121 Stories | Melanie | English
One Woman Shares Her Powerful Story Of Salvation And Healing
Melanie
Dec 11, 2022 12m
Are you looking for hope after surviving childhood trauma? In this message of hope, one woman shares her powerful story of salvation and healing and reveals how her life has changed since she escaped a difficult childhood and has started a relationship with Jesus. Video recorded at Grapevine, Texas.
TranscriptionmessageRegarding Grammar:
This is a transcription of the sermon. People speak differently than they write, and there are common colloquialisms in this transcript that sound good when spoken, and look like bad grammar when written.
This is a transcription of the sermon. People speak differently than they write, and there are common colloquialisms in this transcript that sound good when spoken, and look like bad grammar when written.
Melanie: [00:00:03] I grew up in Puerto Rico, I grew up on the countryside of the island. We didn't grow up going to church, we just knew there was a God, but it's just we never got acquainted to any church or any other religions, it was just every day we were just doing our normal thing.
Melanie: [00:00:30] My upbringing in Puerto Rico was very difficult, there was a lot of fights between my mom and my dad. I do remember them getting very verbally and physical between the two of them. It was just constant fighting, so we all got used to the fighting. So whenever they were not fighting, it just gave us anxiety. On the other side, my mom, she would just stay at the home, but she would often say comments like she was tired of taking care of us, it was time for her to have a life, that life is not fair, that she was not as prettiest anymore because we were born, and she would just often make these random comments from here to there. I remember there were seasons in our life in Puerto Rico where we had to take care of ourselves, and we didn't have any food at home, so we just we would just go to school and we would ask like the ladies at the school to share more food because we knew that the time we will go home, we won't be able to eat anything. We just didn't know how to take care of ourselves, we just figured out a way to survive.
Melanie: [00:01:48] So sometimes I would just go ahead to the fridge, and I would just, in a sense, steal like a piece of Velveeta cheese because I was so hungry I was not able to sleep, but at night time and I would just sneak into the fridge and I would just go ahead and grab it and eat it. I didn't want people to know that I was messed up, or just have a messed-up family. So I ended up in music school, I especially like music school in Puerto Rico, and they share both academics and music classes. So technically you will spend the whole day at the school, just practicing and just doing projects. And this school was so intense that you didn't have time to even go out with your friends because all you have to do is just practice and practice. I spent seven years in the school, and in order to graduate you have to have an instrument. So my instrument at the time was the violin, and the competition was quite hard. Not just everybody can join the orchestra. I made it to the symphony orchestra at the school and this gave me value because I remember every time I would walk up, people will ask me, and I will say, no, I was the violin on the first row for the orchestra symphony. So I feel like I have value. it was worth it, all my identity was just right there.
Melanie: [00:03:14] Unfortunately, the last year, though, the director decided that we were going to compete with other national countries in the Carnegie Hall in New York. And so we were going to go in to compete with Japan, Switzerland, Austria, United States, and so many other countries just to fight for the gold medal, to see who's the best orchestra at the time. So after I spent so many hours practicing with the orchestra and just technically, all my teenage years, I just spent it just for that moment. At the last minute, I was not able to go because my parents didn't want to pay the fee in order for me to go to New York. And this was really hurtful, I think this is the first time I started thinking about even like killing myself and all that. Because all my identity just went to the violin, I'd been rejected for so many years by my parents, and now it's like I felt like the orchestra was rejecting me. There were many times that I actually wanted to die, and I remember very specifically like if I was in the back seat of the car, I prayed and I wished very strongly in my heart that another car will, like accidentally will hit us right where I was, so I will just die. The reason why I had those thoughts is, I grew up feeling all this time, I just felt like I was a burden. .like my life had no meaning. I spent years just trying to please my parents or please, just anything, and it was still like it didn't mean anything, like, I didn't mean anything to anyone.
Melanie: [00:05:33] That's when I decided that I was done with Puerto Rico, I was done with my family. I just wanted to start over and just get rid of all my past and all those years that I spent over there. So I decided I'm going to leave Puerto Rico, I don't want to deal with anybody else, I don't want to deal with my mom or my dad or money or school, I just wanted to run away from everything and start over. I took the violin, and it was a really great violin. And with that violin, I sold it, and with that money is how I left everything behind, and I came to Texas.
Melanie: [00:06:13] So after I arrived to Texas, I ended up living in a house of a friend that I knew. But after one month, she kicked me out of the house, therefore, I went and asked my coworkers if I could just stay at their house for a week, and I continued doing this by changing from house to house. Things got pretty bad; I remember sleeping even in the car. I remember also sleeping on the job sometimes till I was able to land a very nice job, it was a travel company, and this job gave me a new identity, it gave me this false security like everything was fine. Therefore, for the first time, I was able to have my own place, and my own car, it's just life, everything seemed good at the time.
