yup. Anonymous because yes

2020 came like a thief in the night. No one saw it coming.
Everyone thought and hoped that it would be over, or get better.
Newsflash: It didn’t, or at least hasn’t yet.
For me, the time that has been given to me this year I have put to use. Tonight, I have decided to write my story.
I’ve lived in this house for as long as I can remember. Mommy said I was two and a half when we moved here. All I remember is that this was the house that had a playground in the backyard and that the other one we looked at wasn’t quite finished yet. This has been my home for about 14 years. Everything has happened in it.
I was a big sister not long after we started going to church. I remember three things about this church. 1) It was big. 2) I didn’t really understand why the lights were dimmed during the service, so the darkness and the big screens scared me. 3) There were lots of kids in the nursery, and I only went once.

We changed churches the next year. I didn’t know this at the time, but my Papa had given my parents a list of good churches that he knew of in our area for my parents to use to decide where to go to church. We were pretty far from family.
I met one of my best and closest friends at The Dwelling Place. During worship when we first went there, my mom whispered to me and pointed out this one girl, her mom holding a baby just like mine. “Her name is Seraphine,” my mom said. Shellaphine. I thought. What a pretty name.
By the time church was over, I knew I had made wonderful friends. I had skipped down the hallway when it was time to go to Sunday School. Seraphine, I discovered her name was, jogged next to me and satiated her name and age. She was four at the time. Grant, a little boy, ran to catch up to us. He told me that he was five. I was three at the time and was so happy to get to know other kids and go to church.
We were close three for the next four years. We had adventures all throughout the church, under the stage(even though we weren’t supposed to go there), and at each other’s houses. Grant’s older sisters played with us, and Seraphine and I got more younger siblings.
I remember seeing Grant’s older sisters in different plays, they used to call me princess and I loved that. Grant’s older brother once held a crawling contest between me and Luke, who was 2 at the time. I recall that I was the clear victor, but Andrew convinced me to let my brother believe he was.

Throughout those years, we visited my grandparents in New York and some of my cousins visited my house. I remember one instance where my Grandma visited me, and sang these songs about David beating Goliath, and Joshua causing the wall to fall down. When she told me that it wasn’t the boys who did that but God, I was amazed. I gave my heart to Jesus that day, with my Grandma leading me through the prayer.
At the church, I used to go up onto the stage and sing a song I made up, called “Jesus on a Hill”. After the service, until they turned the microphones off, I would glorify God. My little four-year-old self did this.
Then came the year that the Harisses moved away. The Otts moved to a different church soon after. I was a bit torn. I had just begun school, had fallen madly in love with a boy named Christian, and he, too, had moved away as well. I began to believe that I was losing everyone. Seraphine wasn’t moving away, but we didn’t go to the same church anymore and I was sad.
Seraphine, Hosanna(her younger sister) and I had had one big fight. I called her all of the mean names I could think of (which back then I thought was impressive but really did not amount to much) and she cried. That was the end of that, and we became friends again soon after. I had had enough confidence to do that, even though it was really rotten of me.
Then, as school got worse and I was shunned by most girls and bullied by some boys, we changed churches once more. Poor time to do so, since I was lacking confidence more and more. I didn’t know, but this was the next church on the list. All I knew was that is was the church Seraphine’s family moved to.
This church reminded me a bit of the scary church of the years before. The first few times they dismissed the children to children’s church, I refused. I was terrified to go, and I worried of what the other kid’s would think of me.

But, I thought of Seraphine’s presence in the church. And so I resolved to go.
It was a great decision. Aunt Marilynn was very sweet, kind, and gentle, and she explained the Bible stories very well. As she taught them to us, I was reminded how much I loved Jesus and I began to make some new friends. Awanas on Wednesday night helped with this. They were so fun, and I loved doing different challenges to get points.
To get points. I realize now that my faith was still dependent on others at that point. It was not yet my own decision. VBS helped a bit with that, but between school and my poor faith I was trapped and I got very worried over what other kids thought of me and that became my priority.
The more people who put me down or judged me at my school the more self-doubt I had. That is why I was never truly myself when I changed schools. I thought it would be the same as my old school. It wouldn’t have been if I had just accepted the fact that people did want to be my friend and love me for me, not the mask I put on. But the mask stayed on.
The year I changed schools, around third grade, I got a new baby sister, one whom I’d been praying for since I was four years old. I love Joy. Then, in fourth grade, my family went on a trip to New York.
I loved it there. My grandparents were there, my aunt and uncle, too. We saw everything one could see at Christmas time, it seemed to me. I could keep talking about what New York was like for a 4th-grade-girl, but I’ll spare you. Because my classmates did not want to hear it. They got tired of me describing my trip. I must have bragged too much, or done something against them because from then on, if anything was mentioned of New York City they would try to evade the topic the best they could.
A new boy in the church didn’t help with this. He liked me that year, and I liked him back. We never really did anything, but I tried to change myself so he would like me more. It ended in a few years, but it just drew me further and further away from my freedom and the truth.
In fifth grade I got a part in the school play, and I fell in love with acting, Reading and writing had and always will be a huge part of my life but this was a new animal entirely. One I wanted to do so badly.

