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| Rytram
Rytram
♂️
[23699476]
[2012-10-02 00:42:55 +0000 UTC]
(United States)
# Statistics
Favourites: 40; Deviations: 96; Watchers: 8
Watching: 13; Pageviews: 4589; Comments Made: 143; Friends: 13
# Interests
Favorite visual artist: tolookupatthestarsFavorite movies: Star Wars, Boondock Saints
Favorite TV shows: Mythbusters, Top Gear UK, MacGyver, Sherlock
Favorite bands / musical artists: The O.C. Supertones, Five Iron Frenzy, The Insyderz, Dogwood, The W's, Skillet, Demon Hunter
Favorite books: The Bible, Sherlock Holmes, The Redwall series, The Artemis Fowl Series
Favorite writers: Brian Jacques, Eoin Colfer, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Favorite games: Legend of Zelda (currently working on Wind waker), Gran Turismo 4, Super Smash Bros. Melee, Halo series
Favorite gaming platform: That I own: PS2 That I don't own: XBox 360
Tools of the Trade: Brain, photoshop elements 7, pencil, paper, Gimp
Other Interests: JESUS!
# About me
Soooooooooooooooo.... Bio. I was born, I'm alive. Not much there.You want how I got to be here? I walked into the room.
Oh, in my life? Ok, so my Testimony? Ok.
So, I didn't have the greatest childhood in the world. It wasn't like my family was struggling to make payments or I was beaten by my parents, but my childhood sorta sucked. I went to a really small school of only about 400 kids. My class had about 50 in total, so you get the picture; TINY school.
I'm one of those people who doesn't fit in very easily. (heck I've got a nine inch mohawk, pretty soon it's going to be hard for me to fit in doorways!) But I was a weird person, and my school was very cliquish. Either you fit in a group, or you're an outcast. I ended up being an outcast, and I was sort of fine with that. If no one's paying any attention to you and you mess up, then you don't get any flak for it. That was my conscious mentality, but if you talk to any psychologist or brain surgeon, they'll tell you that the unconscious is the majority of your brain, and that's where my problem was.
In the back of my mind, I had convinced myself that I wasn't good enough. I wasn't good enough for my classmates because I didn't fit in. I wasn't good enough for my teachers because I couldn't focus in class. I wasn't good enough for my parents unless I got better grades. I wasn't good enough for my older brother, PERIOD! I adore my older brother. If there was anything I wanted in the world, it was my brother's approval. I never got it. And that's how I grew up, never really realizing it.
And I thought the same of Jesus. I went to a private school. I knew all the stories. I knew about Jesus, but I didn't really know Him. We were just facebook friends, but this was WAY before Facebook so we were just acquaintances, so, when I thought of Jesus, I thought that He was just like everyone else; He wanted someone who wasn't me.
Summer before seventh grade, I went to a Christian summer camp called T Bar M Sports Camp. The first night of worship made me cry! Usually when worship makes you cry it's something deep and emotional like this www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZ-fgh… , but I was crying at the very first song. It was this upbeat "Everyone, Get excited for a week of summer camp adventure!" and there I was, little me, jumping up and down, trying to clap along with the beat, as tears poured down from my eyes. One of the lines, which still sticks with me today, ran like this. "We've been Stamped by God; accepted. We are His; approved forever." I had never heard this before. It was brand new to me. Someone loved me for who I was! This Jesus guy actually wanted ME!
So I go back to school, thinking everything's going to be great, and Satan saw me, the kid who was once a loner who no one cared about, talking about Jesus. I was now a threat to him and his empire of darkness, so he had to get rid of me by any means possible. Satan cleverly used the people around me to tear me down and kill me, and it worked. My classmates made fun of me. My few friends turned on me. I was truly alone.
I was like a stack of Jenga bricks. Every time someone got the chance, they'd pop a block out. And when it's only one block it doesn't do a whole lot, but when everyone's doing it, you become structurally unstable and you just collapse, under your own emotional weight. That's what happened to me.
I was angry, bitter, and suicidal. I would get into fist fights at school with the people who bullied me (keep in mind this is the same kid that sat in the corner Kindergarten through 6th grade). I would get mad at God saying, "I become a Christian and this is what I get?" I'd hear stories of people who committed suicide and I would think to myself, "That's gonna be me."
I left the school and God started a rebuilding process in my life. It wasn't instantaneous. It wasn't a "boom!" A-ha moment. It was a long and hard rebuilding process, but it was necessary. See, I had built myself up on this foundation of depression and rejection, and I couldn't live there. So God used what Satan tried to use to kill me, to rebuild me. And it took three long years.
It was at the Onething conference, a huge Christian conference with 25,000 Christians, in 2010 that God finished rebuilding me. One of the speakers was talking about teen suicide, depression and self mutilation, things that I went through. His words were hitting me like a ton of bricks. I was sitting there crying, people around me praying for me, when out of nowhere this guy comes up to me and starts praying for me. I had never seen this guy before, nor have I seen him since.
"God's telling me that you feel like you aren't good enough. Does He bear witness?" The man asked me. Through the tears I manage to say, "Oh, yes He does."
This guy started telling me about how loved I was and how cared for I was, and it was at that point at which the last Jenga block was put into place, and the rebuilding process was finished. It didn't finish there, though. It's still going. I'm still growing in my faith and in my relationship with Christ. I've gotten a calling to ministry, to reach out to those who went through what I went through. My life has been radically changed because of Christ's love.
Christ died to save us from our sin and our own death, but He has also saved us to an unlimited amount of possibilities. He's saved us to a life eternal! He's saved us to a relationship with the Creator of the Universe! He's saved us to a life of LOVE!
I can tell you that Jesus has saved me to much more than He has saved me from, and I encourage you to see what He's saving you to.
My name is David Latiff, and I am second!
# Comments
Comments: 23
Thanks for the follow, complete and total stranger (;
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Any time, other completely total stranger. By the way, have you ever thought how you'd look good in a mohawk?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
STOP THIS NONSENSE, PERSON I DO NOT KNOW
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
It'd look so good on you, though! You could get it dyed some bright color or something. It'd look good on you! Even when it's down. Heck, with hair you could probably style it in a way that people wouldn't know you had one!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Hopefully this summer for the first time I'll be bleaching my hair BEFORE dyeing it red so my dye will show up more (I chickened out when I was gonna do it before coming to school!) but nah, I'm good! And uh once my hair is up, that's pretty obvious.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Well of course it'll be obvious that you've got a mohawk when it's up, but it isn't always up!
And now that it's going to be red you've got even more of a reason to get a mohawk!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Doing well. Hanging out in my dorm, listening to josh Garrels, and winding down an awesome no Tuesday.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Awesomesauce. C: Glad you're well!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
How are you doing? Anything explosively spectacular going on?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Ehhh I'm doin' alright. Not really! Just kinda chillin' and doin' art stuff and such. Trying to get my life together a little bit. Been reading a lot lately, as well. Like Kahlil Gibran. He's awesome.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I saw you on VagabondX's profile and I just had to follow you! It's seriously encouraging to see other Christians out there getting the Gospel to people in dynamic and artistic ways, seeing Christians delight in the joy of creation! Thank you so much!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Awesome to meet another Christian! I hope you enjoy my work!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
