Tell us your name and where you're from?
C: My name is Crystal Peaks and I was born and raised in Durham, North Carolina but I am now residing in Dallas, Texas.
What is your faith story, Crystal? What can you tell us about your personal life testimony?
C: Before I came to Christ on November 23, 2008, I suffered from a severe lack of identity. I grew up in a chaotic home with a father who was a crack addict who would binge and go missing for weeks at a time. My mother suffered with chronic depression as a result of trying to be the sole breadwinner of the family by working as many as 3 part-time jobs at times and taking care of my older brother, myself, and 2 younger sisters. If she wasn’t at work she was asleep. Most likely from a combination of exhaustion and depression. I know this because I too suffered from depression for most of my life beginning in childhood.
Due to the state of things in my home I grew up feeling very neglected. I was told regularly by my father that he loved us but it was never shown through his actions so I never felt loved. I never felt good enough. The enemy planted a lie in my mind very early that if I was good enough then my daddy would get clean, stay clean, and stay home. So I would try to be a “good girl” and do all the “right” things and be perfect and then my daddy wouldn’t need to get high. But it never worked. I didn’t understand that the issues that my father was dealing with didn’t have anything to do with me. So from as early as I can remember, I internalized everything and decided that I must be the problem. To add insult to injury, I was very overweight as a child because I used food for comfort. The rest of the member’s of my family were all thin and good looking and I felt that I didn’t measure up. This tormented me for most of my life. From that point I tried to find any way I could to soothe the ache of not being good enough. I tried to earn people’s love and affection by performance. I was a chameleon who changed and transformed based on my environment and the people I was around and became whoever I thought they wanted me to be. I didn’t have thoughts or opinions of my own. I was like the princess from the movie “Coming to America” who, when asked a question about what she liked, responded with “whatever you like”. I found myself drawn to toxic friendships where I was taken advantage of but I allowed it because I thought “at least I was needed”. I was exposed to pornography at the age of 6 and became instantly addicted. This led to further feelings of self loathing because I knew that it wasn’t right but it was a compulsion I couldn’t control. This path led me to place myself in compromising situations and at the age of 15 I was sexually abused by a friend of my family who was 12 years older than me and the abuse (which I did not understand was abuse) lasted for about 4 years. He introduced me to marijuana in order to facilitate in hindering my inhibitions and this led to an addiction to marijuana that I battled for decades. Not only that, it also created in me an inability to have healthy boundaries, especially in the area of my sexuality and relationships. I became very promiscuous I was unable to say no to anyone and did pretty much what anyone wanted, almost always against my will. All of these experiences further solidified in my mind that I was broken and wasn’t good enough. I hated myself and really wished I could be different than I was, but I felt that I was a hopeless case and would never be able to change. But God!! When I was 22, I entered a season that I like to call “the perfect storm". I had just given birth to my first child, a son, and I was suffering from post partum depression. During that same time I had a friendship end with my best friend at the time and it so wounded me that I ended up having a mental breakdown. God being so gracious to me had allowed me to start a new job just a couple of months before and I had excellent benefits that allowed me to start going to therapy. This is one of the best decisions I had ever made. We started to deal with my childhood issues and all of the trauma that I’d experienced up until that point. That’s when the true healing started. I had never been validated until then and it made such an impact on me, having someone listen to me and tell me the truth of what I could not understand as a child. As I began to acknowledge the grief I had for the abuse and neglect that I’d endured, I was in a better place to be able to see how strong and resilient I was and that I had survived. This led me straight to God. After looking back at all I’d gone through to where I was at the time I knew that SOMEONE had to be watching over me. During this time, God positioned me to sit near a lady at my job who was a Christian. She seemed so joyful and happy and I just didn’t understand why. She had extended an open invitation to visit her church but I hadn’t taken her up on it yet. One Sunday in November, I decided to visit and that day changed my life. I accepted Jesus Christ that day and felt the love of God fill me in ways I had never experienced before. I had said the sinner’s prayer a couple of times in different churches that I’d visited but I never truly accepted Jesus. That day was different. I began to dive head first into the word of God and I fell in love with it and with Him. I started renewing my mind with the word and learning what God says about me. God delivered me from promiscuity and taught me that I was worthy to be loved and that I was pure because of His sacrifice. I learned how to create healthy boundaries and just worked to develop a deeper level of intimacy with Jesus. He also freed me from other addictions that I’d battled and has loved me into a place of wholeness that I’m still in the process of learning how to walk out. This was not an overnight process, as much as I would have liked it to be. There were many seasons of therapy as well as many levels of healing and deliverance in the areas that God was bringing freedom to. Over the years, the Lord has positioned me in different places, alongside different ministries, and aligned me with various people to facilitate a deeper healing in the areas of brokenness in my life. He has allowed situations to arise that I thought I would not survive in order to show His goodness toward me and His absolute ability to provide for and and care for me in ways I never could on my own. There was even a season that I walked through severe mental illness and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. This was a particularly challenging season because I could not trust my own mind. In hindsight I understand now that God allowed me to lose MY mind so that I could receive HIS. I learned to hear from the Lord through His word and believe Him in spite of what I was seeing around me. I learned the balance of needing to take medication to aid the process of healing while believing God for total healing and restoration. I thank God for that challenging season as well as all the other ones because in them He trained me for a supernatural life. As believer’s in Jesus Christ we are not promised a pain free, problem free existence. But we are assured that the One who created the us and the world we live in will be with us every step of the way and He promises to lead us and guide us into all truth. There is great peace in that fact and in every letter in His Word. These promises will not disappoint us as we trust Him and obey Him, and yield our wills to His. As we strengthen ourselves and others with the testimonies of the things that God has brought us through, we prophesy life and give hope to others that the same God that delivered us is able to deliver them. This is what I hope to do with my testimony.
