CAA: Christian Anime Alliance

Okay, I have to admit something right now. I have been strugling within myself to give this testimony. Just because many phenomenal things happened in the testimony I am about to give you. The main reason is I don't want anyone to scoff at this and think to themselves "boy what a show off, I bet he is just saying this for attention to himself." I assure you, that is not the case. I give all the glory to God for what He has done for me. It is by Him and Him alone that I am here today even sharing this with you. I decided to write this because as I was strugglig for about five minutes if I should write this or not, I realized something. I am giving the glory to God and if no one believes my report, then I know that God does, because he was the one who got me through it all to begin with. Plus I am writing this in hopes that it ministers to someone who is going through a hard time in their life. Okay I am going to start, so I must warn everyone, that this is testimony WILL be long. So long in fact, that there will be two or three parts to it. So here it is.

Just to let everyone know, this isn't my first time around the block concerning my walk with God. My first time to really give my life to Jesus was in April of 1995. I was only 15 at the time. I was one of those nerdy sheltered kids that got beat up and completely ragged on at school all the time. Before I gave my life to Christ, I was misserable. Made fun of all the time, mocked, and even my best friend treated me like dirt. My family life wasn't the best at that time either. Add that up with a past of experiancing certain things a kid no matter what age should experiance. I don't want to get into detail about that, only thing I will say is it involved sexual immorality, and I was so confused and ashamed at what was done to me and what I in return did, that I was at the critical point of suicide. All of those feelings and emotions built up inside and the fact that I participated in immoral acts and I couldn't tell anybody. I was crying out for help and it seemed like no one was listening and at that time I thought God wasn't even listening. I hated God and I hated myself, and I hated everyone else around me. That is when irony came in. My "best" friend who always ridiculed me, asked me to go to church with him. Little did I realize, is that it was the same church I went to for private school when I was little, the same church I used to go to Sunday school at, and the same church my parents attended a long time ago. Well my whole familly decided to go to church along with my friend. To shorten this up a little bit, when I went in the church, I wasn't expecting anything, to me, at that time, church was just another pointless activity everyone did on Sundays, it had no meaning to me then. However, as the service started and I heard the pastor preach, the words he spoke where like they where being spoken directly to me. He talked about the love of Jesus and that God is not this all judging all hating being, but someone who loves us, no matter what we have done in the past. Then after he was done, he gave an alter call. For the first time in my life, I felt a love, I never felt before. It felt like it was peircing right through my heart. I knew then, that God truly loved me and that I wasn't a failure, I knew then that I had to give my life to Christ. You would think it ends there, but sadly it doesn't. After that service, I was invited to go to the church's youth service. It was there that I felt truly accepted. I seen these kids that had this true love and happiness to see me, and they never even met me before. That is when I met this certian youth pastor that showed genuine interest in me and wasn't like everyone in my past who brushed me off. I truly felt accepted. That is when I felt plugged in to Christ. It was shortly after that, when I realized that half of the kids that greeted me with love and acceptance, even though I was a stranger, it was then I realized that they too had some of the same struggles and torment that I had, until they found Jesus. Being accepted is exactly what I wanted, but even during that time, I was doing it all for the wrong motives. Sure I loved Jesus and everything, but my main concern was the attention. After all, it was something I never really had before, so I tried to milk it for all it was worth. I made my life seem worse off then it really was to just get noticed, I tried to do everything I could to be some sort of hot shot. I was just so hungry for attention. For the most part things looked good for me. Until I started to notice something, I wasn't getting all of the attention I used to get. I wasn't the center of attention anymore. New people started getting saved and taking front stage. I started to feel left out, esspecially when everyone at youth would form the infamous "clique." I tried to fit in, but then I started to just give up. It seemed like my prayers where not getting answered and everyone that used to welcome me warmly where being a little hostile toward me. The death blow didn't happen until our youth pastor decided to leave State to go to another well known church in Collumbus, Ohio. It was when he left, that you could really see who was really there for Jesus and who was just there for the youth pastor. You can obviously tell what catergory I fell in. In spite of myself, I decided to stay. It just seemed to get gradually worse from there. The more I thirsted for attention, the more I didn't get any. The more I "tried" to walk with God, it seemed the more I fell. I was starting to fall back into depression. I was so blind with anger and had so much scorn for everyone at church that I was to blind to see those who where really trying to reach out to me. I had one Christian friend who tried to help me, but I was getting annoyed with him and treating him horrible, something to this day I regret. Then my other friend, my "best" friend, was telling me to "just give up church and give up hope in God. After all, he was the only one who accepted me." I really started to buy into what he was telling me. As I was struggling with if I should stay in church or not, one day, and I will never forget this as long as I live, I had a vision. A vision that seemed as real to me as I am staring at my compuer right now. In this vision, I was in this huge palace. In it, was a huge swiming pool. I was in the swiming pool wading. There I saw three guys I knew at church, and they where sitting poolside with their feet in the water. When I saw them, I was telling them to come jump in the pool with me. Right when I told them this, I felt something yank me down into the water and it really felt like I was drowning. Somehow I managed to push my way back to the surface, long enough to cry out for one of the guys to help me. When I cried out, one of the guys tried to help me, but couldn't reach me and I ended up getting drug back down into the water. I was able to come back up for air the second time and I called out for help again. This time, the other guy tried to help me, but he too failed, and I end up getting drug back down again. Somehow I end up coming back up for air again and the third guy comes to my aid. He grabs a hold of me, and almost drags me out, but in the end, the same result happens with me getting drug back down. At this point, I am about to give up and lose all hope then I cry out to Jesus. Then as God is my witness (and he is), someone in a sparkling white robe pulls me out. As soon as I got pulled out of the water, I woke up in a cold sweat. The moment I woke up, it was like I felt something inside me say "if you rely on man, you will drown, but if you rely on me, I will always save you." Needless to say it straightened me out...... for a little while that is.

