My Story

When I was five years old, I was curious and asked my Mama about Heaven. The thought of Heaven was beautiful, so I asked her how I could get there. She told me and that was that. Ever since that day forward, I've experienced Jesus in so many ways. He's shown Himself almighty, powerful, and sovereign time and time again.

 Although my story isn't much, I do have a testimony. My faith was put to the test when I was thirteen years old.  My life, it seemed,  began to fall apart around February of 2015. I was still posting on my blog, but this was when it got more and more rare to see my posts. My mom was pregnant with my sister who was diagnosed with Down Syndrome, but that was a whole other story. After many scares and dreadful doctors appointments, Mama was almost due.  It was a beautiful Friday morning, it was one of the days where the sun was shining so brightly and not a single cloud was to be seen. I was looking on my computer, scrolling through YouTube videos. At this time, I collected Webkinz and befriended other Youtubers who made Webkinz videos.  I found someone I had subscribed to about a year before. She was one of my best YouTube friends. She was so sweet and always replied back to my comments. We had good, frequent conversations. Her name was Amber, but her YouTube channel name was “pooflyn” named after her dog. She was only fourteen. 

 The video I saw was named, “Sad news, please watch” and I figured that maybe one of her pets died. I clicked on the video and watched in horror. It was a video of her mother proceeding to tell all her subscribers and friends that Amber had passed away. She had passed away due to complications of the flu. I remember staring at the computer completely bewildered. I didn’t cry. I just put the computer down and went to my dad and told him that she passed away. He was also shocked because I talked to him frequently about her. I even showed him some of her videos.

 I told my sister, who also loved her, and she was silent. I told my mom and then we cried together. Our family grieved the loss of Amber the whole week. Even though we never met her, it still felt so personal.   

 Meanwhile, at this time, my Great Grandfather, PawPaw was extremely sick and my mom was still pregnant.

 Later on in February, within weeks after I had found out Amber had passed away, my mom went into labor. My dad woke me up at four-thirty and told me that they were going to the hospital. Everyone believed that Emmy was going to be absolutely "perfect" because we had prayed that everything would be absolutely perfect. As my parents were on the way to the hospital, I silently prayed that Emmy would be absolutely perfect. I believed she was going to be perfect.

 Of course I remember that day too, as if it were yesterday. When the sun rose, it was a completely cloudless day too. It was chilly too, it was my favorite kind of day ever. My grandma was watching us and we had ice cream for breakfast. We were so happy, yet so nervous. We kept trying to call my parents and see if she was born yet and if she was absolutely perfect. We were told around seven that she was born, but then we didn’t hear anymore after a while. I ended up calling my mom, myself, and asking if Emmy was absolutely perfect and my mom said, “I don’t know, they’re running tests on her right now.”

 I almost cried, but I didn’t. The idea that we had been praying for a "perfect" baby and then we didn’t get one, was a lot for us to handle. I hung up and paced around the house until we could go visit my mom in the hospital. We were called around ten-thirty and were told that we could head over, but Emmy was still being tested on.

 When we got there I was so happy to see my Mama. I gave her a big hug and tried to get her to tell me all about Emmy. It had turned out that she hadn’t seen Emmy at all.  Emmy was taken away immediately. My dad had seen Emmy and had taken a picture of her. When he showed me I could tell for sure that she had Down syndrome. I was so confused. I honestly had no idea how to handle the situation, so I didn’t say anything at all.

 About an hour later, Emmy was brought into the room and I held her for the first time and looked her in the eyes and realized that she was the perfect baby. I didn’t want to let go, I just wanted to hold her forever. I instantly fell in love with her and swore to myself that I was always going to protect her. I wasn’t going to let anyone say anything ugly, nasty, or rude to her or about her. I was going to be her protector. That I am. 

 After Emmy was born, PawPaw kept getting more and more sick and everyone was warning me that he was going to die. I refused to believe it, but I did spend more and more time with him when we went over.

