By Michael Ashcraft —
First, Melissa T got into anime to escape from the depression over her parents’ divorce. Then, she began role-playing and assumed the attributes of a gay person with a girl she met at a cosplay convention. Dipping into a bisexual lifestyle came next with her role-playing partner.
“I slapped God across the face that night and told Him I didn’t need Him anymore,” Melissa said on a 2012 YouTube video. “I went out with this girl. I turned bisexual for her. It lasted a month. A month down the road, I was really depressed. I was dealing with everything else, and I ran away from home.”
When the police apprehended her, what followed was a painful interrogation. Returned to her dad, she lost her phone privileges, was prohibited from using the Internet and was banned from talking to her lesbian friend.
“I made a stupid decision to go against my morals,” she says. “In that time I was isolated, I slowly but surely returned back to my normal self. I was no longer this character. I just threw away his personality and stopped being him. I started going back to church.”
At first, she begrudged the church attendance her dad forced on her. But one day while she waited for her family to come out of Target, she was alone in the car and had a strange urge to pray.
“I was ashamed of what I did. I felt guilty for what I did. I turned away from God. So I felt that, ‘Why would God accept me after what I did?’”
The devil and the Spirit were battling for her soul, with the devil telling her she really had nothing to say. She relented and started talking about school and slowly made her way to the deeper issues.
“I was pouring out my heart to Him and telling Him how much I was hurting and what I was hurting about, and for the first time in my life — FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE — I admitted through my mouth that I wanted to be happy.
“For so long I was so comfortable in my sin. I was so comfortable in my depression. It was my comfort zone,” she says. “Because I experienced so much change in my life, I felt change was bad, that change was something that was gonna hurt me. So I didn’t want change.”
In her prayer, she realized she really wanted the change God would bring.
“I was pouring out to Him, and I told Him, ‘I don’t want to be like this anymore. I don’t want to be depressed. I don’t want to be crying every single night. I don’t want to feel like my family’s ashamed of me anymore. I want to feel accepted. I want to feel loved,’” she says. “I bawled and cried to God for two hours in the car.”
What was her family doing in Target for two hours?
Melissa believes God delayed them so that she could have special time alone with Him.
“My family has never been in Target that long, ever,” she says. “At most they’ve been like 45 minutes. They were in there for two hours while I was bawling my eyes out to God telling Him I am a sinner. I have done so much sin against You.
Then God’s Spirit touched her heart and she was born again!
“While I was praying, I just felt this complete transformation. This feeling of peace just completely overwhelmed me. And I felt like I was loved. I felt like God was hearing what I had to say. I felt the love of God. He accepted me and forgave. That completely changed my life around and brought me out of what I was in. Since that day, I’ve been completely depression free. He shed His blood on the cross for everybody.”
Her heart was healed.
“He restored my heart with brand new pieces and has made me into a beautiful young lady in Christ,” she says. “Even though I walked so far away from God, He still accepted me and forgave me. People wonder why I cry during worship. It’s because they don’t realize what He’s brought me out of.”
If you want to know more about a personal relationship with God, go here
Michael Ashcraft pastors the Lighthouse Church in Van Nuys, CA.
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