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My story on how I became a Christian is found here. But I have promised my friends (family) that I will tell them what's happened over the past couple months while my activity was little...very little. To do this, I'm have to bare myself, strip down to my very nakedness as I tell my story.


As I had said in my story, I grew up without my father. This is more detrimental than it actually sounds. You see, a girl growing up needs reassurance and love from her father (let this be a note to the males who are future fathers within sight of this text). If it's not there... she will grow up with a void within her heart for that sort of love and assurance. It's something a mother cannot give, sadly. This had opened up the way for a huge stronghold... one which lasted for over 17 years in my life (and I am 17 btw) to be built up. It was one I was enslaved in, allowed lies to fortify themselves within my mind. It was one of rejection, which I grew up believe in and dwelling in. And to be honest... it was just the beginning. It only ended up getting worse from there.

At around 6 years old, my mother had married my first step-father. "Now I will have a daddy," I thought. That was actually the very reason my mother had married, because her daughter was looking for a daddy. But she basically ended up marrying the first person who came along who seemed to fit the credentials. How well that worked... the man hated me... and I didn't like him too much either. When my mother wasn't around, he'd insult me, bring me down, accuse me...etc. And on top of that... it was around that time when my father tried coming into my life again. At least he claimed to be trying. And I prefered my step-father to him, no matter how much I disliked the man. My father was one who would go missing for months... even years at a time. The rejection within me built.

Then there was school... another story entirely. Even at school I was rejected.. called names, persecuted. The only thing they couldn't do (properly at least) was beat me up... because from then I kicked butt and ensured that people feared me so that I wouldn't be bothered by them.. not as much at least. It made my life hell. And to be honest, it didn't help my view of myself that I was a mistake (which I had grown up in). I was a mistake... that was it.

My mother would complain about me over and over... yes. I was a mistake. Why was I even alive?

I went into highschool and the teasings, mistreatments...etc only grew worse. My self-confidence had suffered a real blow during those years of my life. It was impossible for me to view myself as...anything good, really, except smart.. but that was about it. And can I tell you, that I was a Christian during those years.

I began to suffer from depression. I hated myself. The thought of killing myself came into my mind many times. I figured that I was a mistake, so what was the point of me being there. What stopped me all those times? I loved my family... and the friends I had there. And every time I was picking up that knife, a Voice told me to put it back down. It wasn't fear... if it's one thing I don't fear... it's death. Even moreso, now. My fears now lie in not fulfilling my purpose before I die and stand before God. But then... what purpose could I have? I didn't have one. Mistakes didn't come with purposes.

I searched on in life... knowing there was some void which needed to be filled. Some part of me was empty.

So life went on... there was my first 'love'. Heh. We weren't ever together by the way. He used me like a yoyo. He knew my feelings for him, that I'd do just about anything for him. And honestly... he treated me like crap... He brought me down even more on top of my mother, the people at school and my father. Rejection built within me.

Then there was the guy I liked after loving the first guy for 2 years. So... we weren't together either, but he'd hold my hand and tell me how wonderful I was. Could he love me one day maybe? I'd think about all the words he said... till he made out with another girl in front of me. Can we say 'ouch'? Wanna know something funny though? He was guy number one's cousin... Go figure.

So anyway... after that was guy number three. He was cool... rocker dude. Liked him... almost kissed him on a dare (which would have been my first by the way). Then when I confessed my feelings for him in an e-mail and saw that I was 'not his type'.... Ooooo rejected once again.

Nobody would love me. I wasn't anything worth loving, or any sort of care, or concern from anyone. People only saw what was wrong with me and so did I. All I wanted was love and I was determined to get it somehow.

I also was close to 'cutting'. Why did I want to? Because I was a mistake...and every mistake I made I deserved to be punished for. What stopped me then? My friend was cutting and I wanted her to stop, and something said "How can you tell her to stop what you are about to do?"

Then a guy came along. Broken-spirit...humbled... maybe he would love me? So anyway... I fell for this guy very quickly...and the feelings we returned. Yay me! So anyway, we were together. I had my first kiss with him. About during the 4th month, I revealed my hidden secret which was a case of... severe sexual harassment, we'll say. He because disgusted with me at that point...and it only grew from then. It started small, almost un-noticeable. What he hated even more was the fact that I had dared to forgive the person, accepted that he had changed and sought some sort of friendship. It was a little later from then, like a week or two, that I was led down a path to need... yearn love... in whatever form I got it. I would do anything for this guy for him to love me. Heh... when I say anything, I mean anything. I had managed to justify what was about to begin and continued to justify it during till the point that my conscious had becomed hardened to it because he loved me. That's where the sexual stuff started. 'Little' things at first which grew...and grew... as months went by.

