness that day. He moved my heart in such a way that I was changed, not just spiritually, but physically. 

The peace, the stillness my body and mind felt was a result of feeling like I was truly at home in God. Before Him, I was in a battle every day of my life that I was losing. No matter how many times I would shoot at the enemy, I was fighting alone and had no covering. But when I gave my life to Him, all my worry and fear left. I was no longer fighting alone. The Truth that He gave His life for me, He bled on a Cross that was unjust for Him to even touch because of His innocence and holiness, led to death like a lamb being brought to be slaughtered, all because I was a thought in His mind and He found me worthy to die for - that’s what changed me.

I sit here, 5 years later and never had a panic attack since then. I am more in love with Jesus every day. I have seen the impossible happen with Him. I have seen Him heal every kind of sickness, cancer gone, metal melting from bodies, bones readjusting under the skin, men and women experiencing the fullness of God - in love, power, and kindness. In all of that, my value is not in a spiritual resumé, but in my relationship with Him. In remembering and living in His closeness and kindness.

When I found no worth in living, He found me worth dying for. He gives me purpose. He gives me peace. He gives me worth. He is everything to me.