Melanie: [00:07:09] At this job is where someone told me, hey, there's this person who's from the same island as you, from Puerto Rico. So I reached out to this person, and I noticed there was something different about him, he always shared Psalms, Proverbs, and Romans to me, and that really caught my attention. And I remember I told him, you have something that I don't have. What is it? Can I just tag along with you? He invited me to church, and that was the first time I visited 121 Community Church. And from there, I started being more consistent on going on Sundays.
Melanie: [00:07:51] So May 21st, 2017, is when I decided to get my life to Jesus, and it's just changed my whole thing, my attitude, the way I spoke, even the way I dress. After that, I decided to get baptized, I got baptized in the same year on October 3rd. And everything just seems very well, but I knew from the inside I still needed a lot of healing. My walk with Jesus was kind of rocky, I had one foot inside and another foot outside of my relationship with him, I just didn't know how to deal with it. Years passed by and I'm just feeling all this confusion, am I really a child of God, I am really that worthy?
Melanie: [00:08:39] So before COVID hit the beginning of the year 2020, I was invited to celebrate one of my coworker's birthdays, and it just end up being like the worst day ever that has happened to me. I actually got assaulted, and then it's just after that, like all this time I have struggled with many things, but I was able to stand up and just walk and act like nothing happened, but this was the first time that I was not able to stand up and act like nothing happened, and I just didn't know what to do.
Melanie: [00:09:19] So when COVID hit, I was all by myself dealing with all these questions, and feelings, and just depression after what happened to me. Therefore, I have really close friends who got at me through this process, and they always, they were praying for me, and they were telling me things like, Remember about God? So I started looking for Christian counseling and I started to really ask real questions to God, and that's where I think my hunger for God really started to kick in. So I have friends that told me about Youth with a Mission, which is an organization that just is like young adults to know God and to make him know. And that's where I decided to leave everything behind and just join this organization for a couple of months because I wanted to really have that moment when I go, I just look to him, I'm asking like, what's the whole point about my life?
Melanie: [00:10:24] One night I decided to have a worship night, and they were playing all these Christian songs, but before they decided to close the night or to call it the end the night, they decided to play one more song. And it's like one of the most famous songs, there's even, like, funny things about this song, it's about Amazing Grace. But that night, I remember when we started singing that song, especially the first part, you know, when it says like Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. And it's just got my heart right there because I was lost and I was found that day, and I was blind, and I knew I was blind, and now I can see that God was with me all this time. And I heard his voice and he said to me, you are so worthy, and he was worth it to down the cross for you, your life has value. And that's all I needed to hear, that's all I needed to hear. And it's just everything. all the depression, all the questions I have in life, it's just crashed down. I just no longer feel that burden, and I no longer felt ashamed that I had to act like I was not messed up, and that was the first time I found joy in my life.
Recorded in Grapevine, Texas.
Melanie: [00:00:30] My upbringing in Puerto Rico was very difficult, there was a lot of fights between my mom and my dad. I do remember them getting very verbally and physical between the two of them. It was just constant fighting, so we all got used to the fighting. So whenever they were not fighting, it just gave us anxiety. On the other side, my mom, she would just stay at the home, but she would often say comments like she was tired of taking care of us, it was time for her to have a life, that life is not fair, that she was not as prettiest anymore because we were born, and she would just often make these random comments from here to there. I remember there were seasons in our life in Puerto Rico where we had to take care of ourselves, and we didn't have any food at home, so we just we would just go to school and we would ask like the ladies at the school to share more food because we knew that the time we will go home, we won't be able to eat anything. We just didn't know how to take care of ourselves, we just figured out a way to survive.
Melanie: [00:01:48] So sometimes I would just go ahead to the fridge, and I would just, in a sense, steal like a piece of Velveeta cheese because I was so hungry I was not able to sleep, but at night time and I would just sneak into the fridge and I would just go ahead and grab it and eat it. I didn't want people to know that I was messed up, or just have a messed-up family. So I ended up in music school, I especially like music school in Puerto Rico, and they share both academics and music classes. So technically you will spend the whole day at the school, just practicing and just doing projects. And this school was so intense that you didn't have time to even go out with your friends because all you have to do is just practice and practice. I spent seven years in the school, and in order to graduate you have to have an instrument. So my instrument at the time was the violin, and the competition was quite hard. Not just everybody can join the orchestra. I made it to the symphony orchestra at the school and this gave me value because I remember every time I would walk up, people will ask me, and I will say, no, I was the violin on the first row for the orchestra symphony. So I feel like I have value. it was worth it, all my identity was just right there.
