My Testimony
I figure if I'm going to be writing from a spiritual perspective, I should probably share where my journey started. I am sharing the abridged version. I was raised by an idealist father and a mother who was "nice". We attended church and I liked it. I always felt a spirit of truth, I was a nice kid, and I held a deep reverence for God. I attended christian schools and honestly believed everyone else knew God too. During my junior high years my parents went through a traumatic divorce. My world was shaken. We moved to a new, very affluent town, and I attended a youth group. I wanted to belong, to feel safe, to feel like there was hope and stability somewhere in this world for me and I knew that God was that place. However, by this time I had begun to embrace a rebel/wild child lifestyle and was misunderstood and rejected by the other church kids. I gave it a fair shot but it wasn't working out so I flipped a double bird and went on my merry way.
I made some really great friends outside of the church world. Most of them were sorting through dysfunctional families and we could all share about the blaring disappointment our lives had become. We partied. We had fun. We stuck together and made it through our high school years (it felt like foreverrrrrrrrr). After I graduated I was starting to feel an emptiness I could not satisfy. No boy, no high, no achievement, no adventure could come close to shushing the groaning in my soul. I was deeply discontent. That winter, early in 2001, I began journaling EVERYTHING, asking for something different, asking for freedom. Within a few months my boyfriend dumped me, I lost my job, my car broke down, my aunt passed away, and I got kicked out of my mother's house. Thankfully, a friend's family took me in and I quickly found another job, both of these things placed me geographically out of reach from my same old stomping grounds, just enough distance to force a lifestyle change. Shortly afterwards one of my best friends invited me on what became a legendary little hippie odyssey. We traveled and met people who lived in vans and followed jam bands. It was fantastic! I was able to stay with her in San Francisco and find a job. A new life was beginning to take shape until the morning of September 11, 2001. The fear of what may come next was very real. I wound up on the road again. I landed in Montreal and Burlington. I was with friends but was more alone than I had ever been. I was writing pages and pages of what I wanted in my future, writing about my emptiness, wondering where I would end up. I felt like I had no foundation, no home, no direction. I was barely 18.
One night, hanging out in Montreal, I decided to hit a 6ft bong. I was always a lightweight, always hated bongs, but had egged someone else on so I had to prove myself, like an idiot. I was struck immediately silent. I thought I was dying. I sat out back in and I felt the cool night air and a light shining on me. Yes, I was high as a mother but this was no hallucination. As I sat there my thoughts barely dripped through my mind. All I felt was the light and then I began to see moments of my life. I saw myself 5 years old in Sunday school, I saw other moments and a voice told me, "I was with you there". He let me see this for a while and then He said' "You're done with this now" and the intensity slipped away. My haze and stupor lifted enough for me to accompany the housemates to an underground pizza place where I proceeded to V.O.M.I.T in the dark bathroom. The room was swirling, there were smeared black figures swarming away from me, I went with it and let it all out. We walked back to the house and I felt different. I had a peace that was similar to a warm arm of support wrapped around my back.
A few weeks later I came home to California and went back to the same church I tried to attend so many years before. I broadened my friend circle, found a "cool" church to attend on Sunday nights, and I spent hours every day praying, journaling, and studying my Bible. I wanted God so badly. I wanted to serve and learn and share this Love that had set me free. I said a lot of stupid and tactless things to a lot of people. I prayed a lot though. I begged God, "Use me!"
In the next 10 years I got married to someone who was anointed in worship and planned a future of ministry, started a family, bought a businesss, grew stale in my walk, lost my fire but never my faith. I isolated myself, walked through difficult family relationships, and really struggled with what I call second puberty (literally all of my 20's). I made a lot of mistakes but the truth is I was always trying to do whatever was best. I was simply immature.
There was one night when I was probably about 25 years old when I was considering a pretty massive tattoo but struggling with whether or not "a good christian woman" should have tattoos. Man, I really wanted it, the only thing I wanted more was to honor God. As I wrestled with the idea in prayer I was given a vision of myself on stage speaking to a room of women with a bold and bright tattoo on my arm! I could see that I was much older and more refined, I had a fire and a confidence and I was speaking truth and hope to these ladies. I was very clearly living out my calling in this vision even though I had never dared to dream that big. I had never thought I could be used in that way. God spoke to me about so much more than a tattoo that night. He gave me hope that even little, messy, riotous, wounded (recovering) Diana could be someone that He would choose to serve others.
