Testimony Tuesday: Joyfully accepting an invitation from God

By Bella Agnello

*Due to the nature of this story and the sensitive information it contains, a false name has been given to the student in this story, all other information is true

“Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God.” 

Isaiah 41:10 is a cornerstone verse for many Christians, though for Anna Smith this verse carries the weight of her story.

Anna is a freshman Broadcasting, Digital Media and Journalism major with a concentration in Digital Media at Cedarville University. Though barely on campus for a week, she already sees the ways God is stitching up her past to direct her future.

When Smith was three or four years old, during a routine evening prayer with her parents, she decided to ask Jesus to save her from her sins.

“I think it was a no-brainer thing for me to do,” Smith said.

Smith attended private school all her life. In grade school, she transferred to another private school down the road from her old school, where bullies and self-alienation made it hard for her to fit in.

When she was 11 years old, Smith went to a Christian summer camp, hoping to receive from God anything he could give her. On one the last nights of camp, the pastor invited the students to consider baptism as a next step in their faith. At home, Smith talked to her parents, signed up for a baptism class, and got baptized the next Sunday.

“I think I was happy that I was doing this great thing,” Smith said. “I still had a lot of stuff I didn’t let go of at that time. Looking back at it, I don’t think I fully realized what baptism fully meant.”

Still hoping to find acceptance in middle school, Smith began to wrestle with her sexual identity. The struggle remained in the privacy of her mind until the end of her freshman year of high school, when Smith began to explore her sexuality. She began dating her best friend, who she attended church with and who had recently broken up with her boyfriend.

“I wanted that connection with someone, and I thought I could find it in her,” Smith said.

Smith and her girlfriend dated for two months, then Smith moved out of the state and started attending public school. A month later, her girlfriend visited Smith and stayed with her for a week. When she flew back home, she called Smith saying she realized their relationship went against God’s design.

“The devil was in my ear saying, ‘This is all her fault. She did this to you. She wants you to be alone,’” Smith said.

Sophomore year at a new school presented Smith with a slew of questions about her identity, same sex attraction and faith. To try and find the answers to these questions, she became involved in the theater program and found a crowd that pressured her to do things she did not want to do and challenged her relationship with God. 

“That was a pretty dark time in my life,” Smith said.

That summer, Smith attended two Christian conferences and took the Bible and the Gospel class during Cedarville University’s Summer Scholars program in June. Through these events, God convicted her heart.

“I had the devil whispering in my ear, ‘This is fine, this is exactly what you want,’” Smith said. “But I had the Holy Spirit speaking into the other ear, ‘What is going on here? You need to be thinking through this stuff.’”

Spending her summer surrounded by Christians pouring into her gave Smith the courage to open up about her struggles with her parents.

“I just didn’t feel worthy enough to bring it to God,” Smith said. “So, I brought it to my mom.”

Her parents’ response surprised her.

“I had the devil whispering in my ear, ‘They’re going to be so mad that you struggled with this – that you’re still struggling with this,’” Smith said. “They told me, ‘You are a child of God and we are not angry with you. We just want to know what’s going on.’”

Though Smith entered her junior year of high school with newfound conviction, she quickly returned to old friends and habits. It was not until her senior year where she experienced true change in her life. She stopped spending time with her friend group, quit theater and journaled, but she still did not fully commit to spending time with God every day.

It wasn’t until this past summer when Smith began to see more clearly how God could impact every part of her life, including her career. She attended the WAVE program at Cedarville, which prepares students with the skills necessary to successfully go through their 1,000 days on campus. Smith knew she wanted to be a film producer, but the two-week program excited her to learn how to produce art that can draw her audience’s attention to God.

“It changed my whole perspective of how I can relate my studies and the Bible,” Smith said. “It gave me excitement to go into my job and work on my skills for this job. It’s getting me so excited for the joy I can bring other people rather than myself.”

God began to unravel the beautiful plans he has for her life, and he gave her this fresh perspective right before heading into her college career, where he would work further.

On Tuesday, August 20, during the night session of the Fall Bible Conference, President of the university Dr. Thomas White invited students to dedicate their lives to Christ if they needed salvation. Smith felt a pull on her heart but dismissed it. She still carried the weight of her sin struggles with her but resolved that she already gave her life to Christ.

When White came up another time, he posed a different invitation. This time for those who needed to surrender everything to God.

Smith asked her roommate to come with her and came forward.

“As soon as we went up, I could feel the hands of God literally on my shoulders,” Smith said. 

Smith recalls that night with joy, remembering how she never wanted to let that moment end.

“I never experienced the presence of God that way,” Smith said. “It felt like if I looked up, He would be right there.”

This isn’t the end of Smith’s story. As it says in Isaiah 41:10, Smith lives in the confidence and joy that God will never leave her side because He is her God. Smith feels God inviting her to grow in her faith and confess her sins to others as well as share the story He gave her.

Smith cannot wait to continue exploring her relationship with God and learning how he will teach her to glorify him through her future career as a film producer.

Bella Agnello is a junior Broadcasting, Digital Media and Journalism major with a concentration in Journalism. She enjoys thrifting, listening to records and reading classic Russian literature in her spare time.

*Photo taken from Unsplash