H7 Story: New Life in Christ
My name is Kellie Coakley, and I have found a new life in Christ. My sin struggles are control, idolatry, manipulation, resentment, and pornography.
My testimony is one that began back when I was a small child. As the daughter of a Pastor, my family practically lived in the Church. Our weeks consisted of fellowship gatherings, dinners with family, and worship every weekend. Our church was a lively environment with the Holy Spirit moving in our congregation for hours on end. As a child, the focus wasn’t really on teaching us how to form a relationship with God, but was instead more tailored to discipline and following a strict rule book on the do’s and don’ts of what our Church felt made a good Christian.
For instance, we never cut our hair, wore pants or shorts, and we were not allowed to participate in sports. We lived as a tight-knit community, but outsiders were never quite welcome, and our Church didn’t open the doors to receive those they felt weren’t living a good Christian life. As a result, I felt segregated from the rest of the world and all the experiences and relationships it had to offer. We were taught the sins of the flesh and punished severely if we stepped out of line. This bred resentment and rebellion within me from a very early age. I began to associate religion with all the negative aspects of my life. It relegated my early childhood years to a life of living on the outside, apart from those I went to school with and those that lived in our neighborhood.
Early into my teenage years, my father separated from the Church, and we moved thousands of miles away from everything I grew up with, and the only family I had ever known. The move introduced an entirely new lifestyle, along with a multitude of freedoms I had never been exposed to. I was finally allowed to participate in sports and horseback riding, and I began to see what all I had been missing out on. But the resentment continued to fester, and the rebellion only worsened as I began to shift the blame from the Church to my parents. I felt they had unfairly subjected us to a lifestyle that was apart from the rest of the world, essentially blocking us from what I felt, at the time, should never have been condemned in the name of religion.
I began to party, my grades plummeted, and my life fell apart. Eventually, we moved back, but the damage was done. I had a hatred for religion that I couldn’t explain and a disconnect with my parents that seemed insurmountable. I moved out of the house when I was seventeen, continued partying, smoking weed, and drinking with my friends. I found comfort in the numbness. I found love, or what I thought was love, in friends that were struggling with their own lives as we bonded over past traumas. This continued throughout my teenage years but that came to a screeching halt after I graduated High School.
Shortly after graduating, I met a man that I later married, and I got pregnant with my first child at the age of eighteen. My husband at the time couldn’t hold down a job, was verbally and physically abusive, and I didn’t know how to cope with being a new mom and a wife at the same time. I hid the abuse from those around me and pretended as if nothing was wrong, all the while my self-esteem plummeted, and my self-worth became entwined with the words of my abuser. I felt I had no value, and I was failing my son daily. So, I worked and tried to find my worth, my value, in my job.
Eventually though, my marriage fell apart. I could no longer mask what was shredding me from the inside out. I was hollowed out from years of verbal and physical abuse and didn’t even recognize who I was anymore. So, I filed for divorce and began the excruciating process of trying to rebuild my life as a single mother with a three-year-old child.
I turned back to partying, leaving my son with my parents whenever possible so that I could escape the reality of the mess that was my life. Bill collectors called every day, and my finances were a complete disaster. After years of falling behind and struggling to make ends meet, it all unraveled, and no matter what I did, I couldn’t fix it.
I moved back in with my parents, started dating the wrong kind of men, and lost myself in weed and alcohol. I thought if I could just experience everything religion and my parents had kept from me, that I would feel whole again and be the mother my son needed me to be. But even parenting became a chore. I was stressed out, short with my son, and had no idea what I needed to do to fix the situation.
Months later, I met a guy at work who was a complete disaster, and for some reason I thought I could fix him. I could make him love me. I honestly don’t know what possessed me to start dating him. His finances were as bad as mine, and his partying was far worse than mine. Not to mention, he had no kids and was living the bachelor's life. But something drew me to him, and I began to fall in love. He was amazing with my son and quickly gave up his partying to spend time with the two of us. We dated for a year or so and my son and I moved in with him. About a year later, we got married, and shortly after, we became pregnant with my second son.
