Ethan Rupert's Testiomony

My Testimony

        I was born into a christian family. We all went to church every Sunday. I started my first year at RVR at around age 8 and I kept going every year after that. My mom tells me that there was a lot of conflict in my family before I was born. She tells me how when I was born, I was the one that brought our family back together. As I grew up, I started to take after my two older brothers who were failing in school, always fighting with each other, and became rebellious towards my parents. It wasn't easy for me to grow up in that kind of situation. At around the age of ten, My oldest brother got me to smoke weed for the first time. I never really got addicted to it then but I kept doing it because he was my brother and I guess at the time I thought it was okay. At around the same time, my other brother started picking on me and put me under a series of verbal and physical abuse. He would leave bruises all over my arms and call me retarded and made me feel like I wasn't ever good enough. What my brothers both put me through had such an impact on me that I started to follow in their footsteps without even really noticing it. My grades started to drop and I started to believe that my parents were these evil people who just wanted to punish me for the stuff I did wrong. On top of that, it all caused me to fall into a huge pit of depression that I couldn't get out of and whenever I tried, it was on my own and I just kept falling deeper and deeper into that pit of depression. I ended up hating my life and threatening to commit suicide almost every month. My parents couldn't deal with the major stress that my rebellious behavior was causing them so they put me into a psychiatric hospital which didn't help at all. I ended up going through three different psychiatric hospitals. Sadly, none of them ever helped me realize that my God was with me the whole time and that I couldn't do anything on my own. Though my parents kept strong and dealt with the stress that I was causing my family. My oldest brother went to jail and when he got out, he moved out of the house and into a halfway house. I never got to see him but I couldn't help but think deep down that somehow it was all my fault. Around two years later, my parents sent me to a Christian based rehab/boarding school called Teen Challenge. They sent me there because I had struggled a lot with anger and rebellious behavior. It was supposed to be a year-long program but six months through the program they sent me home because I wasn't progressing in the program and they needed more open spots for other people who needed to be there. I have never experienced the Holy Spirit more in my life at that point. I may not have progressed behavior-wise in the program but God moved through my life and completely turned my life around. I learned that I couldn't do life on my own and that I needed Him to take control of my life and guide me. Everyone else in the program that I was there with was there for drug addictions so it was hard for me to feel like I actually needed to be there. I was bullied and picked on by all the other kids and I could never feel wanted by anybody there. I woke up six months into the program one day and they told me to pack my stuff because I was leaving. I never got the chance to say goodbye to most of the staff that helped me through my journey. I was so scared that my parents were going to send me to another place that could get me help. It turns out that once I got home, I did really well and was very respectful to my parents and everything seemed as if it was all better and I wouldn't turn back to who I was before Teen Challenge. But a few months after I got back home, I got hooked on smoking weed more than before. It totally destroyed my consistency of faith and my focus on who was really the one in control. But I never forgot that God was with me and I never forgot that He was as real as real can possibly get. I started attending this youth group that some friends invited me to and at first I just used it as a place to get away from home. At around the same time, my oldest brother started to get cleaned up and was really wanting to pursue God. After a year of attending the youth group I was almost getting tired of being there for nothing. I really didn't want to go but my friend texted me asking if I was coming so I said I would go. I sat through the sermon playing games on my phone until the youth pastor asked for everyone to stand for a brief moment of worship. Something just spoke to me to stand for worship so I decided to put my phone down and stand up. During the first song, I just stood there but when the second song came on, my heart just sunk. I knew that God was with me and He was waiting for me to surrender to Him so He could speak into my life. After the worship time was over, I couldn't help collapse into my seat and sit there in tears wondering where this kind of relationship with God was before when I needed it most and why he waited till that certain day to allow me to receive His Glory and power. I ended up talking to the youth pastor for the rest of the youth group about how when I make commitment to follow Christ and truly surrender to His ways, that it doesn't mean everything is going to be easier in times to come but in fact most likely going to be harder and it was my job to keep relying on God to help me get through my struggles instead of falling back into sin. It turns out that my brother was out driving around that night at the same exact time and something came over him. So he pulled into a gas station and sat in the car feeling so convicted by God. He surrendered to God in the moment and God spoke to him telling him that he was empty inside and that the Holy Spirit was the only thing that could fill that emptiness inside of him. After that night, me and my oldest brother started to bring each other up in Christ and become the brothers that we were truly meant to be and the brothers that God wanted us to be. I fell back into drugs even after that. As well as my brother. My brother then took me to RVR, week 3, year 2017 and I never thought that I could become even more closer to God then I already was before but I learned to give up my sins to God and I learned to keep my faith through prayer and devotion. Since then I have had my life completely devoted to God and God alone.