My name is Cheyenne Oliver and I am a born again Christian. I love My God, my family, my church, and my friends with All my heart. I was born April 9th, 1994 in Pensacola, Florida. My whole life I grew up learning about God and His word. I was raised in a Christian home. Like many Christian families we went to church Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday evening. When I was 4 years old I remember laying in my bunk bed that I shared with my older sister, Johanna, talking about salvation. Johanna told me to go and ask my mom what salvation meant. So I did. I got up and went to my mom to ask her. From there my mom showed me, through a Chick Tract, how I was a sinner and Jesus Christ died for my sins so that I might be saved and be able to go to Heaven and not Hell. And there I asked Jesus Christ to come into my heart and save me from my sins. I know some people might say that I was too young and didn’t really get saved and may question my salvation but I tell you now, I knew what I was doing and I meant what I said to God in my prayer. In my family there are six of us kids. And my parents do their very best in raising us for God. I am so blessed to have parents that care for me, love me, support me, feed me, and clothe me. I could have parents that beat me, come home drunk, are addicted to drugs, don’t care what I do with my life and what I get in to. But God knew what He was doing when He carefully chose me my parents. I remember being a pretty happy child. I loved horses (and still do) and my family with all my heart. Even though I was bullied by my oldest brother and occasionally my second older brother and older sister I was still just a happy little kid. I still loved them and tried not to take their meanness to heart. I figured that it was normal. Even though it did hurt so. When I was five years old we moved from Pensacola, Florida to Evansville, Indiana. I can still remember the day when we were packing all of our things up in a huge truck and my papa walking around the house saying, “We’re moving to Indiana! We’re moving to Indiana!” I have been home schooled my whole life and wouldn’t of had it any other way. When I was 6 years old something started in my life that wasn’t good but I was so young and naïve that I couldn’t and didn’t stop it. It went on for 6 years and looking back I wish with everything in me that I would have stopped it. But that is in the past now and I do not wish to speak anymore of it. Hopefully one day I will be able to help someone get over what they had to go through because I have already gone through it. Everything we go through in life, everything that God puts us through, makes us who we are today. I would not be the Cheyenne Oliver that everybody knows if I did not go through all the trials and pain that I have gone through. But through the trials and pain that you go through, be sure to thank God for it All and ask Him to help you get through and over it. Who knows where I would be today if I didn’t have God to go to. God helped/helps me with everything that I face in my life. My mom had my youngest sister, Emma when I was 10. I was like her second mother. I took care of her so much! When I was 12 years old my life started changing. My second older brother had run away from home to become a famous musician I guess. Who knows what was really going on in his head. I wasn’t really close to him but it still hurt me when I would hear of the things that he did or would say. My parents decided to send him to a boys home in Delaware. When he was able to come back home he still had not let go of the darkness in his heart and still went further into sin (He is doing great now though). Johanna and me started growing closer. I have always been a quiet person and not one to trust somebody very easily. I keep allot to myself and would rather think than talk. But Johanna would want to talk and confide in me but I wouldn’t really be interested in her “silliness” (as I thought it was) and didn’t really understand why she would want to tell me all this stuff and why she didn’t just keep it to herself (as I did). You may think that I am quite the insensitive person and yes, I kind of am. I don’t do well when people cry or get hurt. I will just stand there awkwardly or start to nervously giggle. Or I may tell you to toughen up and get over it. Don’t take offence to it, its just how I am. We moved out of Evansville and moved out to the country in Tennyson when I was 13. I love the country. I don’t know how we survived living in the city so long. There is something about the country that is so clean and pure. You can feel and see God’s beautiful creation more out in the country. My family started going to a church in Newburgh called Maranatha. Johanna and me had made some friends there named Iman and Haley. We became the Best of friends and found each other spending allot of time together. We loved each other so much and were un-separate-able (so we thought at the time). When I was 15 I was laying in my bed one night, unable to sleep, and just thinking. I started thinking about my salvation. Then as I started thinking about it more and more and