#HerStory Lisa Hammond

I grew up in the church. I remember my mom always being involved in some sort of ministry or life group meaning that we were always in church or had church guests in our home. I remember participating in the children’s choir, step team and drama team and always performing on stage. Even though I was raised in the church and was heavily involved in ministry at a young age, I did not give my life to Jesus until I was 22 years old. I describe my younger years as being tumultuous. I was diagnosed with depression, had very low self-esteem and had no value in myself which caused me to make decisions and hang with people that did not push me in the right direction. High school was tough for me. I didn’t know who I was or where I was going. I wanted so much attention from people that I compromised my values over and over again. I went to college at age 17 and was not mentally nor emotionally prepared to be on my own and as a result I came back home to finish my college career at Cleveland State University.

When I came back I decided I wasn’t going to continue down the path I was going. I wanted to get serious about my life, who I was and where I wanted to go. I became pickier about the men I entertained, I got serious about my school work and I became more responsible by getting a job. Two years after returning home, I got into a relationship that brought me back to the church. While away at college during my freshman year I did get involved in a Christian ministry but I was too involved in the world to completely focus on God. So, fast forward back to that relationship I was speaking of. Oh yea, so that relationship brought me back to the church but not in the way you would think. I met him at school and the funny thing was we both served as leaders in an on campus organization. When we met I thought he was the sweetest man I’d ever met. However, shortly after we began a relationship things changed. Long story short, the relationship was emotionally and mentally abusive and it even became physical one time. During that relationship God was tugging on my heart and urged me to go back to my home church. I would bring it up to my boyfriend at the time and he would aggressively say no which caused me to not go. After our relationship ended six months later, I felt God tug on me so hard and I knew I needed to get back to where I belonged. I began reaching out to my cousin who was saved about how I was feeling and I began going back to church. After being back in church, I decided to begin volunteering in the Children’s Ministry.

My church has a young adult ministry that my cousin would tell me about all the time. I would brush it off over and over again until one summer evening in 2015 I decided to check it out and that was when my life changed. I was exposed to a different group of people that were my age but living their lives for Christ. In that moment I was changed and I gave my life to Christ that summer. I thought I had given my life to Christ but as I began to see how other people lived and how my life didn’t align with biblical principles, I knew I wasn’t and that I truly needed Jesus Christ.

After being saved for three years I can say it was not what I expected! I have experienced God in a real way and as I look back on my life I can say that God has been with me through it all. I have met so many young Christians across the country and have seen a movement of millennials on fire for God that I was inspired to create Millennials for Christ- CLE. I am a part of a few GroupMe chats devoted to uniting younger Christians across the country but when I looked at the cities where most of these people were from I noticed that there was not a lot of people from Cleveland represented. That was contrary to what I was witnessing here in the city because when I went to events I saw large numbers of young Christians out and about! So I decided to create our own group to unite young Christians around the city no matter what church, denomination or organization they are a part of. I want to start a revolution of young Christians committed to living God’s Word so we can transform Cleveland in a major way.

Many of the Bible and the world’s revolutions were started by young people and I believe God is stirring up young people around the world to bring amazing change and save lives. My hope is that through my blog website Walking With Lisa, through Millennials for Christ and through my life’s testimony I can save lives and be someone that God looks at and says “Well done my good and faithful servant.”