Witness Wednesday #104 Jess

 Today’s witness if from my friend Jess. I have only known Jess for about a year and a half and yet it is clear to see how much the Lord loves her. She has a very intimate relationship with Him and spends a lot of time cultivating this. She spends time talking with Him, praying with Him, and in Adoration with Him. She has been a part of the unbound ministry for 20 years, which sounds crazy to me because she definitely doesn’t look old enough to have been doing it that long. I asked if she started Unbound when she was 10, she did not.  Jess has a very kind soul and is a powerful prayer warrior. Her testimony reminds of of at least two very important things. First, everyone is going through something, and you never know what someone is going through. Just looking at Jess, or even spending time with her and getting to know her, you would never guess she has been through all that she has been through. The second is that we are never too broken for God to use. Sometimes, we think we have been through too much, we have done too much, and God can’t use us. God can and will use any of us if we are willing. Listen to this witness and how, even in really hard times, Jess knew God was looking out for her. I will read her testimony to you.

 There has always been someone watching out for me, sometimes more than one person watching out for me. This is how I know God has big plans for my life and will be using me many times over.

    I have always felt like I am on borrowed time, and maybe I am. Borrowed time to do the work of the kingdom and bringing it to earth. Before I was born, my nana had consecrated me to Mama Mary, that would explain why my birthday is a Marian feast day! My parents divorced when I was a few months old, and When I was about six months old, I was sitting in a chair at my Grammy and nano’s house in the living room. My nano was cleaning his gun, and it went off and missed my head by mere millimeters. I had fallen and split my head open on a brick fireplace by the time I was 1 year old. I started having seizures shortly thereafter. One seizure nearly killed me. My temperature 🤒 got to 104.5*F, at 105- your brain turns to green jello and it literally starts frying from overheating. I was thrown into a cold bath of ice 🧊. It took a long time to cool me down. At this point, I was too “young” to comprehend that I had a spiritual target on my back- because the devil didn’t want me to grow into my full authority and potential in Jesus!  My life over the next 12-16 years was going to be a tug-o-war, a version of a real life Cinderella, physical, verbal, mental and emotional abuse. But I found out how to handle most of it, just let go and let God and Jesus take care of it! But my mom and I wouldn’t get along. My mom was Catholic, she remarried and had two more kids and I got pushed on the back burner. My biological dad was Protestant, and would eventually pass away when I was 19. My mom was the abusive one and still is to me, even as an adult.  Some things my mom did to me were threatening my dad if he didn’t have me home by exactly 5pm on Sunday, I wouldn’t eat (there were many Sundays I didn’t eat because I was home at 5:01 or 5:02 pm), get into physical fights and make me bleed, went to school with bruises and hand prints on my face, walk 15 miles to school as a 13-year-old. There were more, but these were some biggies. They didn’t phase me; they didn’t bother me…. Why, you ask? I lived in the shadow of the most high… all the evil things my mom did to me didn’t affect me because I gave everything to Jesus! But some days, she got to me… and there were a few days that I tried to kill myself just to get away from her. The first time I tried to kill myself, it was a Friday night. I was on 300mg of a certain med. I researched this med, and I knew how much I had to take to make it kill me- I would basically have a seizure that I wouldn’t recover from, and I wouldn’t wake up the next day. In order to accomplish this, I took about 2550mg right before bed. And wasn’t planning on waking up. When I woke up the next day, disappointed, to say the least, that I “failed”, I felt like I was totally drunk. The room was spinning and turning sideways. I got up and walked into the living room, holding onto the wall and walking sideways down the hall. When I got to the living room, I saw my stepdad on the computer with headphones on, and my sisters were watching Barney on TV. I looked to my left and saw the clock on the stove; it read 10:32 am. The next thing I remember is my eyes rolled into the back of my head, and I blacked out and fell backward. I remember hearing a huge thud when I hit the floor. After that, I remember waking up, still feeling drunk. I saw my dad was still on the computer, and my sisters were still watching Barney. No one had noticed me; no one seemed to care if I lived or died… I looked at the stove, and the time was 11:32 am. ONE HOUR HAD ELAPSED! I crawled on all fours back to my room; I was a freshman in high school. The next year as a sophomore, I became a cutter. I cut my arms with glass, broken glass, to be precise. I cut my arms so deep they would bleed all over the place; no one knew. I always wore long-sleeved shirts, so no one knew what was really going on. One night I cut so deep that I could see a few inches down into my arm, and I don’t remember cutting that deep. The next day, there was blood everywhere! All over my sheets, my pillow, clothes, quilt- everywhere! I got nervous and made a promise to God that I wasn’t going to play God anymore, but I was going to make one. Final. Cut. So I would always remember where I came from and where I never wanted to be or go again. I made that Final Cut, and 22 years later, I still have that cut on my arm, and it has always served the purpose of being a reminder. But that day when I saw all that blood, I woke up and was scared, didn’t want to play God anymore, went to confession and mass, and never looked back! There is someone always watching out for me. I have a job that I need to accomplish before I leave this world. It’s a powerful job that the enemy doesn’t want me to complete. And this is why I have to keep going, why we all have to keep going. Every day is a spiritual battle. But every day that is given to God, the more He can use you in His plans for the kingdom! I have overcome much in my life, but without the help of Papa God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, Mama Mary, and all the angels and saints, I wouldn’t be here! My papa always had a saying that rings true; one just has to believe it is true! If God has ordained something for your life, there is nothing on earth, above the earth, or under the earth that can change that! What could be a more protective statement and guarantee than Jesus’ protection? Amen!

Wow, wasn’t that an amazing testimony? Thank you, Jess, for being vulnerable and sharing your story. I know it will touch the hearts of all who hear it. I pray that those who are in a similar situation hear your testimony and see that they are not alone and that they can make it through. I pray that everyone listening hears the message deep in their heart that God has ordained something for each of our lives and there is nothing that is going to get in the way of it. Thanks again for sharing. Feel free to share more of your testimony, as I am sure you have seen God at work in many areas of your life. We look forward to hearing from you again!

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