My Story

Personally, I think I live an ordinary life.  I guess everyone says that.  But what IS "ordinary" anyway?  Everyone's story is unique.  This is mine.

I was born to Bill and Beth Torres as their second child on July 19th, 1995.  I was raised along with my half-brother, David and brother, Scott.  I grew up in a Christian home so faith was a part of my life since day one.  I was baptized when I when i was 6 or so (I don't really remember when it was) and I remember the only reason I did so was because my brother was doing it.  Speaking of Scott, we totally hated each other until a couple years ago when we finally became friends.

I lived my life knowing God, but I was never really close to Him until I started going to Camp Piankatank.  There was where I truly began to live my life for God.  But it's strange.  In middle school, primarily 8th grade, I was a bad person.  I cussed, I gossiped, I lied, I was perverted, and I did all of these things that were un-Godly.  But that was a time I was close to Him. 

When I began high school, I started to lose my faith.  The summer before my freshman year I felt distant from Him and felt like He had abandoned me.  It wasn't until I had already given up on my faith that I realized that God had led me into the wilderness just as He had for Moses, Jacob, and even Jesus.  I realized I had failed Him and that it was time to me to return to Him.  But then I discovered....

I couldn't do it.  I tried.  I couldn't find anything in my soul that believed that He was there.  I couldn't feel Him anymore.  As much as I wanted to go back to the way it used to be, I couldn't do it.  Through my struggle, I finally understood how hard it is for people not raised in a Christian home to come to know God.  It really is an act of pure faith to do so.  After being in the wilderness, I was completely at loss for what to do to go to God.

At the end of this past summer, I returned to Camp Piankatank, dreading the experience.  It was the first summer I attended camp without showing up with a burning passion for Christ.  Throughout the week, it was extremely stormy (which I loved because I love storms more than anything) and a friend of mine there who also loved storms told me how she saw God's power through storms and I replied with a smile because I had nothing else to contribute.

Every single Thursday night at Piankatank, they hold a dockside service where worship is held on the dock.  It's a very serious and moving experience.  As I told some of the girls in the cabin before we left, you cannot walk away from it without being changed.  The entire walk from the cabin to the dock (about a mile or more), I was praying nonstop for myself and for the girls in my cabin to be touched by God.  Still praying as I stepped on the dock, I begged God not to let me leave without being changed.  I told Him I didn't want to leave the dock the same person I was when I stepped off.

Throughout the whole worship, I had this reoccurring feeling of "this is stupid" but I pushed the thought away with angry tears in my eyes.  At the end of worship, each camper has the option to stay behind and spend more time with God and pray with their counselors in small groups.  Since I didn't want to leave yet, I stayed and got in a prayer circle with my cabin.  While one of my friends was praying for us, she said "... and especially me, Lord.  Recently I've become so distant from you..." and it was at that when I realized I wasn't alone.  At her words, I began to pray and sob hysterically.  She took me into her arms and we wept into each others shoulders for several minutes.  After a while I pulled away to wipe my runny nose.

Or so I thought.  Instead of regular snot, I wiped away a handful of blood.  Stunned, I cried out.  I have never had a nosebleed.  Ever.  After I saw the blood all over my legs, shirt, pants (and my friend's pants, too), and hands I realized I had prayed and cried so hard that I caused myself to bleed.  Immediately I was reminded of Jesus' prayer that caused Him to bleed and I cried out just as He had on the cross, "Oh God, my God, why have you forsaken me??"  (Psalm 22)  God had shown His awesome power in me through a nosebleed.  It was incredible.  I walked off the dock a few minutes later with one of the camp medics to get cleaned up and the other girls joined me a few minutes later.

Not even 20 feet away from the dock, all of the girls from my cabin who had stayed behind felt called to go back to the dock again.  As I was walking back on with another friend of mine, I realized that I had walked off of the dock a new person.  I laughed with tears of joy in my eyes at the revelation.  God had listened to my prayer and had not let me walk away from the dock the same Warrior.  With my friend, I went and put my feet in the water of the Piankatank River and sang softly to myself before we had to go back to the cabin for good.

Even though God revealed Himself to me in such a personal and unique way, I still feel far from Him and I'm still struggling to believe.  When band started this summer, I didn't know how well it would it turn out.  Last year, because of my dissolving faith, I went into a severe depression that put me in a funk that made me hate band.  A good friend of mine kinda-not-really forced me to do marching band again this year and so I was worried about how I would take it.  The first week was exhausting but great and during the lock-in that weekend I made a new friend who is very dear to my heart now.

Because of her, I now have a Christian friend who faces persecution in her own home and everywhere she goes (including her church), reads her Bible diligently, and is so much like me I swear she must be my other half.  If you want to read her blog, it's http://godloveharmony.blogspot.com/.

I know this was a really long post, but thanks for holding in there if you stayed to listen all the way through.

Pray for me and pray for my friends <3