My Testimony

Tonight at our meeting, I shared part of my testimony with the group. Each of us have been asked to share our testimonies to learn more about each other and to prepare for times in Argentina when we could have the opportunity to share it. Here it is:

Ever since I was a child, I have been very independent. My parents loved me and taught me about Jesus from a young age. I accepted Christ when I was 7 years old, but at that time, I did not know what it meant to be a Christian. I continued to live my life on my own because I didn’t truly think that I needed God – and life was good. I had my struggles, of course, but they were struggles that I could at least manage. One of my main struggles has been insecurity with my body. It began in middle school because I developed later than everyone else. That was also around the time that I took up figure skating, where being thin is the only way to get ahead. I did not obsess about my weight to the point of anorexia, but my weight had always been present in my mind. At school, I was the “shy girl” who always had crushes on the guys who never even knew. Then, I was very weak in my faith and in who I was as a person.

This started to change, however, when I found something I was very passionate in - making movies. I began making “real” movies – not just pointless featurettes – at the end of 8th grade. I quit skating and began a “film club” at my high school in my sophomore year which was the main turning point in my faith. At the beginning of the club, I ran it as I normally would – I was very organized and had developed good people skills, but I became extremely frustrated when all that I did was not enough to motivate the people that had joined the club. I felt like I had completely failed and that all the work I had put into the club had been for nothing because they did not care about the movies they were making as much as I was. That was what I needed, though, for God to teach me that I am nothing without Him. I had to give up control of film club and when I did, I truly had a peace that passed all understanding.

But giving up control to God was not that simple. Soon, it was time to apply to college, and I felt like I needed to know exactly what God wanted for my life. I was scared. I knew that He had it under control, but I still worried about the future and making a mess of my life by doing something that wasn’t what I was supposed to do. I found out about Asbury through the Highbridge Film Festival during my junior year, and I was invited to attend the festival and visit the college. When I was there, I met professors who had loved the movie I had entered, and I kept in touch with them through my senior year because I had loved the college when I visited.

The next year, I took standardized tests and my scores were good enough to get me in to college, but not good enough to afford it easily. This frustrated me because I knew that I was smart and had studied quite a bit for the tests, but it also helped me to depend on God instead of on myself to provide. I knew that Asbury was where I really wanted to go, and I thought that God wanted me there too, but after I was denied a scholarship that I was depending on, I had almost completely lost hope. I was extremely discouraged because it seemed like everything that I had worked for had been pointless. But God had a better plan in mind. While I was worrying about going to the state college that didn’t even have a film program, God was working through one of the professors who had met me the year before at the film festival to get a grant just for me. Just a few days after my birthday, my parents received the email and began to cry – God had again showed me that He would provide for me and that all I have to do is trust that He is faithful. The grant covered just enough for me to be able to go to Asbury where I am still learning and growing.