Dear Grandchildren,

Today is part 2 of last month’s testimony from your cousin, Aaron Moore. If you haven’t read Part 1: here’s the link to read it, so you can better understand his and Sabrina’s incredible journey. Enjoy! 

Aaron:
WISDOM THE LAST TWO MONTHS
Since the marriage retreat, we thought we had been getting really smart. We’ve dissected and came to terms with childhood hurt, we were having difficult conversations with friends and family, and we were growing our business. We’ve been talking about how we’re getting filled with new ideas daily, and we’re just so cool. We now see, we were being given all of these amazing things by God, and He was working hard in our lives once we started pursuing Him for real. We discovered His presence on the ride to Michigan.

ADDERALL
Most of my life, I’ve been told I might have ADHD. I had a terrible concussion when I was 19. It took me out of college, the military, and put me on bedrest for six months. My life was very hard, and I had tough symptoms for about two years.

Since then, my memory has suffered, and all symptoms of ADHD have been heightened. Sabrina would feel unsafe when I’d drive us on car rides, so we’d fight. It’d take me three days to do laundry, and I’d forget about Franklin all the time. Before the car ride home from the marriage conference, my cousin gave me Adderall, and for the first time I knew I had to get medicated.

I was driving perfectly the whole way home. I was telling Sabrina stories she had never heard and I had never remembered previously. We were having an amazing car ride. I knew for our own lives, and the safety of our family, I could finally allow myself to take medicine. If I would’ve started taking it earlier, I would’ve abused it for getting through work or a party. But God knew now was the right time.

For the past two months, I felt a new connection in my brain. I could focus and be productive. I had energy to work out. I could work later into the night and accomplish tasks faster, allowing more time with family. I could focus on conversations and grow my relationships. I had become a new person, and God allowed me to not feel guilty and avoid Adderall like I have done forever.

RIDE TO MICHIGAN
Our ride to Michigan was amazing. We were coming up to film a wedding for our cousins and staying with our grandparents (from the marriage retreat). We had so many fun things planned and were so excited for the trip. For the first seven hours, we were having so many amazing ideas.

We were having answers to problems, new ideas for our business, and felt like something was just taking over our mind. We started writing everything down. And for seven hours, we talked excitedly with joy that I lost my voice.

We were supposed to leave a day earlier, but Sabrina wanted to attend her Wednesday night life group. So, we drove on July 7th at 7PM (7/7/7). and after seven hours of driving, we were hit hard by the Holy Spirit that we had to pull over at a gas station.

We sat there in awe, talking about what we felt at that moment. I couldn’t believe it. For the first time in my life, I believed God was real. And I felt Him. We went into the gas station to buy a souvenir, and right at the front of the store were friendship bracelets. We gave each other friendship bracelets when we had met at church camp when we were thirteen. We returned to the car and typed what we were feeling. And an hour later, we started driving.

TEN MINUTES DOWN THE ROAD
We had just gotten on the highway and we were on a God-high. We couldn’t believe what was happening. At that moment, I was convicted to confess two secrets I had never told Sabrina. They were mostly in my past, and I knew they would hurt her. These things have always loomed over my mind and made it impossible to trust her 100%. But I had to tell her.

After I told her-I kid you not- she had the exact two secrets! How incredible since these were very specific. In that moment, God solidified what had just happened at the gas station. We had confessed to each other the only things holding us back from having honesty in our marriage. God is good. I never would’ve told her that before. Since I believed in the Holy Spirit and felt a difference inside me, I couldn’t last ten minutes with that lie.

MICHIGAN
It was amazing we were saved right before coming to her grandparents’ house in Michigan. Out of all of the places we could’ve been going and all of the people we could’ve been seeing, it was Gaylord and our grandparents.

We told them everything, and for the first time in my life, I knew they were not full of B.S. They truly believed and understood what we were feeling. I felt relieved as the burden lifted off my mind. For my whole life, I have lied to everyone. I have tried saying I am a Christian and believed in God, but now I could see how that wasn’t true.

I’m not regretful or upset about who I was, I was thrilled I have such a powerful story. In Michigan, too much happened to share, or for anyone to read, but basically, we had more quality time with people and family than we ever had. We had the greatest wedding day, and everyone was drawn to us. We were magnetizing. It wasn’t a coincidence God entered our life that weekend. He used us, our business, and our schedule to have powerful talks with people.

BAPTIZED
On Sunday night before we were leaving home, Grandpa baptized us in his hot tub. For seven years, I have struggled with the long-term effects from a traumatic concussion. While many things have healed, especially since being on Adderall, my headaches haven’t. I had headaches almost every night, and sometimes they were very painful. On Sunday night, my veins bulged and my head throbbed from a severe migraine. I prayed, “God, I want to enjoy this baptism, please take away my headache.”

