How I Lost My Life:my Testimony

I had a tough childhood. At age 2 my parents divorced, in what could only be considered an abusive and rocky marriage. My mother was an abusive parent,I endured what seemed like a never ending barrage of verbal abuse coupled with harsh beatings from belts, sticks, and extension cords. The abuse was so bad that by the time I was 13 I started having grand mal seizures due to the enormous stress of living in that household. The doctors were of course baffled and I endured a countless number of tests to determine the root cause of these seizures. Everything from CAT scans to spinal taps, which if you're not familiar with is a giant needle that is inserted directly into the spinal cord. Some of the tests were so painful that I don't even remember them, but I had family members tell me that during those tests they could hear me screaming in pain from all over the hospital. To add to this my mother decided at age 17 that she no longer wanted me in what she called "her house" and she threw me out, Not because I was a thug or because I was violent or disrespectful, to be honest I never really knew why she did it. It was a severely traumatic experience. One that left me with thoughts of suicide, and that's when I cried out to God for help. To make a very long story short God answered me in an undeniable way and my life changed dramatically from that point. I went from being suicidal to feeling every single burden that I carried from a little boy done away with in an instant. It was the only love I knew and it became the model of love for me. When you truly love someone you carry and relieve their burdens. God did that for me and all I wanted to do from that moment on was do it for everyone I came into contact with. Still, I had made a secret pact with myself, I was done with suffering. I simply didn't want to do it anymore.

Like me, my wife had suffered greatly as a child, more than most with her own story to tell about her life, much of which she still struggled with. Ironically, my wife had an interesting approach to dealing with her problems, whenever she was being forced or obligated to do something she did not want to do she would say to me, "C'mon and suffer with me" when I refused she was always hurt by it. As a child, she would tell stories of being abused by her father who would often beat her and her siblings when he could not uncover the culprit of the crime. The beatings became so frequent that she started confessing just to protect her brothers and sisters, and no she was not the oldest. Our marriage started out tough, neither of us was ready for the trials that seemed to come right as we were getting settled. First my father dies, then while I'm still mourning, I lose my job, to make things worse my grandfather dies the following year. If my wife needed me, I couldn't tell, I was too consumed by my own grief.

The real problem was that I was angry with God for making me suffer again. I took that anger out on my wife more than once and she took the anger of me not being there out on me. Frankly, she was better at it than me to be honest. We separated and I finally surrendered. I had hidden myself from the Lord. I had been running and hiding from Him because I knew that He wanted me to suffer for Him. As a child I suffered in darkness, meaning I screamed and no one came. I begged and there was no mercy. God was the only being in the universe who had ever answered me, came when I called. Now, He was asking me to suffer but this time FOR him. With the threat of losing my wife, I finally saw what God was doing for me. The Lord was teaching me about His love. God gave me a wife that uniquely only felt truly loved when she was with someone who was willing to do what she had done, suffer for the sake of others. God taught me that my suffering was never in vain, because without it I would never know what it felt like to "take his yoke upon me" I can say, his yoke IS easy and His burden IS light!

I spoke these words to my wife last night. I told her that I loved her and that I would do anything for her. I told her that I understood that what she wanted from me was to see me suffer for her willingly and while I suffered for her many times I never did it willingly. I understood Ephesians 5:25 clearly for the first time.

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
-Ephesians 5:25

God blessed me with a wife that loves me like He loves me. The only way I could have her completely is when I willingly lost my life.

For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.
-Matthew 16:25

Created over 2 years ago