Hope Shack

This is Savannah’s story, shared below and written in her own words.  With a load of transparency, she writes of her struggle to make it on her own and how she finally found Hope in surrender.  I’ll let her fill in the rest.  If you are feeling overwhelmed with odds stacked against you, and are finding it difficult to trust in something you can’t see, then I hope you are as encouraged by this story as I was.  You are not alone. 

Read on…

Shared from the original source: Chasing the City Lights

My Testimony by Savannah Rae Ross

I feel like honesty is the best policy, so here’s the truth, walking with Christ isn’t easy, it’s not pretty, & you are going to fail on your side of the relationship more than once. But wait, there’s more truth to that. You see, no matter how many times you fall off, no matter how much wrong you do, He never lets go of your hand. You never are alone once you begin your walk with God.

Let me back track a little, because I didn’t learn this the easy way.

January 2016. Tucker, my boyfriend of three years, and I decide that we need to take a break. We were both growing in separate ways and we just needed a minute. Tucker grew closer to God during this time, me on the other hand, I fell and I fell hard. I began hanging out with the wrong crowd, making the wrong decisions, & living a life that I honestly had no clue where it was going. I stopped reading my bible, I stopped going to church, I even stopped praying.

But let me tell you one thing, God never stopped showing me that he was still there holding my hand.

A few months later, I almost lost my Papa and my Nana in a small amount of time. It was hard. I wasn’t believing in God anymore, I felt as if he was using my mistakes against me to hurt my family. I was angry. But you know what this emotion blocked for me? The fact that through this, God was showing me that he was still there and that he is still a mighty God. I failed to see how my Papa made it through heart surgery with minimal chances, I failed to see how God brought my family back together, I failed to see all this because I was too blinded by my selfish anger.

Flash forward another couple months, God shows me yet again that he is with me.

God sends me Tucker. Yes, this sounds cheesy I know. But let me tell you something, when God sends you someone that honestly prays for you and not just your physical being but your spiritual being, that’s something rare.  Having a man pray for you is the deepest form of love and if he doesn’t pray for you, he isn’t the one God has meant to be yours. And God sending Tucker back to me should have been my biggest sign that God still loved me and believed in me. But, despite God sending Tucker back into my life, I still had anger towards God. I still held all of my trials and hard times against God thinking that they were his fault.

For the next month of my life I decided that I was going to get myself back on track. I decided that I was going to get myself in a position where I could move to Raleigh with Tucker. I decided that I was going to work doubles five days a week and night shifts the other two nights so that I could support myself. I decided that I was going to do everything by myself. What I learned is that without God, it doesn’t matter what you do, how hard you work, and how good you think you’re doing IT’S NOT GOING TO WORK.

After moving into our apartment in Raleigh, thinking still I had done good for myself and did it all alone, I began to boast about how good I had done, what I had done by myself, and how I would continue to do this alone. Once I came home from Raleigh, the money I had saved up all summer wasn’t there anymore due to bills, Tucker and I began to argue, my parents and I were not on good terms, and nothing was going my way and I couldn’t understand why.

Until the night that God decided he was tired of me not realizing how present he was in my life and decided that I needed a “come-to-Jesus” meeting.

Leaving work one night around 10 pm I was headed up to Tucker’s because we were arguing, I was stressed, I had no money, and a quarter tank of gas. I was moving to Raleigh for good in two weeks. On my ride up the mountain, it began to down pour, raining so hard I couldn’t see. I began to think to myself “This is just my luck. It rain this late and I’m already having a terrible night, of course.” Then something in me said to pull over. Remind you I am on I26. But, for some reason, I did. I pulled over right before the Green River Bridge and I began to cry. I had no idea why but I did. I turned my radio up thinking it would help me, and 106.9 The Light was on. I had never listened to this station before in my car. That is when I realized, I wasn’t alone.

That’s when I realized that I had to give it all to God. Sitting on the side of I26 with tears rolling down my face, music blasting, I gave it to God. Everything. I began to thank him for everything. For giving me more time with my Grandparents, for loving me despite my actions, for giving me a man that loves me the way everyone deserves to be loved. I thank him for my job, my apartment, my parents, my siblings, everything and anything I could think of. I began to apologize for my anger and I asked God to take it from me. I asked him to help me walk beside of him instead of in front or behind.

This was a week ago. In one week, I have never seen God more present in my life.

I have become happier. I have felt complete. I began making twice as much money at work. My relationship with Tucker and my parents is so much stronger. I began deleting all negative influences from my life. I’ve change the way I talk, the way I treat people, and the way I react to things. I’ve been saved since I was 8 years old, but that night on the side of I26 God took me from a place that was going no where but down and showed me that he had never left me.

This blog isn’t going to be a “whoa is me” blog. It isn’t going to be boastful or selfish.This is a blog to brag on Jesus. To show different adventures and places that He will walk through with you. Tonight, I started this blog because as I was saying  my prayers God told me to tell my story. So here I am, post rock bottom, thanking God for the rain and for never letting go of my hand.

Deuteronomy 31:6 “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”

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He will fight for you.