Before Grandpa baptized me, he prayed that the Holy Spirit would fill me. When he said those words, I felt a rush in my head, my veins disappeared, and the pounding stopped. I haven’t had a migraine since. Usually, I go to bed with the headache; they had never gone away like that. Before our salvation experience, I had never seen God do miracles before, and here was another one.

LEAVING MICHIGAN/ THE TRUCK
Everything was going great on our trip. But as we were leaving Gaylord on a Monday morning, the truck made a bad noise. I’ll skip the details, but basically, we had a miserable day of being with Franklin in an auto shop for hours without anyone knowing we were there. We hoped the whole time it would be fixed, and we could leave. We had just accepted God gave us the truck for a reason, so this was very sad.

We were in a bad mood and the truck wasn’t going to be fixed that day. But during that time at the shop, I had many great talks with the mechanic. Powerful, deep talks I never would’ve had before this weekend. And in that time, the mechanic made amends with his son, and was calling him for the first time in sixteen years. It was all worth it!

We went to another mechanic shop with Sabrina’s grandparents, and then they took us to their home. We were in a foul mood and wanted to get to our home. We spent the next morning waiting around until 3:30. We finally heard they weren’t able to fix the truck for days, and that there were many things wrong such as an oil leak, the turbo, the brakes, and other issues.

We were upset. But God showed his amazing hand again when we were on the way home in Grandma’s very nice car. Our grandparents paid for the truck repairs as our housewarming gift. We need nothing for the house, so this was perfect.

It wasn’t a coincidence there were five major issues with the truck- it broke down when leaving a trip five minutes from her grandparents and they wanted to help us. There is no other wedding or time in our life this could’ve happened. And if that would’ve happened before we were saved, I could’ve never accepted that from her grandparents. But now I understood and could accept their gift.

God finally let us accept the truck as an investment, threw this major problem at us, and showed us even though the day sucked, He always could use it for good. We would’ve never known about all the problems with the truck or afford the repairs on our own.

MAJOR THINGS THAT HAVE HAPPENED SINCE BEING HOME
There has been stuff happening in our lives literally every five seconds, but here are some major ones:

• We have been growing our business this year and have been looking for videographers and photographers for around a year. We found three perfect employees on the same day, simply by having conversations we never would have had.
• I had a four-hour car ride with three random people I work with in the circus, people that before I would’ve internally not wanted to befriend. We had life-changing talks on that car ride, and for the first time in my life, I had someone tell me that they could see something in me and knew I was a Christian. I would’ve never had the words or confidence to have conversations like that last month, but God has made me a new person.
• For over a year, we had been praying to befriend a couple with a baby. We had met couples, but the relationships never stuck. A week into being saved, God found us that couple, an Asian wife and a white husband with a stash-our twins. Our wedding anniversary was one day after there’s. We have a baby one month apart. They own a videography company. We have the same hobbies. They’re literally us, living a different life. They’re also saved. During a breakfast with them, we both knew we were going to be best friends.

We’ve been praying for the right people to hire and for uplifting and joyful friends, and we got them delivered the same week we were saved!

SUMMARY
This was a lot of words, but honestly there is so much I didn’t go into. God has always been on my mind, and something I said that I believed in. I studied His words, attended church, but knew I believed none of it. I did it to save face, and because I knew if it was real, I really didn’t want to be on the losing side. I was at a place where I never spoke of God or faith.

I felt so uncomfortable when others brought it up, I never wanted to myself. I knew if I had talked to someone about it, it wouldn’t matter. I was so far removed internally, I had lost most of my hope of ever having the energy to pursue my faith.

But now, life has clicked.

I understand what people mean when they say, they’re joyful and filled with the spirit. I’ve been filled with wisdom I never have had on my own. My headaches are gone. We’ve been blessed financially, and found absolute peace in our business after realizing the purpose for what we do.

My view of my life, my wife, my son, friends and family, my business- well, really everything- has changed. I am not the same person and now see people with more love and less judgment or ill feelings. I had thought if I ever became a Christian, I’d become a horrible person to be around, and life would suck. Now I get what it means, and actually, it’s quite the opposite.

I hope this testimony is a reminder to my future self if I ever am struggling. I also hope if anyone reads this, they can relate to my struggles and see hope in God. Know that you can talk to others and that true Christians will be a light in your life.

Featured Photo by JOHN TOWNER on Unsplash