I got scared. Was I really saved? I was old enough and had heard and had been around enough good preaching to know that I needed to start doing more for God. I wasn’t reading my Bible and I would only seriously pray to God quietly in my bed every once in a while. I did not have a proper walk with God, which Every Christian Needs to have. So I rededicated my life to God and started reading my Bible and praying faithfully. Over the months I had started falling out of my Bible reading and becoming lazy. By that time we had been going to a camp in Alabama where Bro. Drummond and Bro. McGgaughey would preach and hold up the camp for a week. So as I started becoming lazy in my walk with God again camp time rolled around and I made a commitment to God and myself that I would start reading my Bible and praying faithfully everyday for the rest of my life. I didn’t want to be a sorry, loser of a Christian who just blundered through life with nothing to show but living. My heart grew fonder for the things of God. I started growing in Him spiritually. I learned to love and cherish my time alone with God. I longed to read my Bible and pray to Him. My walk with God became very important to me and I learned that I don’t just have to constrict my prayer life to once a day and once over every meal. I pray to God all through out the day about anything and everything. So if you see me talking to myself during the day I assure you I am not talking to myself and going insane but am only talking with God. God is my best friend and I know that I can trust Him and He won’t hurt me, He won’t tell people my secrets, He won’t make fun of me or bully me, He will Always be there for me, and love me unconditionally. I got my first horse that year. His name is Riley Mcleod. Horses are God’s wonderful gift to me. When I look at a horse and its beauty, strength, and speed it is so neat to me how God created such a majestic creature. Also that is the year my Papa started his own church in Dale. I love our little church. It has something that other churches around our area don’t have. When I was 17 years old (as I am now) me and Johanna were pretty close and did allot of stuff together. Every time Johanna would drive to the store or the feed mill I would hop in the car and go with her. I enjoyed it. I thought that I knew Johanna and that we were close enough that she would tell me if she was doing anything bad to let me help her get over it. But, we will never know what is truly going on in someone’s mind and heart. On March 7th it had come to my knowledge that Johanna was not who I thought she was. In fact, I didn’t really know her at all. She had been living a completely different life. I had noticed over the last couple of months that she seemed a bit distant of me and started treating me badly but I thought she would realize and knock it off soon. But in the mean time I had, in a way, started separating myself from her because she was hurting me. Anyways, a couple of days later Johanna moved out of our home and moved in with my brother, Jordan, and his wife, Haley, my best friend (now sister-in-law). I took it very hard when she left. I went into a depression. I got terribly sick and didn’t get out of bed for a week. I had to watch my mom and papa go through more pain and hurt. As if my two older brothers hadn’t put them through enough in this life already. I loved Johanna so much. Yes we had our differences but we were still so close. I became very angry towards her and had no contact with her for months. I didn’t want to see, speak, or be with her at all. I just prayed for her. After she was gone I would cry myself to sleep for many nights. And she was constantly in my dreams. I just didn’t understand how she could leave me for the world? The world has Nothing to offer but wickedness and pain. But most importantly, how could she turn her back on God? God was so important to me, wasn’t He to her too? I just had to give it to God and let Him deal with it. I got out of depression and filled my time with God, my family, and my horse. Later that month my mom took us girls to a revival meeting at a church in Anderson, Indiana. The church there really helped me and my family. I know that they truly prayed for Johanna to come back and I believe that it was their prayers (and the prayers of others) who brought Johanna out of the world and back to God. I am not angry with Johanna anymore of course. All is better and she is now home and doing well. My greatest desire is to serve God and please Him in everything that I do. I love God with all my heart and I pray that whomever may read this may get a blessing out of it. And please, don’t ever stray from God and go out into the world. It will only lead to allot of hurt and pain and in the end, will it be worth it? I don’t think so. Do right. Give your problems to God and He will help you with them. And I pray that my two younger sisters, Sierra and Emma, may grow up to be fine, good, Christian young ladies for the Lord. Don’t let the world or the wickedness of other people drag you down. I love you two so very much. You mean everything to me.
~Cheyenne Oliver 1/12/12
