DON'T WORRY -
INSTEAD PRAY
(The Melissa Bendall Story)
On
the 23 September 1983 I was born into a Christian family, who have attended the
Salvation Army most of their lives.
In
1985 I attended Sunday School at the Salvation Army, I continued to attended
Sunday School until 1995. When I was moved up from Sunday School to a bible
class, I attended the bible class for 18 months before dropping out.
In
1995 I also started going to youth group, I continued going to youth group until
1997. In 1997 I started to attend a
bible study run for the youth by a member of the church.
I attended the bible study for 6 months before I decided that I was not
going to go back.
I
had never given my life to God personally, but had always considered myself to
be a Christian, well that was until I decided that I did not want to attend
church or church events anymore.
I
found myself dropping out of everything to do with church and losing all my
church friends. I also had several
disagreements with my parents over going to church praying and reading the
bible, as I had different things in mind to what they wanted. I had decided that
I did not need God in my life anymore, even though I knew he existed.
At
about the same time that I decided that I did not need God anymore, I was
diagnosed with clinical depression, after having thoughts of self-harm.
Things
got really bad for me over the next few months, but no matter what anyone said I
was not going to give God another go. None
of my friends were Christians, some of them had never set foot inside a church.
So any chances that I had of accepting God into my life, were gone; I saw
God as my enemy, Satan was ruling my life.
Part
way through 1997, I attended a youth group camp, where I met a youth group
leader, Fiona, who was able to show me just how important God was in my life,
even though I did not want to believe it.
Over
time Fiona and I were able to build up a friendship between us.
Fiona would encourage me to attend church with her, and when things were
bad would often pray with me. I was
beginning to rely on Fiona for help often.
Towards
the end of 1997 my brother and sister-in-law decided
they were going to move to Sydney for a career change.
This upset me, but I soon got over it as I did not see much of them
anyway, and they were just over the ocean.
In
1998 Fiona went to Hong Kong and Britain to do work as a missionary.
At first I found this really hard but after a while was used to the idea.
We would often write to each other and on the odd occasion I would be
able to ring her.
In
April 1998 I was blessed with my first niece, I was finally an Auntie.
This really made me feel
good. I had always wanted to be an
Auntie.
In
August 1998, my eldest sister Lynley, went to America to work at a Jewish camp.
This devastated me as Lynley and I had always been close and I could not
picture life without her. It took
me a long time to get over Lynley going away, well I never really did get over
it until I was told I could go and visit her.
In
November 1998 I flew to the USA to meet up with Lynley.
We traveled round parts of the USA before we went to Canada where she was
now living. I was so happy to be
able to see Lynley again and be able to spend three whole months with her.
While
I was staying in Canada, I had decided that maybe I did need God to get through
life, and that I should accept him back into my life. He had blessed me with a beautiful niece, a good friend and a
wonderful family. I gave it much
thought and had discussed it with Fiona (who was now back in NZ) and had decided
that yes I was going to ask God back into my life, but was going to wait a few
days just to make sure I was ready.
Well,
within a day of making my decision I received bad news from my parents.
My uncle who was in India as a missionary had been returned to NZ as he
was thought to have a brain tumor. Within
hours of being told this news, my uncle fell into a comma, and it was discovered
that he had a brain tumor. I felt
so hopeless, here I was on the other side of the world having a great time, when
my family were at home waiting to hear about my uncle.
I later received news that my uncle had had surgery and was going to be
OK.
In
February 1999 I returned to NZ. It
was good to see my family again, I could not believe how much my niece had grown
since I had been away. I was
excited to be home again.
I
continued on with life as normal. I
was still wondering about God, and was secretly trying to find answers to
questions I had. In a way I felt
that I owed it to God, as he kept my uncle from dying while I was away.
So I started attending church once again on a regular basis, without a
fuss.
The
school holidays were coming up and I was going to go and stay with Fiona in
Wellington, as I had not seen her since she went overseas.
Just before the holidays, my depression got really bad and I could not
deal with it anymore, so I was placed on Prozac.
The Prozac seemed to lift my mood, so once again everything was OK.
On
July 25 I was due to go to Wellington, I was so excited.
Only I never made it to Wellington that day.
Early on July 25 we received a phone call from my Auntie in Nelson to say
my Uncle had passed away. This
tore me apart.
The
next day we headed to Nelson for the funeral.
As I was thinking about my uncle and trying to remember what he was like
before he got sick I could not help but wonder why God let him die.
He served God all his life and there was not a thing he would not do for
God. Now I was totally confused.
I then started blaming God for his death. God is supposed to have control
over everything, so why did he let him die?
At
my Uncles funeral they played his favorite song “By the Power of Your Love”;
it was my uncle's testimony. To
this very day I still have not been able to get over my uncle's death, but I now
no longer blame God. When I hear
“By
the Power of Your Love”,
I always shed a tear and I always will. But
I now know his death was all part of God’s plan and that the day he died they
would have been rejoicing in Heaven.
Eventually
I did make it to Wellington, but things were not the same between Fiona and me
as they used to be, something had changed.
We were no longer good friends, we did not know each other anymore.
In
August 1999 I started attending a youth group run by YFC Waikato.
I made heaps of new friends, but none of them attended my school.
I continued to attend the youth group until December 1999 when it
finished for the year. I did not go
back in 2000.
In
November 1999 my sister Lynley decided to surprise me and turn up at school one
day, I did not even know she was in NZ. She
sure did surprise me, I was so happy to see her again, I just could not believe
she was back.
In
January 2000 I was blessed with my first nephew, so now I have a wonderful niece
and nephew. The year 2000 was
starting to look really good, and I was hoping it would stay that way.
I thought it was my chance to start over.
Unfortunately
things did not work out quite as I hoped they would in 2000.
Fiona and I fell out, and our friendship was over.
In May things got on top of me and I took an over dose in hope that I
would die, but I am still here today.
After
this I received a visit from the church pastor, who spoke to me then prayed for
me. He really got me thinking about
where I was at in life and where I was at with God.
On
Friday 4 August I decided that I could not continue living life
as I was and that yes I needed God in my life once again.
So I asked Jesus Christ to re-enter my life and be my Lord and Savior.
To
this day I still have struggles with life but I remember that no matter what I
know God
will always be there for me, all I have to do is ask.
tell God your needs and don’t forget to thank Him for his answers.”
(Philippians
4:6)
An Invitation...
Romans 10:13 says, "For we have all sinned and come short of the Glory of God".
Christ has paid the debt He did not owe, because we owed a debt we could not pay.
If you have never asked Jesus Christ into your heart, please prayerfully consider doing so. He is our Light in the Darkness and our Bridge over troubled water; He is our Peace.
If this testimony has blessed you, would you please take a few moments and share with us HOW it has blessed you? Your feedback is very important. Please mention the author of this testimony when you email your comments. Thank you so very, very much! Email: ptoffice@precious-testimonies.com
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