Melanie: [00:03:14] Unfortunately, the last year, though, the director decided that we were going to compete with other national countries in the Carnegie Hall in New York. And so we were going to go in to compete with Japan, Switzerland, Austria, United States, and so many other countries just to fight for the gold medal, to see who's the best orchestra at the time. So after I spent so many hours practicing with the orchestra and just technically, all my teenage years, I just spent it just for that moment. At the last minute, I was not able to go because my parents didn't want to pay the fee in order for me to go to New York. And this was really hurtful, I think this is the first time I started thinking about even like killing myself and all that. Because all my identity just went to the violin, I'd been rejected for so many years by my parents, and now it's like I felt like the orchestra was rejecting me. There were many times that I actually wanted to die, and I remember very specifically like if I was in the back seat of the car, I prayed and I wished very strongly in my heart that another car will, like accidentally will hit us right where I was, so I will just die. The reason why I had those thoughts is, I grew up feeling all this time, I just felt like I was a burden. .like my life had no meaning. I spent years just trying to please my parents or please, just anything, and it was still like it didn't mean anything, like, I didn't mean anything to anyone.
Melanie: [00:05:33] That's when I decided that I was done with Puerto Rico, I was done with my family. I just wanted to start over and just get rid of all my past and all those years that I spent over there. So I decided I'm going to leave Puerto Rico, I don't want to deal with anybody else, I don't want to deal with my mom or my dad or money or school, I just wanted to run away from everything and start over. I took the violin, and it was a really great violin. And with that violin, I sold it, and with that money is how I left everything behind, and I came to Texas.
Melanie: [00:06:13] So after I arrived to Texas, I ended up living in a house of a friend that I knew. But after one month, she kicked me out of the house, therefore, I went and asked my coworkers if I could just stay at their house for a week, and I continued doing this by changing from house to house. Things got pretty bad; I remember sleeping even in the car. I remember also sleeping on the job sometimes till I was able to land a very nice job, it was a travel company, and this job gave me a new identity, it gave me this false security like everything was fine. Therefore, for the first time, I was able to have my own place, and my own car, it's just life, everything seemed good at the time.
Melanie: [00:07:09] At this job is where someone told me, hey, there's this person who's from the same island as you, from Puerto Rico. So I reached out to this person, and I noticed there was something different about him, he always shared Psalms, Proverbs, and Romans to me, and that really caught my attention. And I remember I told him, you have something that I don't have. What is it? Can I just tag along with you? He invited me to church, and that was the first time I visited 121 Community Church. And from there, I started being more consistent on going on Sundays.
Melanie: [00:07:51] So May 21st, 2017, is when I decided to get my life to Jesus, and it's just changed my whole thing, my attitude, the way I spoke, even the way I dress. After that, I decided to get baptized, I got baptized in the same year on October 3rd. And everything just seems very well, but I knew from the inside I still needed a lot of healing. My walk with Jesus was kind of rocky, I had one foot inside and another foot outside of my relationship with him, I just didn't know how to deal with it. Years passed by and I'm just feeling all this confusion, am I really a child of God, I am really that worthy?
Melanie: [00:08:39] So before COVID hit the beginning of the year 2020, I was invited to celebrate one of my coworker's birthdays, and it just end up being like the worst day ever that has happened to me. I actually got assaulted, and then it's just after that, like all this time I have struggled with many things, but I was able to stand up and just walk and act like nothing happened, but this was the first time that I was not able to stand up and act like nothing happened, and I just didn't know what to do.
Melanie: [00:09:19] So when COVID hit, I was all by myself dealing with all these questions, and feelings, and just depression after what happened to me. Therefore, I have really close friends who got at me through this process, and they always, they were praying for me, and they were telling me things like, Remember about God? So I started looking for Christian counseling and I started to really ask real questions to God, and that's where I think my hunger for God really started to kick in. So I have friends that told me about Youth with a Mission, which is an organization that just is like young adults to know God and to make him know. And that's where I decided to leave everything behind and just join this organization for a couple of months because I wanted to really have that moment when I go, I just look to him, I'm asking like, what's the whole point about my life?
Melanie: [00:10:24] One night I decided to have a worship night, and they were playing all these Christian songs, but before they decided to close the night or to call it the end the night, they decided to play one more song. And it's like one of the most famous songs, there's even, like, funny things about this song, it's about Amazing Grace. But that night, I remember when we started singing that song, especially the first part, you know, when it says like Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. And it's just got my heart right there because I was lost and I was found that day, and I was blind, and I knew I was blind, and now I can see that God was with me all this time. And I heard his voice and he said to me, you are so worthy, and he was worth it to down the cross for you, your life has value. And that's all I needed to hear, that's all I needed to hear. And it's just everything. all the depression, all the questions I have in life, it's just crashed down. I just no longer feel that burden, and I no longer felt ashamed that I had to act like I was not messed up, and that was the first time I found joy in my life.
Recorded in Grapevine, Texas.
Read More