A lot has happened since that night. Very many difficult and devastating times have come my way but even more gifts of freedom, prophecy, love, and growth have come along too. I am so grateful for every moment I have been given and for the grace and forgiveness that has been extended to me through Christ Jesus. I do not take His sacrifice lightly, or the fact that He loves me in all my messes, all my gripes, every single moment there is nothing but love for me to receive. There is no high that can compete with the purity of being intimately known and being loved anyway.
I said this was the abridged version.....I left out so much but now you know a piece of my vision and a piece of my journey. Thanks for reading.
Love and Blessings,
Diana
I made some really great friends outside of the church world. Most of them were sorting through dysfunctional families and we could all share about the blaring disappointment our lives had become. We partied. We had fun. We stuck together and made it through our high school years (it felt like foreverrrrrrrrr). After I graduated I was starting to feel an emptiness I could not satisfy. No boy, no high, no achievement, no adventure could come close to shushing the groaning in my soul. I was deeply discontent. That winter, early in 2001, I began journaling EVERYTHING, asking for something different, asking for freedom. Within a few months my boyfriend dumped me, I lost my job, my car broke down, my aunt passed away, and I got kicked out of my mother's house. Thankfully, a friend's family took me in and I quickly found another job, both of these things placed me geographically out of reach from my same old stomping grounds, just enough distance to force a lifestyle change. Shortly afterwards one of my best friends invited me on what became a legendary little hippie odyssey. We traveled and met people who lived in vans and followed jam bands. It was fantastic! I was able to stay with her in San Francisco and find a job. A new life was beginning to take shape until the morning of September 11, 2001. The fear of what may come next was very real. I wound up on the road again. I landed in Montreal and Burlington. I was with friends but was more alone than I had ever been. I was writing pages and pages of what I wanted in my future, writing about my emptiness, wondering where I would end up. I felt like I had no foundation, no home, no direction. I was barely 18.
One night, hanging out in Montreal, I decided to hit a 6ft bong. I was always a lightweight, always hated bongs, but had egged someone else on so I had to prove myself, like an idiot. I was struck immediately silent. I thought I was dying. I sat out back in and I felt the cool night air and a light shining on me. Yes, I was high as a mother but this was no hallucination. As I sat there my thoughts barely dripped through my mind. All I felt was the light and then I began to see moments of my life. I saw myself 5 years old in Sunday school, I saw other moments and a voice told me, "I was with you there". He let me see this for a while and then He said' "You're done with this now" and the intensity slipped away. My haze and stupor lifted enough for me to accompany the housemates to an underground pizza place where I proceeded to V.O.M.I.T in the dark bathroom. The room was swirling, there were smeared black figures swarming away from me, I went with it and let it all out. We walked back to the house and I felt different. I had a peace that was similar to a warm arm of support wrapped around my back.
A few weeks later I came home to California and went back to the same church I tried to attend so many years before. I broadened my friend circle, found a "cool" church to attend on Sunday nights, and I spent hours every day praying, journaling, and studying my Bible. I wanted God so badly. I wanted to serve and learn and share this Love that had set me free. I said a lot of stupid and tactless things to a lot of people. I prayed a lot though. I begged God, "Use me!"
In the next 10 years I got married to someone who was anointed in worship and planned a future of ministry, started a family, bought a businesss, grew stale in my walk, lost my fire but never my faith. I isolated myself, walked through difficult family relationships, and really struggled with what I call second puberty (literally all of my 20's). I made a lot of mistakes but the truth is I was always trying to do whatever was best. I was simply immature.
There was one night when I was probably about 25 years old when I was considering a pretty massive tattoo but struggling with whether or not "a good christian woman" should have tattoos. Man, I really wanted it, the only thing I wanted more was to honor God. As I wrestled with the idea in prayer I was given a vision of myself on stage speaking to a room of women with a bold and bright tattoo on my arm! I could see that I was much older and more refined, I had a fire and a confidence and I was speaking truth and hope to these ladies. I was very clearly living out my calling in this vision even though I had never dared to dream that big. I had never thought I could be used in that way. God spoke to me about so much more than a tattoo that night. He gave me hope that even little, messy, riotous, wounded (recovering) Diana could be someone that He would choose to serve others.
A lot has happened since that night. Very many difficult and devastating times have come my way but even more gifts of freedom, prophecy, love, and growth have come along too. I am so grateful for every moment I have been given and for the grace and forgiveness that has been extended to me through Christ Jesus. I do not take His sacrifice lightly, or the fact that He loves me in all my messes, all my gripes, every single moment there is nothing but love for me to receive. There is no high that can compete with the purity of being intimately known and being loved anyway.
I said this was the abridged version.....I left out so much but now you know a piece of my vision and a piece of my journey. Thanks for reading.
Love and Blessings,
Diana
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