My Testimony
The testimony that follows is the story of how Christ met me in the middle of chaos, lifted a lifelong burden, and led me into a surrender I didn’t know I needed. These past months have reshaped my spiritual life in ways I could never have imagined, and I felt led to share it for anyone who may be walking through their own season of confusion, striving, or spiritual exhaustion.
This is not a story of my effort, but of Christ’s intervention, His timing, and His unmistakable work in the hidden places of my heart. I share it because someone else may be standing where I once stood, searching for peace in all the wrong places, not knowing that surrender is the doorway.
He has strengthened me, given my life purpose, lifted burdens and anxiety from my life, and my days and nights are filled with His peace, for I rest in Him. He carries me now. I am safe. I am protected. I am at peace in Him. Because I know that I know, I am certain—He is closer to me than my next breath.
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For three years I lived in chaos, chasing every spiritual shortcut the internet offered, trying to fix myself with meditations, manifesting, hypnosis, numerology, moon cycles, and self‑help. None of it worked. In 2023, right in the middle of all that confusion, I opened a workbook and discovered something that shook me: I hated myself. I wasn’t ready to face it, so I shut the book for two years. But the chaos kept building.
A few weeks before November 27, 2025, I reached a breaking point with a burden I had carried for fifty years. It tore me apart so deeply I thought I would lose my mind. In desperation, I laid it at the Lord’s feet, and He lifted it. Completely. The situation didn’t change, but the burden was gone. The chaos lost its power that day.
Within days of that burden being lifted, I revived an old blog and wrote The Meaning of Forgiveness. Part of that burden was the unforgiveness I had carried toward myself. I began posting daily verses and prayers. I didn’t plan it. I didn’t strategize it. I simply followed the quiet leading that came after the burden was gone.
Near the end of December, something in me shifted. One night, I abruptly and prematurely ended a phone call that was pulling me backward. I sat there with my heart pounding. I could not allow the distraction being created in that call to enter my life. It was a small action on the outside, but inside of me it was a line I had never drawn before. I was trembling as I pressed the power button to turn off my phone. It was a decision to step out of old patterns.
In the days that followed, I slowly moved my workspace from the front of the apartment—among noise and interruption—into my bedroom, a private and quiet space I would desperately need in the weeks and months ahead, although at the time I was completely unaware of the impact.
I didn’t know it then, but both the phone call action and the relocation of my workspace were significant turning points in my life—preparations for what came next. I only recognized it in hindsight... those choices were me choosing Christ.
In December I entered into agreement with the Lord that I would work through Oswald Chambers' book in 2026, My UtMost for His Highest, and share my reflections online. Little did I know that through the process the Lord would break through all my barriers and build me back up again.
On January 1, 2026, I published my first reflection on Oswald Chambers' book His writing was heavy and overwhelming. I almost quit in the first week. But I stayed. And the Lord met me there, giving me insight, understanding, and a depth of truth I had never understood before.
On April 8, 2026, I received insight about something I read in Chambers’ book that I had never realized in all my years as a Christian: I had never surrendered my will. I had prayed for God’s will all my life, but I had never laid mine down. I immediately knew this was something I needed to do. It took me a couple of days to face it, but when I finally did, Christ took His rightful place on the throne of my life. The striving stopped. His peace settled over me. Everything changed. I thought the idea that I needed to surrender my will was a revelation; I had no idea what being surrendered entailed or what it really was. But I was in for a much bigger surprise than I could have ever imagined.
Here is the truth the Lord showed me: total surrender is the surrender of your will. Your will is free — God made it that way — but as long as it remains unsurrendered, it stands outside the ruling influence of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit indwells you, but He does not override your will. He cannot complete His work in you while your will is still governing itself. Just as Christ laid down His will before the Father at Gethsemane, we lay down ours before Him.
When your will is surrendered to Christ, the Holy Spirit is finally given the authority to complete the work He came to do in you. He will not override your will — He waits for it. And once surrendered, His work continues daily, as you return to that posture of surrender every morning.
There is also a depth to this surrender that I did not understand until afterward. So much of our inner life is shaped by the unconscious mind — the buried fears, old wounds, reactions, and patterns that act before we can think and that we cannot reach by effort or insight. People spend years trying to change these places through analysis, trauma work, or sheer will, but the unconscious does not heal itself. It guards its patterns and resists change. Only Christ can reach that hidden territory. When the will is surrendered, the Holy Spirit moves into the places we cannot access, and He puts things in order without strain, without pain, and without our effort. That is what amazed me: He healed what I could not touch.
When I surrendered my will, the self that had ruled me for decades finally died. Christ took its place. This is why I ended the Self‑Love series from that workbook: self could not fix self. Only Christ could — and did.
