Today we’d like to introduce you to Cia Cloud.
Hi Cia, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
“Sometimes you think that you want to disappear but all you want is to be found” I once found comfort in the idea of disappearing. Staining myself with everything I went through until I blended in with what broke me. I wanted to disappear when I was sexually assaulted at 3. I wanted to disappear when my home life got rough. When my cousin died from cancer after people prayed for miraculous healing.
When I thought partying was my only way to be seen. It is interesting to write a testimony, reflecting on how what once broke you is now being picked up by the one who created you. Someone once told me our testimonies are like works of art. I believe mine would be stained glass in a chapel window. The etching of color on a once clear mirror. I grew up in church with a family that loved God but struggled to show me what love was. Watching the preachers teach, knowing who killed Goliath, acing the act of falling in love with the church when I didn’t know what it meant to be held by a father.
As a child, I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. I was too shy to make a name for myself, so I became the name everyone else gave me. The one who was left, forgotten about, and wanted nothing more than to be seen. So when I switched schools, I watched videos that entire summer on how to become extroverted, how to attract people with tactical advice, desperate to have the affirmation that I was enough. I remember writing my goal.
To become popular so that people who had never met me would message me a happy birthday (funny how God turned this around isn’t it). I saw this newfound popularity as my saving grace and found quickly that I needed to conform and strive to fit into what those people did. I wanted to rebel. I thought living in sin would show the people that had previously hurt me that they should feel ashamed for what they did to me. How I ended up as a result of their actions.
Passing the blame to them instead of ever processing my feelings. I knew it wasn’t healing, but it was what I thought I wanted. I got affirmation from partying, from living for the world, and began to believe that the “I’m so proud of you’s” as I did more, turned off my self-awareness alarms, were everything I’d been searching for. One day, months after a progression of living this way, I had my birthday. I received those texts. The feeling I had waited my entire life for, the validation, the craving fix I had imagined, was just a numbness like everything else.
I proceeded to go to a party where a girl, black-out drunk, sat straight up, looked at me, and expressed, “one day, you’ll find your people.” I left angered, thinking to myself that I already had. The next week, I went to a coffee shop with people, and an unknown man walked in. We got coffee, and he stood up on a chair, proclaiming the gospel to everyone in the tiny building. I’ll never forget how I laughed at him for proclaiming a fairytale, and his words began to be the topic of our table conversation. He came over and asked my group if we knew Jesus.
There was a sarcastic audible yes from each person. Then he asked if we knew we were saved. None of us could answer that. He began to pray, talking to God about us, and then left. I continued to see it as an odd coincidence. That next fall, I got stuck in a love triangle (you can laugh, again). I was living for male validation and while this was occurring, I was told by them both that my time being friends was up. I needed to pick one of them to date.
One claimed to be a Christian and one an atheist. But because they were older than me, I’d have to do sexual things in either relationship from the start. Somehow, smoking, drinking, partying, cussing- none of that bothered me. But because I was suddenly getting flashbacks now of my past sexual assault and what my brain had blocked out for years, I never wanted either of them to have that power over me.
God used an awful childhood memory to protect me from greater breakage, even when I wasn’t living in His will. This was the first time I truly prayed out of desperation to God. And it went something like, “God, if you’re real, show me what a real man of God looks like.” The funny part is, I thought if I just found a man who’d honor me, my life would be fixed, my validation needs would be solved, and God would be real. God has always been real, I was just caught up in the distractions I was living for.
Coming back from praying this, I was scrolling on TikTok and saw a guy preaching the gospel. He had his Snapchat in the bio, and I added him. We began talking, and I was amazed at how my prayers were answered. He introduced me to a zoom Bible study group, and Snapchat groups, and suddenly my media was filled with online Christian communities. As we got closer, he told me I should do TikTok with him. Still living to please people, I immediately did it. God had to be cracking up at this point.
Suddenly, he stopped answering. I was left with God, a community of online believers, and a social media account. This is the cool part. Through the next few years, I began to teach and speak on what the gospel was doing in my life online. I hadn’t seen many women do this, but I found myself with free time and an abundance of isolation during the pandemic, and God can use any yes. I began to forgive the people in my past, work through my relationships with my family, and baptize my oldest brother and cousin.
I got to become what I had wanted other people to be for me. People now message me, not to wish me happy birthday, but to know who God is. I do street evangelism just like the man who went into that coffee shop. I got prophesied over by a random person for having the same calling my cousin had before he passed away. I speak on the very things I used to let speak over me. I learned that pain, abuse, validation, striving, none of that had to be the end of the story.
To clean my stained glass with the God who restored every color. Disappearing does not remove pain, it just removes the possibility of hope. My testimony isn’t wrapped up, there are still things I’m waiting on the Lord to come through on and can’t yet speak about. But this is how I found Him. I sought Him with all my heart. I know who writes my story. And through Him, I live on promises no person can break. Romans 2:29- A person with a changed heart seeks praise from God, not people.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I briefly mentioned most of this in my story, but it is still a road of struggles. But that’s the insanely beautiful part. These struggles each push me closer to God, which can sound cliche so let me explain. When I’m going through hard times, the reality is I am sitting with God more to get through it. He becomes even more prominent because I recognize I can’t do it on my own. No one can save themselves, and that’s where my belief began.
I knew there had to be more than what I was living for previously. Trials allow me to confidently wrestle with my faith through everything and ask tough questions, even if the answers are not the way I want them to be. I’ve also seen how my struggles (anything from sexual assault to having a past of partying) have allowed me to receive unique opportunities to connect and encourage people who thought their stories would never see healing.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I do a lot of creative work with my faith. This consists of anything from making 60-second TikTok’s about what I’m learning in my faith journey to speaking at conferences across the country. I’m most proud of the fact that none of this is for my glory. God has sincerely changed my heart to want God’s name known over me every day. What set me apart was my willingness to be different from others when I truly accepted God into my heart.
I would host Bible studies for teenagers (all student-led) where we dove into deep questions about walking with God and getting personal about the hard issues of faith that weren’t normally talked about. These people have become some of my closest friends. I also love evangelizing wherever I’m at. I’ll walk into a store or restaurant, ask God who I’m supposed to talk to and ask them their story. It’s led to incredible conversations because of my willingness to serve them before I ever tell them about myself. Living by love is crucial.
What has been the most important lesson you’ve learned along your journey?
Living for an audience of one is my life saying. And while living for God, I’ve found that people who are listening to my story want the vulnerability of a real walk with Him, the ups, the downs, everything. I used to think being myself online would never be worthwhile. I mean it’s not always pretty.
But the people supporting me changed my entire perspective. Artificial Christianity and feel-good messages with no depth aren’t ultimately worth changing your life for. But real, raw faith moves people. Yes, some people judge, but more often than not authenticity is loved as a result of the hope it brings.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heyits.cia/?hl=en
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@heyitscia
Image Credits
Marcus Limm and Jimmy Zheng
