Chris Rosene

I grew up with severe depression, suicidal thoughts, immense anger, anxiety, and emotional instability for as long as I can remember. When I was 5 years old and I was on the school bus and my neighbor came up to me and said "you want to play a game" and as a child I was like "sure" and he told me to take off my pants and being a naïve innocent child I said "ok" and I when that happened I just remember feeling a dark and evil presence come over me. Like I knew something was wrong. After that is when the feelings and problems started. I probably should have died from some of the drugs and combos I took to numb the feelings and make the emptiness and pain go away. Every day was a struggle just to get up in the morning. Being asleep always felt better than being awake because I didn't feel the darkness, the heaviness, the sadness, and depression of life. I thought I was the only one that felt that way and I scared to open up to anyone about these feelings because I didn't think anyone would understand. My friends who I felt most comfortable expressing my emotions to tried their best but never to seemed to understand how bad I felt so I just thought life was supposed to be this way. Death couldn't come soon enough. Sweet blissful slumber, how I longed to be at peace from these feelings. I always thought God wasn't real, I hoped he was but no one could ever explain their faith to me, eloquently or in a way that made sense. I was angry at God if he was real. If my life was this terrible daily experience why would he create us to go through this every day until death. What a sick God, I would think sometimes and I wished I could bring him as much pain and sorrow as I felt every day. Funny thing is I would put on a smile and everyone would think of me as popular and generally successful in anything I put my mind to and I always had people that cared about me that kept me going so no one really knew what was going.

Then eventually I got tired of working myself to the bone, partying, taking drugs, having sex with no real partnership, everything was temporary and not sustaining. Until I met Pastor Debbie through a friend and eventually the rest of the ministry members and I could tell they were different. They loved God with all there hearts and were vulnerable with him. They also exemplified who Jesus was in scripture and I had never met people that actually did that. So it made me question my beliefs and "what it really means to be fulfilled"? What it really means to live? Through the course of a single weekend, during a ministry program I was invited to called Level Up 2021. I opened my heart to the Lord Jesus Christ for real for the first time and gave my everything to him and he touched me in a dream. The Holy Spirit came to be in the form of a friend of mine who passed away. In the dream, she hugged me and said "I love you, be happy" when that happened it was like I got beamed out of my body. It was like the most pure and enjoyable high I've ever felt in my life. Like pure love, warmth, and bliss just covered my body completely and when I woke up the feeling stayed with me for months and brought me to tears it was so real. After that moment, I was healed of all the depression, sorrow, pain, anger, suffering. I truly felt God's love for me in that moment. I was healed and I started the work of renewing my mind and serving in the house of God. Thank you Lord Jesus, for saving me. I love you forever <3