Wow! What a powerful testimony! What is your favorite scripture and why?
C: I have 3 scriptures that are my life verses. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5-6 This scripture is one of my favorites because of my tendency to control things. I try to do things my own way as they make sense to me but I’ve learned that my plans tend to conflict with what the Lord desires to do in and through me. I meditate on this scripture to align my thoughts with the Lord’s because His will is best for me and this brings me peace. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. “ II Corinthians 5:17 This is another one that I meditate on often. My biggest battle in my walk with Christ is believing that what He’s said in His word is true about me. My testimony is filled with things I would rather have not experienced and sometimes I allow those things to disqualify me from what God has called me to do. But this scripture reminds me that when I gave my life to Christ the “old me” died. When I was baptized I joined Christ in dead and when I was raised from the water I was raised to new life. I have been covered in the blood of Jesus. Forever forgiven. As a butterfly is no longer the same after going through metamorphosis, I am not the same person I was before Christ. “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, “ II Corinthians 10:3-5 This scripture is the ammunition that I use when warring against wrong thoughts. This is the scripture that God gave me when I was walking through severe mental illness, using His word to cast down every thought that I had that was contrary to what His word said. We have to be vigilant about the thoughts we allow ourselves to meditate on because when we let those thoughts run wild they build strongholds, which are protected places in our minds for the enemy to wage war against us from the inside. Our thoughts empower our beliefs both positively and negatively so this area of our thought life must be mastered.
Ok Crystal, If there was one nugget of wisdom in your walk and growth in Christ that you would want to leave us with, what would that be?
"Don’t fight the process!! Healing is not easy and the very things you would like to avoid dealing with because they hurt are the very things that God wants to deal with so that you can be healed. Trust that God is a good Father and everything He reveals is to get us to a greater place of wholeness. The path that God leads us on may not look like the way we think we should go to get to the desired destination in our timing but His way is best and God’s timetable is not ours. Also, don’t compare your journey or your story with others. Comparison is the thief of joy. Each and every one of our stories is beautiful because God is the author. And He’s not finished!"
Do you have any resources (devotionals, books, studies) that have helped you that you would recommend?
The Bible first and foremost because it shows us the truth of who God says we are. “The Supernatural Ways of Royalty” by Kris Vallaton is an amazing book. He walks us through the process of revealing our true identity as children of God and our royal inheritance as heirs of the King of Kings. “Spirit, Soul, and Body” by Andrew Wommack. This book is revolutionary. He teaches that we are already made perfect in our spirit but the reason we aren’t able to experience the fullness of what the Bible says we can have is because of what’s going on in our soul. These 3 resources have been life changing for me.
Thank you Crystal, where can we find you online?
Instagram: @CrystalPeaks1123
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/crystal.peaks
Takeaway:
Wow! Crystal's Faith Story above can preach and encourage all by itself! Her story proves that believers are not exempt from experiencing trauma. However, God is in the healing business and will provide exactly that. Sis, you can love Jesus and still address every layer in therapy. In fact, this is healthy! Allowing Jesus to bring the hard things to surface through counseling and trusting Him to heal these very tender areas by faith and standing on the Word of God, is our remedy for a life in wholeness and peace. And as we walk in wholeness, we also gain the capacity to love others as ourselves. What tender areas will you allow God to heal today?
Prayer:
Father, there are readers today that are needing healing in the unspoken areas of their life. The areas that are so tender, that no one has touched them. There are readers that have felt fear or shame in their experiences and in seeking out help. But Lord, I thank you that there is no fear or condemnation in you. That you are a heart surgeon. Lord, I pray over these readers today, That they are affirmed that they are not defined by what they have been through. And like the paralyzed man at the pool, the invitation to healing is there. So I ask that for those seeking you out, that they are connected with who you see fit in moving healing forward in their life. That those things that are no longer serving them are removed. That they are given the strength to endure the process. And that a promise that healing and wholeness in YOU is done.
And for those that do not know you and those that do know you but think they are too far from you, We pray this prayer with them: Jesus, we believe that you are our personal Lord and Savior. And I invite you to my life. I invite you to my heart. Lord remove those things that are not of you. And I receive the things that you know are pleasing for me in your sight. Today, I choose you because I already know that you have chosen me. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Love you Selah fam!
R.
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