My Struggle, God’s Victory
Hi, I’m Rachael Bennett from rural Buckinghamshire, England. I am taking the Biblical study opportunity online at the Christian Leaders Institute (Learn more about studying the Bible online, Click Here).
My Current Mission
I am currently a qualified teacher working with teenagers who are disengaged or expelled from mainstream schooling. I use my knowledge of the Christian faith to inform my behavior in a volatile environment. God gives me the strength and compassion to lean into what these youngsters need, usually loving back to life.
Initially, I qualified as a PE and Outdoor Learning teacher. However, following a severe accident in 2016, I transferred to teaching Humanities. It has been a true blessing in disguise. The Lord took what was meant for evil and turned it for good. As a result, I can now explicitly discuss philosophy, religion, and Christian values with my students as I gently encourage them back into the presence of God.
The Before Picture
I grew up in a loosely Christian household. Christened as a baby, my Mum and Dad gave me good moral values and given good moral values. My parents were loving, attentive, hardworking, and dedicated to building a family home. However, God was never a central part of any of our lives. I hadn’t been to church, prayed, or even touched a bible since I was nine.
By age fourteen, antisocial behavior, depression, anxiety, anger, and alcohol abuse became real issues. God was a total stranger. These progressed. Became darker. It got impossible to climb out of alone. After graduating from university, I had huge debt, tuition fees, minor legal troubles, few friends, shallow connections to family, severe mental health issues, and kidney failure. But, above all else, I had a spiritual hole that filled me with a sense of impending doom. It was a hole that alcohol wouldn’t fill, my mind couldn’t escape, and my body was tortured.
Baby Steps Forward
In Scotland in the summer of 2016, I was on a solo wild camping trip. It was the beginning of a life-changing event. I had walked with lots of camping equipment for several days, eating little, working hard, and being blasted by a heatwave. Then, one morning, I crawled out from under my tarp, walked into the river Nevis and laid down on a large rock with the water running over my feet and legs. I looked at the perfectly blue sky, small fluffy clouds, and two picturesque mountaintops in the distance beyond the clear water.
Cognitively, I knew it was an immensely beautiful site. But emotionally, I felt dead, drained, and full of despair. I glanced down from the view to my hands, holding a mug full of whiskey. Then, for the first time, I knew I was not who I was supposed to be. I know now that I was not who God wanted me to be.
A thought entered my head from a divine source. I admitted that I needed help and knew exactly where to go for it. I cannot explain it. On my return home, I became a recovering alcoholic, rather than an alcoholic, for the first time since that depressed fourteen-year-old first came under attack and succumbed.
A Spiritual Battle
My spiritual recovery, physical recovery from being repeatedly poisoned, and mental recovery from all the past traumatic events began when I reached out and asked God to save me. God reached out in a way only a loving Father can. He propped me up as I struggled, pushed back, ran away from problems, and felt immense discomfort while I confronted the utter mess of my life.
After one long, sleepless night of pacing around my house, consumed by guilt for all my sins, I collapsed to the floor. I was too exhausted to continue distracting myself from my problems. Like a spiritual child, I was too consumed by fear to be alone in a dark, empty room and try to sleep with my thoughts torturing me. I cried out to God for help. I offered all that I had and all that I could do in exchange. That night I slept for the first time in months.
Within weeks of this, I began working hard. I had caused so much pain and now needed to set it right. Over one hundred and fifty pages, I explained exactly the harm I had done. I admitted it all to God and a trusted, Godly friend. Then, I set about over a year’s hard work, apologizing for and genuinely trying to set right all the wrongs I had committed. During this time, as promised in the book of Acts, I repented and received the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The After Picture
As a direct result of building a relationship with God, working to understand His purpose for me, and trying to fulfill my promise to Him, I now have a family I love wholeheartedly, friends who infuse me with passion for God and His blessings, a job where I genuinely help His people, and a connection to the world around me with compassion for the people in it.
I have choices today. The choice to improve lives. The option to take the Biblical study opportunity at CLI. Gifted with the ability to share trauma, pain, and understanding of utter demoralization, I also have a talent for sharing recovery, love, and passion for life. I share my story regularly with people struggling with physical health issues, mental health issues, addiction, or troubling life events. God did for me what I could not do for myself. For that, I am unbelievably grateful! As the Bible describes in Ephesians, God made me alive again, even when I was dead in transgression.
Biblical Study Opportunity at CLI
I am studying hard to live up to my promise to God my Father. Love is an easy pact to keep. I want to share His Word and my testimony. The Biblical study opportunity online at the Christian Leaders Institute prepares me for whatever God leads me to. I am to love others as God has loved me. I am a living example of what His power can achieve in the direst circumstances.
Register for a Study Account
Register for a free study account that automatically enrolls you in the Getting Started Class at the Christian Leaders Learning Platform. The Getting Started class will take you less than an hour to complete.
When you log in to the Learning Platform, you will notice that the Getting Started Class automatically appears on your dashboard.
The Getting Started Class will orientate you to the Christian Leaders Learning Platform, and the Programs offered, including:
- Minister Awards, Certificates, and Diplomas with the Christian Leaders Institute.
- College Degrees with the CLI’s Leadership Excellence School.
- Minister Credentialling (Ordination) with the Christian Leaders Alliance, including local Soul Center registration possibilities.
Note: You can enroll in tuition-free courses or mini-courses immediately without finishing the getting started class.
Learn more about ordination at the Christian Leaders Alliance. Interested in a low-cost college degree? Check out the CLI’s Leadership Excellence School.