This is what had been happening inside me all those years:
Sin ruled the house.
Self cooperated with sin.
And the will was powerless to stop it.
As long as Sin, Self, and Will are running freely inside of you, Jesus is pushed into a corner. He is present, but He is not ruling. He cannot take His rightful place on the throne of your life until you surrender the one thing He will not take without permission — your will.
For me, surrender was a small Gethsemane moment. It was serious, weighty, and long in coming. I had searched for this truth for years. I had owned Chambers’ book since the 90s, but my spiritual eyes were not opened until now. When I finally understood that this was the key I had been missing, the emotion that came was not drama — it was relief.
The act itself was simple but very specific.
The moment you stop controlling your own life and give it to Him, He starts His mission of fulfilling all the promises in the Bible that you read about.
The moment you relinquish your will, He comes fully in with His power — immediately.
He begins His work in you.
You do nothing else.
He takes over the ruling of your life.
You simply stay humble, obedient, surrendered.
And then it happens — the shift, the freedom, the peace…
and the joy.
Joy rising where chaos used to live.
Joy settling where fear once ruled.
Joy filling the space that striving used to occupy.
Steady, quiet, unmistakable joy.
The months leading up to the surrender of my will were some of the hardest of my life. Those were the months of breaking — the pain, the releasing, the tearing down of strongholds that had been built over decades. When I finally surrendered during the second week of April, everything shifted. Now I am in a season of healing, and the tears continue, not from breaking but from relief and realization. I can look back and see with amazement how the Lord preserved me and brought me to this point. I still surrender daily, but now the Holy Spirit is uncovering new truth, revealing what was hidden, and giving me freedom I could never reach on my own. I don’t expect the tears to end — and that is okay. I only want to stay aligned with Him, whatever it takes.
I still face attacks — where the enemy whispers that I am a failure, that even when things go well it will somehow fall apart and I will end up on the losing end.
But I remind myself: this is different.
Christ lifted the burden. Christ received my will. Christ took the throne.
And what He establishes, He sustains.
It took me a lifetime to surrender. Only now I understand — God brought me here — God waited for me with patience I cannot comprehend.
I don’t know what lies ahead. But I know the work He has begun in me is real, and it will last. This is not imagination. This is not emotion. This is not another false start. This is Christ, and He does not fail.
This surrender is real. In all these weeks, self has not returned. That alone tells me Christ is ruling.
June 25, 2026—Update:
I am still surrendered, burden-free and anxiety-free. I rest in His peace, purpose, and strength for my life. I have direction; I can look back and see where I have been, I know where I am right now. I acknowledge Him in all my ways, and He is directing my path. I feel secure knowing He is the one in control—He is the one leading the way. My future is in His hands, and that gives me peace.
“Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee.” Psalm 55:22
Christ lifting the burden
“Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee.”
Psalm 55:22 (KJV)
“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
Matthew 11:28 (KJV)
Surrendering the will
“Not my will, but thine, be done.”
Luke 22:42 (KJV)
“Submit yourselves therefore to God.”
James 4:7 (KJV)
“In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”
Proverbs 3:6 (KJV)
Christ taking the throne / ruling the life
“Let the peace of God rule in your hearts.”
Colossians 3:15 (KJV)
“For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.”
Philippians 2:13 (KJV)
The end of striving
“Cease striving, and know that I am God.”
Psalm 46:10 (NASB wording, faithful meaning)
“The Lord will fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.”
Exodus 14:14 (KJV)
The breaking of old patterns
“Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”
2 Corinthians 5:17 (KJV)
The tears, and the unfolding work
“They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.”
Psalm 126:5 (KJV)
“When my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I.”
Psalm 61:2 (KJV)
Christ sustaining what He begins
“He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it.”
Philippians 1:6 (KJV)
Self not returning
“Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.”
Galatians 5:16 (KJV)
Death of self / Christ living in you
(for“When I surrendered my will, the self that had ruled me for decades finally died. Christ took its place.”)
“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.”
Galatians 2:20 (KJV)
“Our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed.”
Romans 6:6 (KJV)
“For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God… Christ, who is our life.”
Colossians 3:3–4 (KJV)
Self cannot fix self / Only Christ could — and did
(for the Self‑Love Series explanation)
“Without me ye can do nothing.”
John 15:5 (KJV)
“For to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.”
Romans 7:18 (KJV)
“Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.”
Hebrews 12:2 (KJV)
Joy rising where chaos used to live
(for the Joy paragraph)
“Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fullness of joy.”
Psalm 16:11 (KJV)
“The joy of the Lord is your strength.”
Nehemiah 8:10 (KJV)
“Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.”
Psalm 30:5 (KJV)
“Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing.”
Psalm 30:11 (KJV)
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