Sweet Memories

Today, at church, my youth pastor preached. His sermon was basically a recap of our Mexico trip. He called it "Reflections of Mexico". Now, at the beginning, he played a slide show, with some of the pictures people had taken on the trip. I haven't actually gone through all my pictures since just after I got back, and seeing my pictures, and the rest of the teams pictures, brought out a lot of emotions. I was trying my hardest not to cry. Then he called up me and one of the leaders who had been on the trip to talk a little bit about it. I was asked what I learned on the trip, and I was asked to keep it short.

Now, I learned a lot on the trip. It would take a long time to talk about every little thing I learned, and I would probably get side tracked here and there with stories of our adventures. But, since I was asked to keep it short, I summerized perhaps one of the most impacting things I learned.

I've been through quite a lot in my short life. And not all of it was good. Most of the time, when I was going through something pretty bad, I felt trapped. Like I'd never get out, and I wouldn't live to see tomorrow. I struggled with a very bad depression. It practically consumed my life. I dealt with an addiction to self harm, and many frightening anxiety attacks. I lived in misery for more than two years, and later learned that a lot of my troubles were being caused by demons, who had come into my life through my depression and anxiety. I had even seen one of these demons. I never thought any good would come from my experiences.

While we were in Mexico, one of my friends began having awful anxiety attacks, much like the ones I used to get. And there weren't any doctors that could find anythign medically wrong with him. Because of my experiences, I wondered if there was something wrong on a spiritual level. While my friend had these attacks, we would try our best to comfort him, and pray for him, because there was really nothing more we could do. His first attack was on our first night there. It was pretty scary. After he calmed down, however, we were able to talk with him about spiritual battles, and he said that what we talked about had helped him. I shared some of my stories with him, and he found it encouraging that we can make it through these awful things together.

Through out the week, I had many intense conversations with many of the people I met in Mexico, and shared parts of my testimony with them. A lot of them were encouraged by my story, which showed my that every little thing that happens in your life, whether it be big or small, good, bad or in between, happens for a reason, and that reason is all part of God's Eternal Plan.