Sunny Rogers
My name is Sunny Katherine Rogers. Today, I would like to share with you my testimony and the transformation that the Lord has done in my life. I’d like to express the power of love, forgiveness, grace, and mercy that is within the Hands of our God.
I would like to start from the very beginning, before every one of us was formed and conceived in the womb. Our Father God knew us and planned to carry out his will. As children of God, we are made in his image.
1 John 3:2 says: “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not been made known. But we know when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”
Think back to when you were a child. We all looked to our earthly parents as role models and expected them to guide us on the right path. I believe that before we look for guidance from our parents, we must trust our almighty Father in heaven to guide us and teach us as well.
That concept may be hard to understand as a small child, which is why it is extremely important to teach our children God's love gently and with compassion. It’s important to have the Holy Spirit live through us while parenting and guiding our little loved ones.
When I was just seven years old, I woke up in the middle of the night. I heard the almighty voice of Our Father Lord - He called me by name. The next day, I told my mother and father, and they insisted I get baptized the following Sunday. At seven years old, I was a believer, but I didn’t truly understand what any of it meant and what God called me to do.
Now, at 24 years old, I can comprehend and understand his will for me on a deeper, spiritual level. I still have a lot to learn, but that is why every day I must dive into God’s word and pray for wisdom through Him. After I got baptized, the evil one hasn’t stopped attacking me since. He hates true believers.
We must submit to the Lord, obey his commandments, and the evil one will flee. He is defenseless against the power of God. Why should we fear the devil when God has already won the battle?
I have kept the faith through it all, but we humans all fall short of the glory of God. We are sinners in this shaken, broken, and fallen world. The good news is that God has forgiven, redeemed, and saved us by dying for us on the cross. God uses negative things for good, all under his perfect timing.
At 7, I knew God was our savior, but I couldn’t possibly predict or see the plans, trials, and hardships that were to come. Throughout my life, I have struggled with emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. I have struggled with an eating disorder, drug/alcohol addiction, anxiety, drug-induced paranoia, depression, PTSD, bullying, suicidal thoughts, car crashes, rehab, and the list continues to go on.
But through it all, our Father Lord has been with me every step of the way. I believe that God can use the most negative hardships to help us grow closer to him and deepen our faith in Him.
He has redeemed and saved my life too many times to count, protecting and loving me with His powerful, unconditional love. At just 12 years old, I went down a path of destruction with hard liquor. We all do destructive things to numb the pain from the broken world of sin that we live in. I was always looking for ways to fill the void and satisfy the anguish in my broken heart, but the Lord has mended it and repaired it, healing the wounds of sin with the power of forgiveness.
He can do the same for you. Down that dark and lonely road, being separated from God - that was true agony and hell. Satan will do anything and everything to break you down to the point that you want to lose your faith. But as Christians, we must not fall into the bottomless pit and traps Satan throws at us each day.
Our world is broken, we are all sinners, and God still loves us. He loves us all. God is love, and we are always unconditionally loved. I have been through hell and back, but God held my hand through all the trials and hardships in my life. He can do the same for you.
The mask and invisible wounds we carry on our hearts and faces each day can be heavy, and our hearts can be hardened. The devil will tell us lies about how we are unworthy, unlovable, and the scariest thing of all is how he strategically deceives us. He portrays certain things in this world that might be pleasurable in a sense, lying to us, saying it will help us, when in reality, he leads us down a path of isolation and destructive tendencies.
Before I rededicated my life and surrendered everything over to God, I was in a pit I thought I would never make it out of. I am living proof of the wonders and miracles the Lord can do in each of our lives. I pray each of you may be filled with God's love, powerful forgiveness, and grace. If he can do it for me, he most certainly will do it for you.
He loves his people, no matter what sins we have committed or what happened in the life you used to live. Surrender and let God's love into your heart. Thank you for letting me share. God Bless.