To Be Continued.....

Here is part 2.... The conclusion

Then I just put the whole vision in the back of my mind and started getting more and more yoked with my friend. One day, my friend and I had to stop by my Christian friends house to drop off something. Anywho, when I got to the door, my Christain friend pulled me inside the house and I kid you not, it was like I felt the presence of God in that house. I will never forget what he told me that night. He said "I need to tell you something man, God is pleading for you to not leave him. You have to make up your mind, either you serve Him and he will show you things you never imagined or you can choose this world and your friend out in that car and end up being misserable and walking in unknown territory without God's full protection. The choice I leave up to you." When he said that, chills ran down my spine. I knew without a shadow of a doubt, that God was speaking through him. I so wanted to give it all another try and I even told him I would, but after that when I got back in the car with my friend, my friend talked me into leaving the church and to "start living a life of real acceptance." It was from that point on, for about six years, I left the church, stopped talking to my Christian friend, getting heavily envolved with drugs, pornography, witchcraft, fornication and many other un-goldly things. It was also around this time, I had an un-healthy love affair with professional wrestling. I became so obsessed with it, that I decided to run my own backyard wrestling fed. To my suprise, my backyard fed took off, and many people started to join and it seemed like my life was getting better. Boy was I in for a suprise. During the whole run of my backyard fed, I ended up getting betrayed on four different ocasssion's, the fourth one leading to the fed's demise. There was much back biting and arguing and real life feuds going on in that fed. It got so bad that, I tried to give church another try, despite me having an extreme hate for God at that time in my life. When I did go to church again, I ended up giving my life back to God, but once again, it wasn't with a whole heart. My heart was still on wrestling. I remember the night I got home from one of the church services, still thinking heavly about a hardcore match I was going to be in that following week. I remember hearing God speak to me in my heart, telling me not to defile my temple. When I heard that, I just shrugged it off and thought it was just me being paranoid. Sure enough at that show, I end up injuring my knee and having to get it checked out at the doctor. At my doctor visit, the doctor asked me if there was any other problem's I was having. Then I told her that in fact I was having trouble in another area. She seemed concerned and decided to check it out. To my horror it was discovered that I had cancer. I don't feel comfortable telling anyone where I had cancer, but I will say it was a very sobering moment for me. The diagnoses wasn't good either. The doctors where perplexed when they did an MRI on me. They said I had tumors growing upon tumors. This frightened me very much. I remeber calling out to God for help and after that, oddly enough I just stopped feeling emotion about what was going on with me. After recieving two painful surgeries and my whole family and many others praying for me, I recieved the news that I had no more cancer. I didn't even have tho get chemo. The doctors said I was lucky, but knew better, I knew God had saved me. It was after that, I had more of a thankful attititude towards God. Still, however, as much as I was humbled, I wasn't humbled enough, because I was still stuborn with wanting to do things my way and I just wanted to be sucessfull in wrestling. My fed ended up lasting a few more years after the surgery, then another fed came to town. One that had a wrestling ring. Everyone in my fed left me high and dry to go to the other fed. This left me hurt and emotionally wounded. Thoughts of how I used to be treated and used floated through my head. I had an aim to get back at this other fed, and a few months later, I had that opportunity. I ended up getting a used ring and going half and half with one of my friends at the time. I ended up putting all of my money into a new fed. Making it an Independent Wrestling fed. I payed for a commercial spot off of a secular radio station, and even got a place to have the show and ended up stealing all of the potential wrestlers from my competition. As the day was drawing