Hello Everyone!
My name is Shannon. I am 31 years old born and raised in Southern California (Orange County) and have lived in Dallas, TX the past 4 years. I am writing this from Riverside County in CA, due to the virus, which has shifted my work responsibilities allowing me to work from anywhere at this current time.
I was raised in the Lutheran church through 8th grade and would occasionally go to a few different Christian churches with my mom while I was in high school. I came to repentance (grief and godly sorrow) during my senior year of college.
My parents separated when I was 5 years old (they were married for 10 years and neither of them remarried). Sadly the common interest they shared was drugs (specifically cocaine, but my mom also struggled greatly with prescription drugs and my dad alcohol... both of their addictions spanned over 35 years). My mom did drugs while pregnant with myself and my two brothers (older and younger). When my mom was 3 months pregnant with me, her and my dad consumed a large amount of cocaine, so much that my dad asked my mom to have an abortion (thankfully my mom decided against that).
The day I was born, I was healthy, but that same day my older brother Ryan (27 months old at that time) started having seizures. My parents believed it was from something in the soil of our yard and surrounding areas, as a neighbor also started having seizures. My brother was completely healthy before this happened and shortly after had to be put in the hospital to monitor his seizures. There was supposed to be a doctor available to administer a drug to my brother, if he went into Grand Mal seizure to avoid brain damage, but in the middle of the night he ended up having a Grand Mal seizure for 43 mins and no doctor was around to administer the drug. No one from the hospital reached out to my parents to tell them what happened, my mom went in that morning and told me years later that he looked like the life had been sucked out of him. A couple years later he was still having drop attack seizures and was having to wear a helmet. My parents decided to go through brain surgery, which helped a lot but did not fully relieve the seizures. Because of the brain damage he suffered early on he is developmentally delayed to this day to around that of a 6 year old.
My mom entered her first rehab program when I was around 4 years old and ended up getting into a relationship with a woman in her program. My dad initially filed for a divorce at that point, but pulled out after my grandma talked to him. A year later it was still going on and my dad separated from her at that point. My mom dated other women throughout the time I was in elementary school and later felt convicted and stopped dating women.
When my dad separated from my mom he brought in his mom (my grandma) to help take care of me and my two brothers. My dad worked graveyard shifts for about 30 years at UPS and because of this we only really saw him at dinner and on the weekends. My grandma was a very negative person and it did not help with the situation my dad put her in. She instilled great fear into me and my brothers at a very young age telling us if anyone found out about our dad that we would all end up in foster care and likely all be separated.
In the middle of my eighth grade year my mom took custody of me and my younger brother, Sean. We moved right down the street from where we were living, into a one bedroom apartment. At this same time my dad was going through a mandatory rehab program through his work, where he had to be clean for an entire year or he would lose his job.
On the other side of things the time Sean and I lived with my mom (1 year), was marked by a crack cocaine addiction my mom entered into. In such tight living arrangements it was very obvious when my mom was smoking crack. A memory that has stayed with me was when my mom left the apartment late one night and I heard her leave and chased her down right before she got to the parking lot. I knew where she was headed and begged her to come back inside (it was always in the back of my mind that something could have happened where I would never see her again... that she would die). She turned to me with a fiery look in her eyes and told me that she brought me into this world and that she could take me out of it, if I did not let her go. In that moment as much as I wanted to help her I had to let her go and my eyes filled with tears.
About a year living in this environment, my two aunts flew in (both from out of state) for an intervention with my mom that forced her into a rehab program. Sean and I ended up moving back in with Ryan and my dad, since he was clean at the time and things were going better than ever with him. My dad ended up having his mom move out and had a friend from his rehab program move in to help take care of us. He ended up finishing out one year clean, but started drinking which spiraled into him doing the most amount of cocaine he had done in his life, with him getting fired from his job about a year later. Over the next 4-5 years my dad was spending $400 a day on cocaine and over that timeframe spent $600k (spending everything he had worked so hard to save and a couple inheritances... it is an absolute miracle that he is still alive and I am so grateful for the Lord's longsuffering... 2 Peter 3:9). In those years my dad would only receive calls from his drug dealer stating that the drugs had been placed in one of two spots in our yard (the front yard or back yard). It was a fearful time, as even my dad knew if he got in a situation where he owed lots of money that there was a chance we could all be killed.
Throughout my younger years my mom showed me and my younger brother how to steal and even though I knew it was wrong I still did it. My dad made promises all the time, but rarely came through on them, constantly telling me that life was not fair when he did not follow up on his word.
