Brandy

    I was raised in a home that didn’t know the Lord. I went to a Catholic Church sometimes with my grandmother, but I always thought about God as being something far away. If He was real, I thought He was way too big to be concerned with me. My parents were caught in a life of addiction, hurts, and everything else that goes along with that life style. Being in this type of environment never gave me a sense of security and safety. I never felt loved or accepted, and I became very hard and angry. By age twelve I was bound in an addiction to self-harm drugs, and lust I became sexually promiscuous just trying to fill the hole in my heart and find satisfaction. The only comfort and safety I found was in the walls I put up that kept me caged inside left alone. The lies of Satan defined who I was and what I did. My mother and I started going to a Christian Church, and I began to feel the presence of God for the first time. In His presence, I started to experience a pure love that I always craved. I went to Mercy Ministries in 2009 and received a revelation of God’s love and mercy, but no matter how hard I tried to do good and be a godly women I fell short. So I believed the lie again that God couldn’t love someone like me, and I went back to all my old comforts, I was bound in my sins and I drank of all those polluted fountains until I was almost to the point of death (John 4:13-14) Jesus answered and said to her , “whoever drinks from the fountains of this world will thirst again. But whoever drinks of the water that I give shall never thirst again. But the water that I shall give him become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” I was at my bottom, and I knew that there was nothing I could do to clean up the mess I made. In my desperation I cried out to God and He heard my cry. When I arrived at Mary’s Song I was very angry at God because I felt like He failed me and didn’t want me because of all the bad stuff I did, but He began to soften my heart with His unconditional agape love. (Ezekial 11:19-20) Then, I will give them one new heart, and I will put a new spirit within them, and take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my walk in the statutes and keep my judgments and do them; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God. He told me that He loved me because I’m His daughter, and He chose me before the foundations of the earth. He showed me that all have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God, but it is by His grace through Christ’s blood being shed on the cross. So I don’t have to live in condemnation and judgment anymore. He began to replace all the lies of Satan, and He replaced them with His truth. Isaiah 62 for Zion’s sake I will not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem’s save I will not rest, until her righteousness goes forth like the dawn, and her salvation as a lamp that burns. The gentiles shall see your righteousness, and the kings your glory. You shall be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord will name. You shall also be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. You shall no longer be termed forsaken, nor shall your land any more be termed desolate; But you shall be called Hephzibah, and your land Beulah; For the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married. For as a young man marries a virgin, so shall your sons marry you; and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you. He went to the deep places in my soul that were wounded and healed me. I am now set free from the law of sin and death. Even when I turned my back on Him in my shame, He never left me. When I was faithless, He was still faithful. His grace kept me through it all and changed my hearts desires to yield my will to Him and answer the call.  (Matthew 10:38-39) And he who does not take up his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it (Psalm 37:4) Delight yourself in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart. My delight is now being found in His beauty. I have finally found where I belong and what I was created for. His love and His glory! Like many was forgiven much and loved much, I want to waste my life on Him and be a light to women and children bound in shame and confusion. I’m so excited to start Bethesda Bible College and be a part of what God is doing at Mary’s Song Drug and Alcohol Rehab New Orleans and Victory Fellowship.