This is part 1 in a two-part series.
I was hurt. Satan had bombarded my mind with all the sex and love I yearned for from men. I wanted attention from men, and I found this attention through sex.
The guilt continued to plague me. I thought about dying all the time. If God wasn’t real, then death would be a great outcome. I would just be dead in the ground. The late-night and early-morning calls to my father began. I would call him drunk and say I wanted to die or commit suicide.
I was so unhappy with my life and all the people in it. I felt like I was screaming and no one could hear me. Most friends said it was the weaning off of anxiety meds and didn’t pay attention to the spirit realm. By the end of my second year of graduate school, I had weaned off of a lot of the benzodiazepines and was on a small dose. My internal hurt was hard to deal with now, especially at the low dose of the medicines that were making me numb to everything.
I was also counting the cost of possibly not seeing certain family if I chose to go through with the surgeries and transition fully to Scarlet. Was it worth it to change my body and risk my father never wanting to see me again? Would he also not let me see my little sister ever again? Would I be allowed to come as Scarlet to family functions on both sides of the family? I counted the costs in my mind and still decided it would be better to lose family and become Scarlet. This deception of becoming something I was not had taken full control over my mind.
During this time, the Lord was using a preacher to speak into my life. I had visited this man’s church years ago. His name was Jentezen Franklin. I was beginning to question things about my life and why I felt such darkness and depression. Since I was living as Scarlet, I didn’t feel comfortable going to church, but Pastor Franklin came on television and had several videos on YouTube. I started watching him. I would listen to his sermons and feel conviction at times.
Questions were arising about my sexual appetite and how selfish and vindictive I had become. I even remember thinking of setting up a married lawyer I was having an affair with and exposing him to his wife for financial gain. As low as things were getting, I knew there had to be more to life. It was around this time I had my first supernatural encounter with God.
I will never forget the night the encounter occurred. I was in my apartment alone that night. It was late at night, and I was depressed. I just collapsed on the bed and cried out. I basically my whole life believed there may be a God, and when I cried out, I remember thinking, He may be listening, but who knows?
I said, “God, I know that people live for you—not just go to church on Sunday, but something happened and their life was transformed—but will I ever live for you?”
I felt like I was a million miles away from the little boy I was who believed in God.
As I cried and had thoughts running through my mind, suddenly everything went silent in my mind and I heard a voice say, “Yes, you will live for me.”
I was shocked. I had to collect myself. Did the God who created heaven and earth just speak to me? Why did I just know it was God? Why had my thoughts bowed down in silence when he spoke?
God comforted me that night with that simple statement. My life, to me, seemed about as far as one could be from God. God knew the beginning from the end, though, and He knew eventually I would choose Him. That evening He had planted a mustard seed of hope within my spirit.
But after a couple of days, I blew the experience. {eoa}
Excerpted from For Such a Time by Jeffrey McCall. Reprinted with permission. Find Jeffrey online here.
Stephen Strang 
Charisma Media Staff 
CBN News 