I thought I had finally pulled my life together, but even with the love of a good husband and two beautiful boys, I was still struggling to find my worth, my purpose, and to fill the void I had constantly waged war against since I was a child. I went back to school, got my degrees, and had a successful career, but nothing fixed my struggles. My sin followed me no matter what I did. I lived beyond my means, began reading and writing books that were filled with pornographic content, and continued to numb my emotions any way I could. Escapism became my norm. If I wanted it, I bought it. If I couldn’t handle the burdens laid upon me, I resented everything and anyone that I held responsible for putting me in the position I was in. It caused tension in my marriage. My husband couldn’t live up to the fictional characters I read and wrote about. My life never measured up to what I thought the definition of success was. I idolized all the things in the world that were never meant or needed to be in my life.
Before I knew it, my boys were raised and had left the house, and that’s when my focus turned on myself. Without the focus of raising kids, I began to reflect on myself and my shortcomings. I didn’t like the woman I had become, and I could no longer blame anyone but myself. My mistakes and sins were my own to reconcile. My oldest got married, and his wife was deeply religious. At first, this caused a rift between us. As my old resentment resurfaced, I began to blame her beliefs for the tension between my son and me. This didn’t resolve itself right away…nothing ever does. It took time, years in fact, but I began to see that there was a common denominator to my issues….ME!
The key turning point for me was when Charlie Kirk was assassinated. I watched his wife give a speech to millions of viewers with a stoicism I couldn’t fathom. Her faith was onstage and visible for anyone with eyes to see. She was strong, committed, and unrepentant in her love of God. And the day she forgave her husband’s murderer, I felt something shift within me. I wanted that kind of peace, resolve, and unwavering faith. I wanted that kind of undeniable self-worth and to know that I was loved beyond measure by a God that would never leave my side. So, I began purging the sin from my life. I gave up my books, cut out cursing, and pursued something that I couldn’t even begin to grasp at the time, but I knew I hungered for it with an insatiable appetite. I wanted Christ in my life.
The Holy Spirit took root in my heart, mind, and soul, and by the grace of God, I accepted it. I yearned for it each and every day. I became addicted to the feeling that the light of the Holy Spirit filled me with. I began going to church with my son and daughter-in-law. I started attending regularly and making friends within our church. I signed up for the “Open Your Eyes” program and began to read the Word of God. I can’t explain the way this turned my life around, but all I knew was that I couldn’t get close enough to God to appease the hunger within me. A few months in, I decided it was time to fully commit and turn my life over to God. I asked my son if he would baptize me, and with the support of our Pastor, we made it happen. The church accepted me with open arms. The congregation was warm, friendly, and the light of their faith was a beacon to my weary soul. I had found it….the void the darkness had constantly created was now brimming with light, and I was no longer empty, but overflowing with the light, love, and acceptance of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. God had delivered me from all my sins and had irrevocably changed my life.
I began to forgive, with an ease that never came to me before, those I had always thought were the root of my issues. The blindfold that had me walking through life in a fog was lifted, and I saw the devil's hand at work in others and knew that I had once been standing exactly where they were. The closer I grow to God, the stronger my devotion becomes to remain there. I never want to live the life I gave up the day I was baptized. It may sound cliché, but I firmly believe I died that day and was made anew with God's love.
I’m not perfect, but I am forgiven, and that gives me the strength to overcome anything by God’s will. Every day I work to be closer to God, and that requires growth, being uncomfortable in my own skin, and setting myself apart from the world and its sins. I no longer begrudge this but embrace it with a fervor that burns within. God is so good, and by His glory and grace, I strive to surrender to His will. I don’t know what His plans are for me, but I know that I will surrender and serve my God until my dying day. For the blood of Christ has redeemed me in a way I could never earn or achieve myself. It’s through Him that I am found, and through His mercy and grace that I am forgiven. Praise the Lord, for I am whole again.
My testimony is one that began back when I was a small child. As the daughter of a Pastor, my family practically lived in the Church. Our weeks consisted of fellowship gatherings, dinners with family, and worship every weekend. Our church was a lively environment with the Holy Spirit moving in our congregation for hours on end. As a child, the focus wasn’t really on teaching us how to form a relationship with God, but was instead more tailored to discipline and following a strict rule book on the do’s and don’ts of what our Church felt made a good Christian.
