Aliciana

Hi, my name is Aliciana and I am 17 years old. I grew up with a very broken heart that I wasn’t able to face until just a couple of years ago. It was my normal. I had very messed up mentalities that brought me shame and condemnation. I thought that I was just a specifically messed up person and held very little value for myself.

I grew to find a love for Jesus from my Dad, who showed me that God still speaks today. I found God after being pulled out of a private school because it got too expensive. I started homeschooling in 5th grade. This is when I became very passionate about God and started hearing him speak to me. He became my best friend, and I spent hours with him daily.

I would get so excited to hear words from God when he would speak and was so passionate about him, but I had a lot of religious pride. This came from a secret place of self-hate that I have carried with me since childhood. I would use God to make me look better to other people because of the shame I had carried for so long.

I grew up doing a lot of sexual things that no little kid should be doing. I started these sexual activities at the age of 2-3. When it started, I got trapped in a cycle and couldn’t break away from it. It caused a lot of fear and shame when I would have conversations with people, and going to Christian events was a mental struggle as I felt everyone could see right through me.

With this came the unhealthy obsession of boys. Yet it wasn’t out of the desire for a good, healthy relationship. I would have inappropriate dreams that I would feel so much shame for afterward, but they would feel so enticing in the moment. I just remember waking up and trying to hide myself in the Bible, and passing by my parents, trying not to look absolutely ashamed.

I was living a lie that I kept burying back down because I didn’t think I would ever get free from it. I ended up developing OCD and a lot of anxiety specifically when I was around Christians. But still, I shoved it all down because I wanted to look perfect on the outside, even though on the inside, I was drowning.

I ended up going back to the private school for my freshman year, where everything changed for the worse. I completely let go of my relationship with God. I wanted to be cool and fit in so I let myself go. I took up swearing and complaining and normalizing all the things I knew were wrong. My parents said I would come home looking so depressed all of the time and I was never in my Bible. I blended in and completely ditched my personality.

I felt so lost. I chased boys for pleasure and couldn’t hold a single conversation without getting distracted by the next cute guy. This is when I got trapped in the cycle of porn. I couldn’t keep my mind focused on anything other than sexual pleasure, but I didn’t care, because it was a way to run from all of my problems. My relationship with God became an on-and-off cycle.

I wouldn’t pray until I needed something from Him or until I needed to complain about how ungodly everybody at my school was. Even then, he listened to my prayers in my darkest hours. I remember crying one night asking God to take me to heaven because I didn’t want to be with the people I was with anymore. That night God said “I am making a way for you” but I just couldn’t see how anything could possibly be better than him just taking me right then and there.

The summer before tenth grade, I traveled to Colorado to attend this Bible conference called “Healing is Here” at Charis Bible College. My parents were going and I was so eager to let God back in my life again. The whole trip was a testimony in itself, but I encountered God so many times at the conference that I lost count. One of the last days of the conference was the start of my healing process, in which God radically transformed me.

Speakers Butch and Juliann Hartman were up on stage. At the end of their session, Juliann Hartman felt like God was leading her to call everyone who had had an abortion to come to the altar. The whole front of the altar was filled with people screaming and crying as they were being released from their shame. It was beautiful, but I was petrified.

This was the night that the Holy Spirit told me I needed to be set free from my past and that the only way to do that was to tell my parents everything I had been hiding from them. I approached my parents in their room at the Airbnb we were at. I was literally shaking, but I didn’t want to be stuck anymore. So, after 15 years of holding everything in, I let it go and told my parents.

I cannot explain to you how much freedom I felt that night or how much of the devil’s lies came out through the light of Jesus. On the next and final day we were at the conference, a couple came up to my parents and told them that God was leading them to pay for their Bible College tuition, (for their upcoming second and third year at Charis) which came out to be a total of $20,000! They paid it right at the counter and we were told that we would need to move to Colorado for my parents to be able to attend their third year at the main campus.

I had no desire whatsoever to move states. I was absolutely disgusted with the idea, even though I could feel God’s hand moving us on. We moved from Minnesota to Colorado in the span of 3 months. I absolutely hated it in Colorado when we first got there. Even after everything that happened at the conference, I still found myself so lost again.

I finished out my tenth-grade year of school online and then went back to visit my friends in the summer. Once again, I gave up on my relationship with God and did everything I could to fit in and stand out in the worst ways possible. It even affected the way I dressed, because I wanted and desired attention from all the wrong places.

I was planning on fully giving up on God altogether as I started my junior year at a new school in Colorado. This, however, is when everything changed. God specifically placed Godly friends in my life that were answers to my prayers. Unimaginable people were being placed all around me. I still can’t believe my eyes when I see the friends God has blessed me with. It is better than I could ever imagine. Their eyes are fixed on Jesus and their lives reflect what they believe.

My mind was seriously blown away by how faithful God is. Not only did he bless me with so many great relationships, but he helped restore all of my family issues, things that I didn’t even know I was dealing with. He brought out everything that needed healing and healed it. Everything I’ve ever struggled with, literally throughout my whole life, he has healed and is healing in Colorado.

He has taken away my anxiety and he has taken away my shame completely. The shame I have been dealing with for my entire life - it’s just gone! He has placed in me a desire for a healthy Godly relationship and has shown me what a true godly man should look like. I now have a desire for marriage and kids and have been healed to a place where I know that I can let myself be loved and not have to hide behind sex as an alternative.

I can’t even describe how much God has done beyond what I could ever ask, think, or imagine. He has healed my heart, my mind, my friendships, my family, my idea of love… he has healed everything and brought me back in double what the enemy has tried to steal from me. God wants you free!!!