Jess Stevens
Growing up I went to church every Christmas Eve for the candle lit service and sometimes I could convince my parents to get out of bed and take me to Sunday morning service or take a break from their busy schedules to take me to Wednesday night youth group. Eventually, I gave up on becoming involved in a church because it wasn’t normal in my family. Throughout middle school and high school I found my place in a rough crowd of friends. I experienced many things someone my age or of any age should not be involved in. Senior year quickly approached and life was at an all time low. On Halloween night of my senior year my dad and I got into a pretty heated argument that resulted in my mom walking out on him and filing for divorce. To elaborate a little more, my dad has a violent past that came around again at this period of my life. He let his anger get out of control and was sentenced to 18 months in a state prison. The sentencing began May 5, 2009, about one month before my high school graduation. To put the situation into perspective, this also meant he missed my senior dance performance, my 18th birthday, and me leaving for my first year of college.
I used these as an excuse to spend my life going to parties and abusing substances to take away the pain I was feeling inside. In October 2009, my mom had been dating a guy for roughly 7 months and lead her to Christ in that amount of time. I began to notice a change in my mom but never really understood how she could be so content with her life considering how crappy her situation was. After a very long heart to heart conversation with my mom, I pledged to try going to church with her. Something must have clicked that day because I have gone every Sunday since. I decided that day that I wanted to give my life to Christ. But it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. I feel off track quite a few times. In January 2010, I attended Winter Jam. This concert was so moving and I had finally figured out exactly what it means to hand your life over to Jesus and accept him as savior. That night I fully pledged my life to him and can honestly say I have never made a better decision in my entire life.
Since that night God has been working in my life in so many ways. God brought me to build new relationships with other believers, he has given me the strength to fully forgive my dad and rebuild that relationship, God has provided me with many great resources to turn to when I am looking for an answer, he lead me to follow my heart and get a degree in design, he has inspired me to enter the mission field and assured me that with him as the center of my life I will not fail. My love for the Lord is continually growing and cannot put into words how excited I am to see how he uses me for the purpose he has given me life on Earth.
