Carla’s Christian Testimony

My Christian Testimony

I was raised in the house of God for as long as I can remember. I saw church as a duty like school, and felt that there was no real reason I needed to go. Regardless, I went every Sunday with my family and in my teenage years I began understanding why my mother made me go to church every Sunday. I became interested in my religion, up until high school came.

I started living the stereotypical teenage life. I wasn’t into drugs, but not afraid to try them. I got accepted into a creative and performing arts high school for literary arts, and abused my blessing. I went to parties all the time, and focused on my social life more than my purpose in that school.

I met my current boyfriend a year later. We became sexually active trying anything that would tame our raging hormones without actually having “sex” until I thought I was ready. About two months after we were dating, I felt like it was time, and my boyfriend agreed. When my mother found out about me having a boyfriend a little later, she bought me birth control. I was instructed by the doctor to start taking them that Sunday.

The fact that I had sex only at the age of sixteen began haunting me, and led me to depression. I then realized that my relationship with God had gone astray, and I was headed down the wrong path. When I prayed and asked him for things it seemed like he wasn’t listening to me.

I prayed and asked God to help me to get a closer relationship with him. I realized that the path the devil had led me to was taking me in the opposite direction of heaven and security. Sunday came, and I started taking the birth control.

That Tuesday I went over my boyfriend’s house, and a movie led to sex. Before we did anything, my boyfriend asked me if I was on the pill (birth control) and I said yes. I had my doubts on it taking a while to work and at the moment I really didn’t care.

When it was over, we looked up how long the pill takes to work, and found out that it takes a month, and I had only been taking it for three days. We didn’t panic until we looked up more information to see what my chance of getting pregnant was. Studies show that women are most fertile after they come off of their period, and I came off just that Saturday. My boyfriend rushed to the pharmacy store and bought me two morning-after pills.

I took one morning-after pill, but dropped the other without even noticing until my mother questioned my sister and I about a morning-after pill on the floor. I denied it being mine. I had to take both pills for them to work, and my mother was tired of blindly handing me money. I was broke and so was my boyfriend. And, the way we saw it, the morning-after pill was our only hope. Time was going by, and I only had two more days before the morning-after pill would still be effective. The next day we went to planned parenthood for a free one (we hadn’t thought of that the day we had sex). They were only assisting people who made appointments that day, and the next day when they opened, 72 hours had gone by already.

Each day became harder and more strenuous as I looked up the probability of me becoming pregnant, when I would ovulate, and the fact that I had a 99% chance of becoming pregnant according to statistics. I began panicking and fading in and out of deep depression; I couldn’t live knowing that my mother found out her sixteen year old daughter was pregnant.

I learned from church that God answers prayer, and he had was our last resort. I quickly calmed my boyfriend down as he stood squeezing me and crying. He was not ready to be a parent and neither was I. I told him that the only way we could get through this was going to be with God alone. Day after day my faith grew stronger as I read testimonies on the Internet that I had replaced with statistics. I studied hard with a prayer partner who helped me understand God and how to see things from a biblical standpoint.

As the days went by, my boyfriend became even more depressed, cutting off contact with almost everyone and almost me. Frightened, I began encouraging him, telling him all the things I learned and why I knew in my heart that God would listen to our prayers. He prayed along with me. I humbled myself before God, showing him my humility. My boyfriend became stronger as I helped him to follow Christ, just as I was being helped.

Weeks later, my faith became weak again, so I prayed and asked God to give me a sign and show me that I was not pregnant. I asked him to show me by giving me my period at the time it was due because I knew that if I missed my period I was pregnant. The very next day, I saw that he had answered my prayers, and that statistics may look promising on the outside, but with God on your side, those statistics are lower than the dirt beneath the surface of the earth. By the help of the lord I was not pregnant.

As of now, I praise the Lord in church, and give him credit every day, trying my best to show the world that he is on my side because I am one of his children. I’m nearly positive now that I am not pregnant, and so is my boyfriend. The Lord works in mysterious ways, and I know now he hears when I call on him because my relationship with God is closer than it has been in my entire life. Great is the Lord our God who supplies all our needs!