For instance, we never cut our hair, wore pants or shorts, and we were not allowed to participate in sports. We lived as a tight-knit community, but outsiders were never quite welcome, and our Church didn’t open the doors to receive those they felt weren’t living a good Christian life. As a result, I felt segregated from the rest of the world and all the experiences and relationships it had to offer. We were taught the sins of the flesh and punished severely if we stepped out of line. This bred resentment and rebellion within me from a very early age. I began to associate religion with all the negative aspects of my life. It relegated my early childhood years to a life of living on the outside, apart from those I went to school with and those that lived in our neighborhood.
Early into my teenage years, my father separated from the Church, and we moved thousands of miles away from everything I grew up with, and the only family I had ever known. The move introduced an entirely new lifestyle, along with a multitude of freedoms I had never been exposed to. I was finally allowed to participate in sports and horseback riding, and I began to see what all I had been missing out on. But the resentment continued to fester, and the rebellion only worsened as I began to shift the blame from the Church to my parents. I felt they had unfairly subjected us to a lifestyle that was apart from the rest of the world, essentially blocking us from what I felt, at the time, should never have been condemned in the name of religion.
I began to party, my grades plummeted, and my life fell apart. Eventually, we moved back, but the damage was done. I had a hatred for religion that I couldn’t explain and a disconnect with my parents that seemed insurmountable. I moved out of the house when I was seventeen, continued partying, smoking weed, and drinking with my friends. I found comfort in the numbness. I found love, or what I thought was love, in friends that were struggling with their own lives as we bonded over past traumas. This continued throughout my teenage years but that came to a screeching halt after I graduated High School.
Shortly after graduating, I met a man that I later married, and I got pregnant with my first child at the age of eighteen. My husband at the time couldn’t hold down a job, was verbally and physically abusive, and I didn’t know how to cope with being a new mom and a wife at the same time. I hid the abuse from those around me and pretended as if nothing was wrong, all the while my self-esteem plummeted, and my self-worth became entwined with the words of my abuser. I felt I had no value, and I was failing my son daily. So, I worked and tried to find my worth, my value, in my job.
Eventually though, my marriage fell apart. I could no longer mask what was shredding me from the inside out. I was hollowed out from years of verbal and physical abuse and didn’t even recognize who I was anymore. So, I filed for divorce and began the excruciating process of trying to rebuild my life as a single mother with a three-year-old child.
I turned back to partying, leaving my son with my parents whenever possible so that I could escape the reality of the mess that was my life. Bill collectors called every day, and my finances were a complete disaster. After years of falling behind and struggling to make ends meet, it all unraveled, and no matter what I did, I couldn’t fix it.
I moved back in with my parents, started dating the wrong kind of men, and lost myself in weed and alcohol. I thought if I could just experience everything religion and my parents had kept from me, that I would feel whole again and be the mother my son needed me to be. But even parenting became a chore. I was stressed out, short with my son, and had no idea what I needed to do to fix the situation.
Months later, I met a guy at work who was a complete disaster, and for some reason I thought I could fix him. I could make him love me. I honestly don’t know what possessed me to start dating him. His finances were as bad as mine, and his partying was far worse than mine. Not to mention, he had no kids and was living the bachelor's life. But something drew me to him, and I began to fall in love. He was amazing with my son and quickly gave up his partying to spend time with the two of us. We dated for a year or so and my son and I moved in with him. About a year later, we got married, and shortly after, we became pregnant with my second son.
I thought I had finally pulled my life together, but even with the love of a good husband and two beautiful boys, I was still struggling to find my worth, my purpose, and to fill the void I had constantly waged war against since I was a child. I went back to school, got my degrees, and had a successful career, but nothing fixed my struggles. My sin followed me no matter what I did. I lived beyond my means, began reading and writing books that were filled with pornographic content, and continued to numb my emotions any way I could. Escapism became my norm. If I wanted it, I bought it. If I couldn’t handle the burdens laid upon me, I resented everything and anyone that I held responsible for putting me in the position I was in. It caused tension in my marriage. My husband couldn’t live up to the fictional characters I read and wrote about. My life never measured up to what I thought the definition of success was. I idolized all the things in the world that were never meant or needed to be in my life.
Before I knew it, my boys were raised and had left the house, and that’s when my focus turned on myself. Without the focus of raising kids, I began to reflect on myself and my shortcomings. I didn’t like the woman I had become, and I could no longer blame anyone but myself. My mistakes and sins were my own to reconcile. My oldest got married, and his wife was deeply religious. At first, this caused a rift between us. As my old resentment resurfaced, I began to blame her beliefs for the tension between my son and me. This didn’t resolve itself right away…nothing ever does. It took time, years in fact, but I began to see that there was a common denominator to my issues….ME!