I was filled with such anger and rage toward my parents and held it all in not telling anyone until I was in college (truly out of a fear that my brothers and I would end up in foster care and all be split up). The only thing that got me through was sports. In middle school I played basketball and when I got to high school I did 4 years of cross country, basketball, and track. I am tremendously grateful for the coaches I had that did not know what was taking place in my home life and who saw more in me than I saw in myself (pushing me to get better and work harder). Sports gave me an outlet to channel my emotions and a reason to try hard in everything I did (school work, etc.).
I cried a lot when I was younger and was so saddened during my high school years when my mom finished a rehab program (eight total) and would come back to live at my dad's house only to have her addiction to be triggered once again. From the outside I put up a front that everything was fine. I taught myself to be incredibly positive and to use humor to deflect the pain within me. None of my friends knew what was happening behind the scenes at my house and I constantly found myself having to lie to protect my secret lifestyle. None of my friends knew that I would cuss out my parents, that I kicked my foot straight through a wall at my house, or the countless struggles and fears I faced on a daily basis. They only saw the person that was upbeat, positive, and an extremely hard worker.
Living in the environment that I was exposed to left me with hardened heart toward my parents. I never wanted to go down the same path that they took and was determined to make something of my life. I had no guidance from the time I lived with my mom throughout high school. There was not any rules I had to follow or be home by a certain time. My brother Ryan needed a lot of attention and instead was left playing video games and watching movies. He ended up getting kicked out of his high school for beating up a teacher, which left things even more crazy at my house. During my senior year of high school he would run away straight to the police station (which was half a mile within the same neighborhood we lived in). The police somehow did not see my dad was high every time they talked with him and probably felt sorry for my dad thinking the way he looked was likely caused by the stress of my brother running away everyday for two straight weeks. My dad ended up having to place Ryan in a group home that turned out to be a huge blessing for him and his development.
After high school I went to a community college and ran on the cross country and track teams. It was during my second year that I had a speech class where the professor showed the documentary, The Secret (which was heavily endorsed by Oprah and completely New Age philosophy). At that time the message in the documentary really resonated with me. The underlining message was that people are in charge of their own success and that the universe is limitless in what it can give. The only thing someone would have to do was channel what they wanted to the universe and the rest would take care of itself (if someone wanted to become a millionaire they could do so by visualizing money and eventually checks would start coming in the mail). At the time, this message showed me that I was fully in control of my life. It aligned with everything that I had already done up to that point (relying on myself to get things done, it truly was the belief in myself that I could accomplish anything I set my mind to).
I ran good enough at my community college to receive a scholarship to run at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas my junior and senior year. It was almost immediate that the belief in myself was crushed as I experienced a fracture in my left foot just a month into the school year. My season was done and for the first time I could not out run the pain of my past. I was no longer living with either of my parents, but had now reached an ultimate low in my life without running. My entire identity was wrapped up into running and I was done for the entire year based on the bone I had broken and my coach choosing to bring me back slowly.
During this time my mom had gotten pulled over for her third DUI (all for prescription drugs) and was serving jail time for it (second and final time in jail, both for DUI's). My dad was unreachable by phone as he was blowing through every bit of savings and retirement he saved. I did not have any one to talk to about the pain of my life.
The next year (my senior year), I was ready for a new start and experienced shooting pain down the right side of my leg. Just before the last cross country race of my college career I found out it was a bulged disk in my lower back. Based on the pain I was experiencing the doctor said I may not ever be able to run again at the college level.
At the end of the fall semester (during my senior year, December 2010), when my roommate and I were going around Las Vegas looking to give out homemade cookies to the homeless, we came across a homeless man who asked us if we were Christians. We both said yes and to my surprise the man ended up asking us if we knew the Ten Commandments. Between the two of us we might have named off 6 or so, but the Lord Jesus Christ used this moment to get my attention. After that I moment I opened up the only Bible I had (NIV) and started memorizing the Ten Commandments. It became very obvious to me that I had broken several commandments and it was the law that ultimately drew me to Christ (Galatians 3:24-25).
We ended up getting a new coach right at this same time and he flat out told me that injuries were all mental. I knew this was not true, but as a competitor this flipped a switch within me to do whatever amount of training and rehab needed to get back running (and that is what I did). A couple months later and I was leading the pack again in practices until one day in February 2011, I was out on the track and felt a pop in my right foot. At that moment the training room thought it was just tendonitis, but in my mind I was pretty certain I had gotten another break (this time in the other foot). This was my final breaking point that led me to walk into a church where I cried out to the Lord Jesus Christ. By this point in my life tears were hard to come by as I had cried so much as a child that really nothing would bring me to tears, but on this day I had tears pouring down my face. I knew I was a sinner and was greatly grieved that day as the Lord brought me to repentance and faith.
