My Testimony

I just thought that I would post my testimony for anyone who is interested. Let me know your thoughts and feelings on it! :D

Hi, most of you already know me but for those who don’t I’m Mallori Michell. I was brought up in a Christian home with both my parents being Christian and even my grandparents being missionaries with their own church. I went to church and Sunday school every Sunday and I even went to a Christian school, being Craigmore Christian School. We started coming to Craigmore church after my grandparents, whose church we attended before that, moved to Perth. I don’t remember when I gave my heart to the Lord when I was younger; I remember just saying the prayer every time it was brought up in church or Sunday school just to make sure. I don’t remember if I ever knew back then what it really meant; it was just something I knew I had to do.

I’ve had a lot of ups and downs through-out my life. Some family related, some friends related, but it was when I started wrestling that things started to go downhill in regards to my walk with God. I had watched wrestling on TV for a few years and had started going to live shows that were put on. I thought it was so awesome but never thought that I would be able to do something like that until I started talking to some of the wrestlers. One of them asked me if I was interested in wrestling myself as they needed female wrestlers. I told him that it was always something I had thought about and so he invited me to their next show to check them out and the following Monday I was at training. I knew then that this was what I wanted to do and nothing would stop me. Mum had her doubts at first but me, being the stubborn person that I am still wanted to do it. So I started training to be a wrestler. The people that I was constantly around were not Christians and I found myself falling into things that they did. I went to after-parties after the shows and went out with them every weekend basically and joined in with things they did there that I never thought I would do, but I did anyway. I became someone completely different. I stopped going to church and every time mum mentioned church or asked me to go I would have a reason as to why I couldn’t that week. I did go a few times every now and again but I never really wanted to be there. I guess the guilt I felt made me think that I didn’t belong.

Then, during a match I had in Melbourne, I was injured. I damaged tissue and ligaments in my shoulder from a move I took. I was told that if I wrestled and landed wrong again that I could damage my shoulder to the extent that I may need surgery. I had two options at that point, the first being that I could continue wrestling and risk getting injured again and possibly have to have surgery or I could quit wresting all-together. At this point wrestling was my whole life so I decided to wait and see how it felt when it started healing. However, the thing with tissue and ligament damage is that it never really goes away. To this day my shoulder still hurts sometimes. During the time that I was injured a lot of the people that I wrestled with started to think that I was faking my injury and started to be really horrible to me and talk about me a lot behind my back. They started a lot of horrible and untrue rumors with the sole purpose to hurt and embarrass me. I started to feel very alone and depressed. Also around that time there was a Christmas in July dinner that mum was trying to talk me into going. I honestly didn’t want to go, but at this point I had pretty much hit rock bottom, saw how much it would mean to mum that I go and thought well why not I don’t have anything else on that night and I can leave halfway through if I’m miserable.

When I first got to the dinner I didn’t talk to anyone. I hoped that no-one would even notice I was there so then there wouldn’t be questions asked that I really didn’t want to answer. However, Chloe came over to talk to me and to be honest she was the main person I was trying to avoid that night. From what I can remember I don’t think she asked me any of the questions that I wanted to avoid, she just asked how I was and about my injury. Then she made a comment that took me by surprise and has been stuck in my mind since that night. She looked right at me and said that I had lost the sparkle in my eyes. I had no idea what she was on about. I thought to myself what sparkle is she talking about and I asked her that. She just said she could see that I had lost the sparkle in my eyes that used to be there. That hit home and I realized what kind of person I had become. The sparkle in my eyes was from the Holy Spirit being in me and I had turned my back on God for nearly two years so it wasn’t there anymore. That night I made the decision to start going back to church again.

Now you may think that from then on things were all great. Well it did start to get better but there were also many battles that I had to fight. I knew that I had to quit wrestling all-together, but it had become such a part of me that in my mind it felt like I was giving up a part of me, and I was but it was a part of me that I could live without now that God was back in my life. I managed to quit but I went back to wrestling a few months later with another group of people. I was a referee for a few shows and tried not to let it rule my life like it did before, but it was more the people that I was around that was the problem not the sport so much itself. I started to slide back again and fall back into old habits. I met a guy who was being trained by my old trainer who was one of the people who spread rumors about me. I should have known at the time and recognized the warning signs that God put in front of me, but I didn’t. Thankfully it didn’t last very long but it made me realize how easy it is to fall when we start thinking we can handle things in our own strength and that we don’t need God for everything. At that point I re-dedicated my life to God and promised myself to give this a shot and try to ask God for help when I needed it instead of getting upset and worried about how I would handle it. God sure tested me on that promise through people at work. They started to treat me unfairly and it was getting to me a lot and I would come home crying almost every night. I hadn’t done anything to these people that would make them want to treat me how they were treating me but they were. That’s when I started to pray whenever things were said that upset me or made me angry. I knew that the easy option would be to have a go back and treat them how they were treating me or even just walking out and quitting, but the more I prayed about it the more peace I felt. I stopped worrying about the situation and just handed it over to God and told myself that he is in control, there is a reason to why he is giving me this trial.

A verse that I was told really helped me through that time especially. 1 Peter 5 : 6 – 11 “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for some-one to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings; And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. To him be the power forever and ever. Amen.” It’s a long one but it’s one that has helped me so much. Knowing that I can cast all my worries on him because He loves and cares for me is amazing and knowing that I’m not the only person who is going through things like this is a comfort. I know that for me I feel like no-one can understand what I’m going through but I know now that it is just Satan trying to get me down. It has become a lot easier for me to trust God and I know that I can give things over to him so that I don’t need to worry anymore and have complete confidence that he will take care of everything, but I still have a long way to go. I’m so thankful for the people God has put in my life who have and are helping me through everything and for not giving up on me and I’m especially thankful that God never gave up on me even when I turned my back on him. I can only hope that now when people look at me they can see that sparkle in my eyes again which I know only comes from the Holy Spirit.