Mandi's Testimony

Hi! My name is Mandi. I am 16 years old and am going into the 10th grade. I don't live with my mom and dad and brother. I moved out of my parents house in November of 1998, when I was 14. I went and stayed with a friend. She was 23. For my 14th birthday she took me out and got me drunk. And everyone knows as far as a Christian lifestyle goes, you don't go out and party and get drunk, especially when you are 14. You're probably thinking, well where was God in all of this? When I was 11 years old I was baptized. Now the reason I got baptized was because a lot of my other friends in church were getting baptized and I thought that was the right thing to do. So, I went and talked to our pastor and told him I would like to be baptized and become a member of the church. Well, let me tell ya. Once I was baptized the devil stuck out more than ever before in my life. And the reason for that is because the devil sees you accepting Jesus into your life and he's like no way, I want you, God can't have you, so he tries even harder to get you to mess up. Well, it didn't take much for me to give in to peer pressure. In the summer of 1999 I moved up with some friends of the family. They had known me since I was born and we used to live 15 minutes away from each other before they moved. Well, I moved up here with them and my life has never been better. I went through confirmation that year and my life started to change. Now I have lived with our friends of the family for 2 years and I have a job at our church and have never been doing better. I think everything happens for a reason, and I believe that God is that reason. I thank God for everything He has blessed me with in my life.