closer to have the first show. I started getting weather reports that it was going to rain the day of the show. This scared me because this was an out door event. So I did something I hadn't done in a while. I started to pray. I prayed to God that the show would go on and that it wouldn't rain. I even told him I would do anything if He just wouldn't let it rain. Then on May 24th the day of the show, everything that could go worng, did go wrong. However, the show went on. It was looking like it was about to rain, but during the whole show, it never rained. Then immediatley after the show was over and everyone got in their car to leave, the rain came pouring down hard. After the show I was completely depressed with how everything turned out. So much personal things where going on at that time and I really started to feel used and mistreated. It was during the second show I cried out to God and just asked him to take away all of the strees, pain, guilt, and depression I was feeling. I was feeling more worse after I ran away from God than before I first got saved. Then I just felt God speaking to me. He then gave me a startling revelation, that I am still holding onto this very day. He said "I answered your prayer for it not to rain, and it didn't rain until directly after the show. If I can answer your prayer when you are far away from me, just imagine what I will do for you if you decide to serve me." It was then I truly realized how much He loved me. That He allowed it to not rain for me, in the state I was in at that time. He did it not for me to continue in sin, but to show me where that sin was taking me. He loved me enough to show me how much He loved me, even when I was running from Him. After that, everything really started to sink in with me. That is when I gave up the foolishness I was trying to pursue. That is when I fully gave my life back to Jesus. I finally realized that for once in my life, that my life isn't about me and what I can accomplish, it is about what I can accomplish for God. Remember that vision I spoke about earlier? Not to recently, God reminded me of the vision he gave me, so many years ago. When I really started to think about it, I realized God gave me a view of what would happen in my future. Me sinking and drowning in sin, always trying to look to man to help me out of hard situations and almost going somewhere in the wrestling world, but in the end it took me nowhere and I was drowning and giving up all hope, until I cried out to God and He showed me His unchanging love for me and pulled me out of the sin I was drowning in. He even warned me through a Christian friend, but I was stubborn. However he still loved me enough to drag me out of the sin I was in and for that I am forever greateful. Well, there is my extermely long testimony. I felt I needed to share that with you. To show you that no matter what trouble you are having in your life, God loves you and if you give him a chance and actually be paitient, he will speak to you and give you direction and show you love, no matter where you are in your life. Well I hope you enjoyed what I had to say, though it was extremely long.

~Thanks~

~Joseph Shaydez~

Oops, I double posted. So I am just making this a filler. So forgive me for that.

Awesome.

Praise God and thank Him for that, and that that is a truth that was, is and always will be true.

I agree w/everyone.

Thank you Joseph. Your testimony has ministered to me. I have had the same attitude of being complacent in my salvation. I have been content to know that I am saved, but then have gone out and lived for my own selfish ambition, or to garner praise from man. I have not truly put God first in my life.

Last week after my pastor did the altar call, he did something unusual, that he hardly ever does; he asked for those of us who needed to rededicate our lives to Jesus to stand. I stood. Even in the past week I have realized that although my heart was sincere at the time, I am too impatient, and not focused enough on God. Needless to say, it was easy for me to get distracted with secular and unimportant things. I found that I shared some of the same struggles you did in your life, and I am glad that you gave your testimony. Your testimony really encouraged me.
Pray for me as I try to seek God's will for my life, pray for me that I will be able to stay focused on Him, and pray that I have the strength and the courage to abandon the things that hinder my walk with Him. Thank you in advance for your prayers.
- Kevin