Shona's Story

Whenever I became ill my church family and my family they would pray and they would fast for me
My name's Shona and this is my story
When I was 10 I had anorexia nervosa, which is an eating disorder
It's a mental illness so you can't see what's actually there
Like reality is distorted by it and so whenever I would look in the mirror I would see, yeah I wouldn't see what was there
But one day I believe that God healed me of my illness, and so when I looked in the mirror I saw reality
I saw that it wasn't"
yeah, it wasn't great
And so I guess that, combined with my family and church family praying and trusting in God for healing I was like, "oh this creator God isn't distant, He's close, and He cares, and He has healed me of this
He had rescued me in more ways than just healing, but through Jesus, so I wanted to live the rest of my life for Him in whatever way that was
I can testify to God healing me as a miracle"
For my friends who aren't Christians it's really challenging for them to hear that and it brings up questions in their own lives of, "how is that possible
Maybe there is a God
It just makes sense of what I experience as a human in both suffering and joy, who God is and what He says in His word"
So that's, I guess what I often appeal to with my friends, is, "oh what you're going through, like, Jesus makes sense of this
Come see what He has to say
And you'd be surprised how easy it is to share Jesus when you actually know somebody and you understand them
I suppose that's what I see of Jesus in the gospels is that He, when He meets people He also asks them questions
I think sometimes as Christians we think for people to come to know Jesus we have to hide certain aspects of our life and make it look like being Christian is always being happy and perfect, but I think actually that's one of the most powerful things you can do is to share the whole of your life with somebody, even the difficulty, because they will see the difference that God makes in your life"
My relationship with my fiancé, his passion and his love for Jesus spurs me on and makes me want to pursue Jesus more
Even kind of listening to him pray back in the day I was like, "man, this guy loves Jesus
And our core is the same, we want people to know Jesus
And I think coming together to do that we kind of help the other along
And I see that as a real gift from the lord