Born Christian, But Born Again Only When God Touched Her

I had church trauma.

It came from being forced to attend my family’s church.

“But what if I don’t want to go to church?” I had asked my parents on many occasions.

“If you don’t, everyone will ask where you are. Don’t put us through that,” my mother would say pleadingly. Irritating.

“Just tell them I’m not coming today. That’s it.” I'd try to put my foot down.

But then my father would speak in his stern voice. “Do you want to bring shame on the family? You will show up.” And it was final.

Any protest I made would always be squashed as long as I lived under my parents’ roof.

And this wasn't the only issue. Life with my parents was... Let's just say it was chaotic.

So one day, I packed up. I packed my life into three cheap suitcases I found online.

Thankfully, my best friend let me stay in her apartment for a small rental fee.

It was liberating, but it wasn't easy. I had graduated from university not too long ago, and the school had been calling me to pay my tuition fees. I had to cough up tens of thousands of dollars, when I was earning only a small fraction of that. And worse, now I had to buy own own items for the house and anything I needed. So I often didn't have any savings at the end of the month.

But as the bills kept piling up, it got bad: to the point a red envelope came in. That was when I got scared. How was I going to pay? If I got stuck in debt, I wouldn't be able to get out, and the interest would just keep increasing.

Then the next week, I received a phone call.

They said, "Juliet, this is your last grace. If you don't pay by today, midnight, you will have to go to court. This is beyond us already."

I had no words to say. If this happened, my guarantors, who were my father's connections, would have to get involved and the situation would get extremely ugly.

I remember pacing around my tiny rented room, so stressed. Then, suddenly like lightning, there was this message in my head.

"ASK ME."

I fell to my bed, shocked. Then I scrambled to my knees and said this.

"No one is hearing this... But You asked me to ask. So I'm going to ask, Lord. I'm going to leave this to You and trust you to solve it. Because I have no one else to ask, nowhere to go. I'm going to leave it with you and I won't worry about it."

And so I went about my day after that. Whenever the worry came, I would talk to God and pray till my heart felt assured. At one point, I prayed for hours until the sun set.

Then the minute I finished my last prayer, the doorbell rang. It was my boyfriend, Ben. I had been with him for only a year.

"Hey, you sounded quite disturbed this morning. What happened?" he asked, as he passed me our dinner.

"Wow, you normally don't remember these sorts of things. Well... It's my school debts."

"How much is it?" he asked.

I told him.

"Don't worry about it," he said. "I'll sort it out."

I gaped. I didn't think he was even able to help. "How?" I sputtered. "You have your own financial struggles, too. You can't afford it."

But he just smiled. "It's okay. I'll have it sorted."

That night, once Ben and I sorted the transaction, I just went to bed and fell there, crying to God in thanks.

"God, you made this happen," I murmured.

There was no way Ben could afford it. And even if he could, what boyfriend who's been with someone for only one year, would offer to pay tens of thousands of dollars?

"You moved his heart, I think. Thank you for saving me," I said aloud.

I had never been the kind of person to be so moved by God before. I never understood why people would fall to the ground, saying they were knocked by the spirit, or why they would start sobbing during worship like something terrible happened.

But here I was, crying my eyes out, knowing that God had touched me. God had saved me.

How funny. I had lived the first twenty or so years of my life knowing that He was there, but never really having a personal relationship with Him.

But since this incident, everything in my life shifted on a spiritual level. And I'm happy to say that this spiritual journey continued shaping my life in dramatic ways.

Now, there’s no more church trauma or unnecessary drama. I just look forward to connecting with God on a real level.

This is an anonymous testimony. Names and details have been changed to protect identities.