Around the 9th to 10th month or so of our relationship I began to notice that my bf was paying alot of attention to his lab partner. Attention that would usually be given to me. He went on for months that nothing was wrong... nothing was happening. Yet we were fighting more and more. My feelings were being hurt more and more. And his idoled Adriana Lima became one of my two worst enemies because I was continually reminded how much like her I was not. I lost more and more of myself during this relationship by the way. Down to my very chewing of gum I had stopped because it displeased him. I was enslaved by him... or rather my need to be loved somehow. I'd grow my hair, change my diet, not speak to anyone else, wait on you after your classes (even when it was completely out of the way), dress how you wanted me to dress, speak how you wanted me to speak, act how you wanted me to act to get you to love me. I had lost God at that point in my life... well not lost... but I had grown so apart from Him and yet He had continued to protect me, but I didn't realize that.

So... a couple of weeks prior and during my bf's exams (which would end right before mine began), the lab partner fortified herself within my mind. Memories of how he backed away when I was going to kiss him before he went to class and she was behind him, of how he brought her to his home when he thought I wasn't going to be there, of how all the time he was spending with me he was on the phone with her, or how on his birthday he went out to lunch with her when I didn't even get to see him. And on top of that... the last day of his exams which I had waited for, he tells me he's going back home (out of the country) the next day, after he promised me from January that he was going to stay with me during my exams. The fight lasted right up to my first exam and he'd make me feel guilty...etc that he was staying and suffering all because of ME (and still talking with his lab partner... but we won't get into that).

So anyway... he ended up leaving the week before my last exam. It was at that point I couldn't bare how I distanced myself from God. There was such a longing within me. I began to draw myself closer to Him. Even when my bf wasn't speaking to me during the entire week, I decided to draw closer to God. At the end of the first week, or rather beginning of the next (the Sunday), he...well... broke up with me. And I telling you that God's the only reason I didn't kill myself right there. I was numb... for days. Crying out to God. Ended up not studying at all for my last exam...Who could read at that point? Really.

Anyway... on the Wednesday... right AFTER my last exam.. he took me back saying that he made a mistake. The enslavement didn't end though. For another week, everything was beautiful. Then I made a joke... he got upset with me... made my life miserable... and went to speak with his lab partner. After a couple of days I plainly asked if he was interesting in his lab partner and he said 'yes', so I asked him why doesn't he just leave me and go to her. It was less out of anger and more out of love than it sounds. And for two hours he pushed it down my throat how I wanted us to break up...etc. It wasn't true. It was killing me. But I loved him enough to give him up to be completely happy since he was always telling me how much he didn't like me, how unhappy I made him...and also how f*cked up I was. Despite all... I still loved him and the relationship ended there for what became the last time, despite that he had promised that it wasn't final till the end of the summer.

I began to draw closer to God and renew myself within Him. I asked Him to heal me, and He did in time. Then I started working at tjp (the Joseph Project), a day camp up at my church. It was heaven... and I was beginning to be myself for the very first time in my life. It was there I learned how much I was indeed loved by God and also learned what real love felt like from someone.

To this person I bared everything and told him of my ex...etc. I expected him to detach himself from me, disgusted with me as much as I was with myself... and he...didn't. He looked at me and said that if God doesn't see my wrongs anymore, why should he or I? He went on to tell me how beautiful he found me, inside and out. (Was hard to believe at first after my ex drilled it into my mind how beautiful I was not).

This was only the beginning of a series of changes that were about to take place within me. He and other friends convinced me to go to camp with them and I did. That turned out to be the most...memorable and intense few days of my life.

A man stood at the pulpit before us and bared his life before us and I felt like he was speaking right to me. He was rejected and searched for love in all the wrong places. I unloaded alot of anger and unforgiveness that week for everyone who had hurt me before. Everyday I felt like I was losing at least 10 pounds. Everyday it was a new miracle. My void had become filled with God's love for me. I was healed, a completely new creation.