The key turning point for me was when Charlie Kirk was assassinated. I watched his wife give a speech to millions of viewers with a stoicism I couldn’t fathom. Her faith was onstage and visible for anyone with eyes to see. She was strong, committed, and unrepentant in her love of God. And the day she forgave her husband’s murderer, I felt something shift within me. I wanted that kind of peace, resolve, and unwavering faith. I wanted that kind of undeniable self-worth and to know that I was loved beyond measure by a God that would never leave my side. So, I began purging the sin from my life. I gave up my books, cut out cursing, and pursued something that I couldn’t even begin to grasp at the time, but I knew I hungered for it with an insatiable appetite. I wanted Christ in my life.
The Holy Spirit took root in my heart, mind, and soul, and by the grace of God, I accepted it. I yearned for it each and every day. I became addicted to the feeling that the light of the Holy Spirit filled me with. I began going to church with my son and daughter-in-law. I started attending regularly and making friends within our church. I signed up for the “Open Your Eyes” program and began to read the Word of God. I can’t explain the way this turned my life around, but all I knew was that I couldn’t get close enough to God to appease the hunger within me. A few months in, I decided it was time to fully commit and turn my life over to God. I asked my son if he would baptize me, and with the support of our Pastor, we made it happen. The church accepted me with open arms. The congregation was warm, friendly, and the light of their faith was a beacon to my weary soul. I had found it….the void the darkness had constantly created was now brimming with light, and I was no longer empty, but overflowing with the light, love, and acceptance of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. God had delivered me from all my sins and had irrevocably changed my life.
I began to forgive, with an ease that never came to me before, those I had always thought were the root of my issues. The blindfold that had me walking through life in a fog was lifted, and I saw the devil's hand at work in others and knew that I had once been standing exactly where they were. The closer I grow to God, the stronger my devotion becomes to remain there. I never want to live the life I gave up the day I was baptized. It may sound cliché, but I firmly believe I died that day and was made anew with God's love.
I’m not perfect, but I am forgiven, and that gives me the strength to overcome anything by God’s will. Every day I work to be closer to God, and that requires growth, being uncomfortable in my own skin, and setting myself apart from the world and its sins. I no longer begrudge this but embrace it with a fervor that burns within. God is so good, and by His glory and grace, I strive to surrender to His will. I don’t know what His plans are for me, but I know that I will surrender and serve my God until my dying day. For the blood of Christ has redeemed me in a way I could never earn or achieve myself. It’s through Him that I am found, and through His mercy and grace that I am forgiven. Praise the Lord, for I am whole again.
I began to forgive, with an ease that never came to me before, those I had always thought were the root of my issues. The blindfold that had me walking through life in a fog was lifted, and I saw the devil's hand at work in others and knew that I had once been standing exactly where they were. The closer I grow to God, the stronger my devotion becomes to remain there. I never want to live the life I gave up the day I was baptized. It may sound cliché, but I firmly believe I died that day and was made anew with God's love.
I’m not perfect, but I am forgiven, and that gives me the strength to overcome anything by God’s will. Every day I work to be closer to God, and that requires growth, being uncomfortable in my own skin, and setting myself apart from the world and its sins. I no longer begrudge this but embrace it with a fervor that burns within. God is so good, and by His glory and grace, I strive to surrender to His will. I don’t know what His plans are for me, but I know that I will surrender and serve my God until my dying day. For the blood of Christ has redeemed me in a way I could never earn or achieve myself. It’s through Him that I am found, and through His mercy and grace that I am forgiven. Praise the Lord, for I am whole again.
I’m not perfect, but I am forgiven, and that gives me the strength to overcome anything by God’s will. Every day I work to be closer to God, and that requires growth, being uncomfortable in my own skin, and setting myself apart from the world and its sins. I no longer begrudge this but embrace it with a fervor that burns within. God is so good, and by His glory and grace, I strive to surrender to His will. I don’t know what His plans are for me, but I know that I will surrender and serve my God until my dying day. For the blood of Christ has redeemed me in a way I could never earn or achieve myself. It’s through Him that I am found, and through His mercy and grace that I am forgiven. Praise the Lord, for I am whole again.
Posted in Tell the Story