Acting became something I saw as another potential career, and I could not wait to do more of it. But under the surface, where it really mattered, I was deteriorating fast. My relationship with Jesus was not going very far.
In sixth grade, it was not really there. Sure, I believed in Him, I said and did all the “right things”. But at school, I didn’t really live like it. I made a video that year, though, that I wrote and directed and it was sensational throughout the school. Another career wormed it’s way into my heart.
Then seventh grade came. It was time for me to move on from Awanas and into Youth Group. This was my best year until this one. I began to be set free from my self-imposed cage and my relationship issues with Jesus. My faith began to grow and it was now my own.
The superficial things grew as well. I actually accepted friends who loved me for who I was, not who I acted as. I felt as free as I did as when I was 3 and singing “Jesus on a Hill”.
8th grade came. I slipped a bit, started to worry about others’ opinions. I worried about people getting offended. I did everything in my power to appease them.
Freshman year. My relationship with Jesus had gained some ground over the summer, and I believed myself to be ready for high school. Except I wasn’t. I did everything in pride and I believed myself to be enough on my own. Mrs. Heckler retired after being my youth leader since 7th grade, and during second semester, I did something I’d never in a million years imagined I would ever do. I dated a guy behind my parents back relationship that was false in every way, built upon lies and deceit.
But I learned from it. When it came to light that summer, I repented. Not at first, and it was a long and rocky road to gain my parents’ trust back. But I learned very important lessons, lessons that brought me closer to God. Jesus seemed closer to me than He had ever seemed to me before.
Sophomore year. I was nervous to face this guy, but I was ready to shine my light for Jesus. It was a bit of a rough start. I stood my ground despite that. The gut embarrassed me a few times, and I slipped up a bit. But God showed me His perfect mercy and faithfulness to forgive time and time again. He let me see Hamilton with my friend, He made that was to show Himself to me, that He loved me enough to let me have something that seemed unattainable to me.

Seraphine is to this day my best and closest friend other than my mom and God. My mom was always there whenever I came home from school in tears, every night I woke up screaming. She was there when everything came to light. She was right there and she helped me. Her faith is no longer mine, I am proud to say. Jesus is Who I depend on.
Then 2020 began.
Auditions for a play I had been waiting for since the beginning of my sophomore year. Narnia. I auditioned and I had every confidence that God was with me and I had used the gift that He had given me to the best of my abilities. And I did! I got the lead in The Magician’s Nephew, Polly Plumer. I was so thrilled.
After getting the role, I remember sitting down at a lunch table. A few of my friends were talking about this ‘coronavirus’ that was taking over China. Some disease in China wouldn’t stop me from having the time of my life during the rehearsals, though.
Then the play ended up being canceled after all.
I was so angry. I never got to perform the play I had been longing to perform. I never got to do the other fun things at the end of the year, like go to six flags, or see my senior friends one last time.
But God. He has been teaching me even more important lessons throughout this quarantine. And I do believe, now, I am free. I am free from the cage I put myself in all those years ago when kids first started being mean. People’s opinions don’t matter that much to me anymore. And God has revealed more and more of my identity in Him to me the more and more freedom I’ve accepted. He has blessed me with confidence in my identity, which I have in Him alone, not myself.

The world needs to hear my testimony right now, for it is what they need. It is what you, and every individual needs. A change of heart. That is, in the bare bones what this is.
The world needs to wake up. We’ve been asleep for so long, just like my faith was asleep and not my own for so much of my life.
The world has been shaken awake, but they have fallen back asleep. Now we need to take action, because the world, our nations have been woken up once more. They need to listen up. I listened in 7th grade, but it did not last because I did not
Rise up. Take. Action. Change. Hearts. Do what God has spoken to you. For me, I am to let go of my past, and become who He has made me to be, and this includes freedom. I believe that I am doing that. He is also telling me to pick up my pen and write. Write to fight. For His glory in this war. For there is, in fact, a spiritual war and a battle that we are in that is getting more and more fierce the more it gets fed. And it is getting fed every day now, with every COVID-case, with every political debate, with every violent protest. God is calling His people to fight on His side in this battle. But not without His preparation.
We need to listen to His voice, and follow His instructions in how to arm ourselves properly with His spiritual armor. Then He will guide you along the right path to fight. It could be any form of warfare. You, too, could write to fight as He had called me to do.
But it starts now, not tomorrow, not next week, not next year. Now. My brothers and sisters and fellow warriors, we have been ignorant of God’s Words in our lives for far too long. We have been asleep for far too long. It is high time to wake up, listen to His words, and put them into action. It is time to rise.

-claps

Wow!

Bravo

WOO!! *claps*

Was this pirate_melon's story?

yep

Ok thanks I am just trying to find out more oh her disappearance

o

This just makes me feel even more depressed about her leaving

nuu

Nuu what?

no u

it's sad...

Yeah. Why’d she have to leave?

idk -_-

Yeah

This story is longer then most books I read

Lol

Well that’s a novel and a half

bruh

no u

y tho

no

U

Ik you are but what am I

I KnOw yOy aReE bUt wHaT aM i

Ik you are but what am I

no

YOU

but what am i

What a story!

ur a christian? well its strange talking to a deleted person but im so glad u know god!!!!!!!!!

*sigh*

Why'd you have to make this anonymous? *sigh* it's too late now, but great testimony. I wish you the best wherever you are and whatever it is you're doing. Goodbye and may God be with you.

I think that anonymous was because the account got deleted

no she made it anonymous even before her account was deleted. I’m not sure why

It’s even in the titlw

*title

k