 That last night we saw him, we had a great time. He showed me some of the horses he owned when he was younger and he told me stories. He told me a joke that made me laugh, but he also warned me himself, that he was going to die. I brushed it away and listened to all he had to say. Finally, when it came time to leave he said, “Rhyan, I love you.”

 I said, “I love you too PawPaw.”

 And then he said, “I know you do.”

 I smiled at him and then ran to the car because everyone was waiting for me.

 It was April 19, 2015. It was a Sunday and you want to know what it looked like outside? It was a sunny, cloudless day. I was getting ready to jump into the shower, but Evynn ran into me and had tears running down her cheeks. I knew instantly what was wrong. Mama came upstairs and told me to get my implants on, because at the time I didn’t have them on. All she said was, “He’s gone.”

 I didn’t need to be told twice, I burst into tears right in that moment. For a few minutes Evynn, my mom, and I all cried. Pawpaw died the night before and my dad had gone to spend the night with Nanny.

 We were going to see Nanny instead of go to church that day. We all went over and I wanted to stay strong for Nanny, but I couldn’t. It was a day full of tears.

 After Pawpaw’s death, it seemed that everyone was determined to hurt us. All of our friends seemed to stab our backs. They would whisper and spread rumors about us that weren’t true. I guess you could say at this point I was depressed. I didn’t want to get up in the morning and I didn’t want to be around people. I actually mentioned a few times that I would have loved to lock myself up in my room and never see another human being again.

 The entire summer long, our friendships were completely demolished. My birthday and Ruby’s, my guinea pig’s, birthday passed. I loved my Ruby, she was only a guinea pig, but she had a very special place in my heart. It was the morning of September 5^th, 2015 when I woke up at five in the morning. I looked over in her cage and noticed she was spinning in circles, but I didn’t do anything. I just went back to sleep.

 I woke up around eight-thirty the next morning. Want to know what it looked like outside? It was a sunny cloudless day. I smelled death. I had smelled it many times before and knew exactly what it was. I turned to look at Ruby. She was just lying there. Sleeping. I stood up and made my way to her cage and opened the door and petted her and cried. Evynn went to get my parents and they both came up. I picked Ruby up and hugged her tight and then put her in a box and prepared to bury her.

 I remember asking God, “Why are doing this? Why are you completely breaking me?”

 After the series of devastating events, I cried every night. Literally.

 I had absolutely no idea what was going to heal me. I knew many people said that healing comes from Jesus, but I was searching desperately for it and it wasn’t coming. I was angry, bewildered, depressed, and confused. I had never felt so far away from my Jesus before.

 I went a total of four months, crying every night. I felt myself being pulled from His presence. When Halloween passed, I was infuriated. When Thanksgiving passed, I was upset. When Christmas passed, I was depressed. Each and every one of the holidays were passing and it was the first without many of the special people and things I loved. What made it ten times worse is that no one seemed to understand.

 In January, our church started a prayer study and urged me to pray more often. At first it was hard because I thought it was pointless. He hadn’t seemed to have listened all the other times I prayed the past year.

 After a month of intentional prayer every morning and night, I was feeling closer and closer. I prayed every day throughout the day. After another month I felt pulled much closer to the Lord and I felt Him speaking to me again. He reminded me that Pawpaw, Amber, and Ruby were with Him now and I would see them soon. He reminded me that whatever friends say or do doesn’t matter, because He knows it isn’t true and that’s all that matters. He reminded me that Emmy wasn’t the world’s definition of perfect, but she was His definition of perfect and that was the reason why He put her here on earth.

 I felt so comforted. Friends continued to make moves that made me angry for a moment, but I told the Lord. “You are all that matters, I don’t care what’s going on. I only care about pleasing you.”

 Even to this day I’ll remember these days with pain, but I am consistently reminded that this is my temporary home and when I am taken to my forever home, everything’s going to be alright. So every day, I can’t wait for that day.

 This is my story, what’s yours?