I moved out to Birmingham, AL (January 2012) for school and eventually found a church that I loved. It was here that I got water baptized and started getting very involved. I ended up leaving that church and moving back to Southern California to be closer to my family since no job openings were coming my way in Birmingham.
When I moved back to California I did not feel anger toward my parents and had forgiven them for what they had done. A little before I got saved I had told a friend that I did not care if my parents were dead because they had never done anything for me, but that all changed after I was saved. What I did not realize was that I still would get angry for little things that came up that triggered me. I lived with my mom a little over a year in San Diego county (CA) and prayed a lot that the Lord Jesus Christ would help me with my anger and give me wisdom and understanding. God's timing was perfect as he began to mend my relationship with my mom and dad and opened up a job for me in Dallas, TX.
When I moved out to Dallas, I made the mistake of trusting my feelings over studying out whether the church I attended was biblically sound. After 1.5 years I left the church (Gateway) I was a member at in Dallas on August 13th, 2017 after 6 weeks of research and study. At that time the Lord Jesus Christ opened my eyes to the deception and false doctrines (tithing, prosperity gospel, Sabbath, pre-trib, tongues, etc.) that were being taught within the church I was at and so many others. The error I made was joining the church and trusting that everything was sound doctrine, instead of being like the Bereans and searching the scriptures to see whether those things were so. The last service I attended I prayed that the Lord would make it absolutely clear whether I should be at that church. I felt absolutely sickened by the end of the service in what I had gotten caught up in. From the songs that were sung that day (songs written by two incredibly deceptive churches: Hillsong and Bethel) to the message itself, I was certain an immediate departure at that time is what I needed to do. I was involved in the church and knew I had to reach out to a few of my friends and my small group leaders (a husband and wife). The two people I considered friends basically dismissed everything I told them, stating that no one is perfect (about the pastor) and that they felt God had planted them in that church for a reason because they believed their faith had grown so much there. I reached out to the wife of my small group that I had been apart of for a year to tell her everything that the Lord Jesus Christ had opened my eyes to. I even brought the book that the pastor wrote (The Blessed Life) about tithing and had areas bookmarked and highlighted to go over. Even more concerning for me was the speakers Robert Morris (pastor of the church) would bring into the church to share a message (Bill Johnson, Creflo Dollar, T.D. Jakes, Christine Caine, Todd White, etc.). His close association and approval of false teachers was a huge red flag that I shared with her. We talked for over an hour and she was concerned by what I had brought up and even discussed it with her husband. They later contacted me to say that they would be staying in the church and also told me that I should stay and just not tithe. I was a tither before my eyes were open to the false doctrine and knew the scriptures warned numerous times about false teachers being wolves in sheep's clothing (there was no turning back for me, even with the loss of every friend I had within the church).
I was so grieved at the state of the church system that claimed to be of Christ and devastated by the people that I told that remained in the church thinking everything was fine. Even more I was filled with sorrow toward the Lord in what I had gotten caught up in.
Shortly after I stepped away from that church I came across CLE (October 2017). I know I saw the teaching on birthdays, but outside of that cannot remember what else I may have looked at. What brought me back to the site was when my mom was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in May 2018. I knew that chemo was not the way to go and after seeking out research on natural cures the article Chris wrote came up. I shared the article with my mom, got her apricot seeds and even a juicer to juice organic carrots and other veggies, but she ultimately decided to go through chemo and do the juicing and seeds on the side. She ended up passing on July 16th, 2019. I do believe my mom came to repentance before she passed and was able to spend the last two weeks of her life by her side.
CLE has been a tremendous blessing to me over the last couple years and I have read through many of the articles and listened to audio on both YouTube and the website. In my normal job I am on the road a lot traveling and would often listen to the teachings while I was driving. I have also given out a couple of books, Why Millions of Believers On Jesus Are Going to Hell, and plan on giving more out.
I started reading the KJB shortly after I left my last church at the end of 2017 and believe it is the preserved word of God. My favorite articles have been on repentance, false converts, tithing, charity, and the book Why Millions of Believers On Jesus Are Going to Hell. Throughout my time in the church system I had heard several times the parable of the sower of seed, but until I got the KJB and went through the teaching on false converts I did not have any understanding on it.
I look forward to being a part of this community of born again believers and growing in my faith and understanding.
