My journey so far...

When I was born in Auckland, New Zealand, I was raised in the church, I went every Sunday. I had freinds there and my family wanted me there. It was part of my life. I always understood there was a God and he was the only God there. I didn't know where he came from and I didn't understand why he wanted to be with people on the Earth, and I didn't understand how God could have a personal relationship with us becasue I was young and didn' t think I had a personal relationship with God yet. I knew that God sent his son Jesus to the Earth and Jesus died on the cross for our sins. But I had no idea what that meant. I never dug any deeper. I just went with the flow because that's what everyone around me was doing and what my entire family was doing. Being in the church was as easy as breathing, because I had never seen the real world. That's how it naturally went my whole life.

Then we moved to Miami, Florida. The church there held nothing for me. I had no interest in anything they would talk about, and the sunday school didn't teach you something easy to understand on a level that would capture my interest. It was boring. The school I went to was cruel and mean and people rejected me and I felt alone. I was an outcast there. It made it hard to fit in again with other kids. It made it even harder when going back into a public school system.

So, we moved to Lewiston, Maine. I thought it would be different, but I didn't expect to see so much change happen in my life. I wasn't prepared for the blast of differences. I was scared no one would like me for who I was: boring, not as smart, not as understanding with faith and shy. So I did what I did best: I lied. The Christian School I began to go to was just a drama trap. i'd never witnessed so much drama and stress in my life. Most of the drama revolved around me, and was unfortunatly created by me. All my new freinds called me a drama queen, but I knew that wasn't a good thing.

I lied at any open chance I could get until it became a second nature to me that, in the future, would pay a great price and teach me a lot of lessons. I thought maybe people would like me better if I brought fantasy, my imagination and fake life into reality. It didn't help me much. At first people believed and I had freinds. Then the lies got thicker and harder to cover up, people began to slip through the cracks and I lost freinds one by one. The first year was the worst and I never want to go through that again. That was sixth grade.

Seventh grade wasn't much better. In eighth grade drama died down a bit more, and we finally all started to grow up. But I still hadn't stopped lying. Once you start something, it's like a drug: you get addicted. I found myself struggling against the lies- I wanted so badly to tell the truth but something was pinning me down. I began the fight through my most recent dark ages.

There was deception, hiding things from my parents, watching horror movies and getting involved with things that would seemily be really harmless, like Harry Potter, and the Twilight Series, but I was actually slowly riping a hole open inside myself to allow those dangerous things inside me. I struggled with keeping my thoughts pure and I was altogether a very messed up person. But even though I kept going to church every Sunday and youth group and rarely turned down prayer, I never feelt the Holy Spirit and I could never get rid of those evil problems.

I started to see the problems as a barrier and a wall that was trying to block me from getting to God. I figured it was time to those walls to come down and the barrior burned. I got more specific prayer and asked for more prayer but I still never really felt free from it. Sunday nights became the only nights I'd ever feel anything from the Lord.

When they announced they were going to a summer internship program for teenagers who wanted to be youth leaders in 2009, I jumped at the oppertunity. It sounded like something I could committ to and it sounded like something that could be good for me. I was right. If I hadn't signed up for that I wouldn't have been able to go to Project Timothy in Pennsylvania that August, the camp that changed my way of life. At that camp, I felt freer than I'd ever felt. I still have moments where I stuggle with little things but without those, I wouldn't be human.

At that camp I had an encounter with the Holy Spirit. I had time to think about things that were happening in my life and I had a chance to think about how I wanted those things to change. I thought of ways to get rid of all the big problems that were haunting me more durastically. When I got home, I got rid of all the acculting evil things I had lying around, and I stopped myself from hanging out with some of the wrong people, with the help of my mum for some of the freindships that were a little harder to get out of. It took effort with some little bumps along the way, but I did it, and now God's there beside me throughout everything I do.

We are all faced with a choice. To follow God and to let that light fill your path, or to continue walking in darkness unsure of where path's may lead. Life is filled with choices and we make them on a daily basis. Some won't be the best choices, but your no doubt going to take the wrong road in life and every wrong choice we make, every mistake, happens for a reason. Without choices and messing up we wouldn't go far and we wouldn't learn much.

I was struggling majorly, and I kept it bottled up. I was really deep inside this hole I dug for myself unconciously. I didn't know what to do about it and I honestly still don't know completely how to get out of some situations. But I know that God's really been stepping in lately and working in that area of my life.

After praying a lot with leaders at my youth group and figuring out some things I started to see more and more clearer. When me and my sister had to change from the private school system into the public it was hard for me to grasp. The community and the people around the church were like family and I hate change. I naturally freaked out. I don't know why I'd go to LHS or how I'd survive there but I had no choice and I felt strangely called to the school.

I got prayer for my anxiety and realized God needed me there. A heart for God, a light in that dark place, was exactly what God wanted me there for.

I got it prophisized at an event in Feburary last year that I was to be a 'light in the dark places' and it came up a few times again in the more recent future. Now I understand what that was all about and I keep the verse Psalm 119:105 with me as I make my way into the public school system at LHS.