TESTIMONY

TESTI MONY

“T “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.” John 10:10 NIV

“But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” Matthew 6:33 KJV

I’ve spent my life chasing after the blessings of God and those blessings kept eluding me. However, it was when I stopped chasing God’s blessings and seeking after His heart then His blessing began chasing me. Being given this opportunity to share my last message with you is one such example of God’s blessings chasing me and if I should choose a topic to leave with you it would be LIVE LIFE TO THE FULLEST.

When I was a young girl growing up, I fell in love with the media. I had a dream of becoming a war journalist. However, this quickly changed when I experienced my first family tragedy. At the age of 14 years old, I watched my mother being shot when gunmen broke into our home saying, “someone sent them to kill her.” My own life was threatened during that incident when I tried to escape by jumping over the fence. There I came face to face with other gunmen standing outside the yard. With guns pointing at me, they commanded me to go back inside the house or they would shoot and kill me. That night I ran for my life and it seemed for a long time, I’ve never stopped running. Nine months later in the same year that my mother was shot, my eldest sister became Jamaica’s first policewoman to be killed by gunmen after she was brutally raped on public transportation while on her way to work. To say I was left devastated, lost, confused and fearful are gross understatements.

After my sister’s passing, I switched my career choice to wanting to become a radio broadcaster. I never thought I was “pretty” enough to fit the stereotypical image of television. I somehow liked the anonymity of radio. I like the mystery of hearing a voice but not knowing the story of the person behind the voice. I had a lot to hide. A lot of pain was in my past. I tried without success to become a broadcaster. It didn’t help that I was born in a family that couldn’t feed me much less fund my ambitious goals. That lack, however, only added to my hunger for success. My family’s philosophy is that education is poor people’s inheritance. I grew up in Jamaican culture which equates happiness with money and so values centred around hustling for the night’s dinner, ‘making it to the top’ or getting a good education and a well-paying job to buy that dream house and car. This produced a warped view of integrity, honesty, good morals and godliness that did not put God first. God is a necessary reminder of the faith we need to achieve the goals that we set out to accomplish for ourselves or if our plans fail. We fit God into our space when our plans are not working or when we need Him to adjust our plans for us. It was never about us aligning ourselves with God’s plan for us. I spent my life going after the degrees, careers and relationships that I thought would validate me and even more so, take me further from the life of poverty and pain I knew. I did many exciting things including travelling and modelling on international stages and working in exciting media, public relations and marketing careers. The reason I was doing all this was because I was searching for my identity. Between my desire to come out of poverty and the need to mask my pain, I was lost. I built my success around my education and well-fortified career. I tried to fit God and church in the mix yet I never let God lead me. I found that this model took me further from the purposes of God and my ability to live life to the fullest, as my happiness was propionate to my success. All that I built my life on crumbled before my eyes when God called me into a life of serving Him and He started teaching me that success is defined by what He’s doing in and through me. This was when I learnt to live life to the fullest.

Often, the thing that we search most for in life is power. A power that comes with recognition and influence. However, I have come to learn that power in the kingdom of God is not based on ability but availability. The thing about God is that He never gives us anything prematurely. He knows when we are ready to receive all He has for us. God is patient and if we try to do life without Him, He will continue to patiently wait on us until we completely surrender to His will and ways. God is looking for open vessels in which to live the abundant life. Galatians 2:20 KJV

God wants us to live abundantly through the blood that gives salvation and freedom so we can be preserved for His return and that my friends is the abundant life. In this life are many blessings and benefits. Some of these include knowing our identity; Knowing