I remember the first night session when he told his story. He spoke on strongholds, particularly on rejection and its power to bind you and enforce lies within you. I sat on the edge of my seat, wishing I could be near my best friends, but they were seated away from me because we were in separate houses. I had eventually moved up to the front to sit beside my bf and other best friend. I had gottent he opportunity to confront every male in my life who had hurt me as I ran up to the altar to Uncle Che (counselor and former director) and grasped onto him for dear life telling him everything I would say to my father and the other men in my life. I shook in his arms as I cried out. I was hardly drowned out by the other cries in the room, alot of us were bound by this. Alot of us wanted freedom from it more than life itself. Alot of us were unable to really love ourselves up to that point. At the end of it, I was exhausted and held by my friends while I recovered from the more than emotional, spiritual, experience. I walked out of the 'chapel' lighter and more free than I had walked in.

Another session, they spoke about unforgiveness, the following morning I believe. Ooooo. I can tell you alot about unforgiveness... My mother was down on my back right there at camp that it was UNBEARABLE. But I made sure I dealt with it. At that moment, I lost 8 pounds as I prayed with one of the counselors who also advised me how not to fall prey to it again.

That night, was another experience on its own. We were given the assignment right there to make a list of all the things about us we wanted to get rid of:

arrow Fear
arrow Sexual immorality (developed because of my past relationship)
arrow Disobedience
arrow Worry
arrow Low self-confidence.

And on the other side write what we wanted God to give us instead.

arrow A heart of compassion
arrow Be a woman of faith
arrow Be a woman whose heart longs after God
arrow Purity and innocence
arrow To stand in the authority I ought to
arrow To be used by God

Then we approached the altar where we presented the lists in faith. At that moment I found myself weak and in tears, crying out to God uncontrollably. I also felt a powerful anointing cover me at that time and I ended up speaking in a new tongue for the first time in YEARS. I had to be begging God to support me lest I fall on the person behind me. At that moment, I felt arms support me. When I had fallen, it was to my knees where I bowed, my face on the floor, before my God whose presence was more than strong within the room.

The following morning, something else happened. I had simply moved to stand with my friend who was one of the counselors. I began to weep bitterly once more and crumbled to my knees where I bowed before God once more, the only English I was able to speak was "Jesus", everything else which came out was in a tongue I didn't understand. I was literally screaming at that point. Even as the room fell silent, nothing hindered me.

That day, we were all anointed and prophecied over and I spent much of the time comforting friends and acquaintances who were overwhelmed.

On the second to last day, God prompted us to separate (my bf and I) though He had joined us together in the first place, because He needed to use each of us in a way that we were focused on Him. We were told separately, actually, so on the last day of camp, we separated.

Was it painful? Yes. But it was more than bearable. The guy is still one of my BESTEST friends. Do I still love him? Yes. Does he? Romantically... I don't know, but I don't worry because if we're to be together again we will be.

I was also re-anointed and overflowed with the Holy Spirit and began to walk the way I ought to walk - in God's authority and with God's authority. Everything about me changed. I was confident, honest, passionate, compassionate (or more so, because I became a compassionate person a li'l while back) and with a new fire and desire that I burn with now.

I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
I am the daughter of THE King.
I am blessed and highly favoured.
I am a World Changer!

I am Destined for Greatness.

--Asha


(This will be updated with details of the camp later on as well as other resolutions for some of the things mentioned.)

Asha, sis, friend, sweetie ..... I am in tears right now. I love you and I know Jesus loves you and is already beginning an AWESOME future and ministry for you.

He does love you .... He's always loved you .... and He always will. What a freeing moment to realize that the very God of all creation loves you .... as if you were His only child ..... you ARE the apple of His eye!!! His thoughts number the thousands ever day for you .... and you are a Princess of the Royal House of Jesus Christ - the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the God of all who created us and knows what He has planned for us.

Thank you for your honesty, sincerity and transparence. We ALL screw up - how awesome is it that Jesus picks us up, brushes us off, and then uses the actually screw-up to set free others.

Sis, Asha .... you ROCK!!!! heart heart heart

Wow, Asha. Your story brought tears to my eyes in many ways. I'm so glad everything has worked out for you. You needn't worry about baring yourself before us; we love you. We're all here to support you in any way we can. heart

your story is amazing,you know in a way it was kind of good you went through all that(im not meaning that in a bad way i can understand were your comeing from) It brought you closer to god,im very happy for you.god bless. biggrin