Reality vs. Truth

Raw testimony...digging through it...laying that new foundation - 2022.
-Reality is - growing up Baptist, being taken to Church every Sunday, yet being verbally and emotionally abused by a workaholic Farther leading to identity and abandonment issues.
-Reality is - having four psychotic episodes in your life, the first, a week long battle for your very sanity, causing voices, paranoia, a suicidal tendency and a demonic, out-of-body experience, the last leading to a bleak eleven days in a mental hospital diagnosed with bi-polar 1 and manic-depressive disorder.
-Reality is - at the age of thirteen, running from god’s calling, becoming addicted to pornography, trying to quit on your own too many times to count, each failed attempt resulting in a deeper depth of depravity, leading to a life FILLED with hidden shame and self - loathing.
-Reality is - thinking you were finally pursuing God, jumping into a rocky, five - year marriage in hopes of ending your pornography and marijuana addictions only to be viciously beaten by your wife ultimately resulting in divorce.
-Reality is - being so lost and broken after your wife leaves you for your Pastor’s brother, that you turn to what you ran from in youth, methamphetamine, and into the angry person you swore you would never be, leaving you divorced, homeless, alone and hopeless!
*How do I know that's reality?! Because THAT was ME!
*Even Though We’ve all had different realities – We can all be changed by the same Truth… and...
-The Truth is - my parents loved me and had their own struggles, and I had compassion watching Dad battle his demons. Now Christ’s identity in me is teaching me peace and has brought healing between my Father and I.
-Truth is - God used those episodes of evil in my life to bring me to a complete end of myself and to a place of full, miraculous surrender, revealing my purpose in His Kingdom and is fully healing me from those and other disorders.
-Truth is - while tired of the running, in earnest prayer and seeking, I had a vision kneeling before His Throne, then God fully crushed and convicted me in the miracle I most treasure, shattering the chains of pornography and self - hatred from my life.
-Truth is - though I let my marriage put bitterness and a prideful, combative spirit in me I swore I’d never have, on February 4, 2022, I rededicated my life to Christ and he has led me a long way in healing from the pain and grief I both dealt and suffered.
-Truth is - through years of struggling back to God, he has changed the darkness of suffering and evil into growth and a full conviction to follow His word and will for my life, led by His Spirit of Truth - and now, I am filled with hope NOT hopelessness.
-The passage I stand on is Psalm 40, verses 1 and 2: “I waited patiently for the Lord, he inclined and heard my cry. He brought me up out of the pit, out of the muddy clay.”
-I stand on this passage because, through all of my years of rejecting Him, in my own pit of misery and self - pity, He pursued me with a Love, Grace and Passion I could never repay, and gave me a heart for the lost and forgotten of this world, to be a light for him while doing my best to help those in need of His Love and Compassion.