My Testimony

“The disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?”

He replied, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. This is why I speak to them in parables;

            “Though seeing, they do not see;

            Though hearing, they do not hear or understand.”                         
-Matthew 13:10-13

I grew up in a secular household, one in which my parents said we were Christians (as if this were an inherited trait like ethnicity), but spiritual matters were deemed too private to talk about, as much a taboo subject as politics, sex and money. The only time I stepped inside a church during my childhood was the rare occasion when a friend invited me to attend Sunday school with them, until I reached my teens, at which point I joined a church and was baptized without ever understanding what that was all about, just so I could be a member of the youth fellowship there. When the pastor asked me about accepting the Holy Ghost, I thought he was a little nuts! :-) So there I was, attending a church pretty regularly, but completely missing the whole message, because I was stuck in a belief that we got to heaven by being  good people. And I thought I was a pretty good person! So I didn't think of myself as a sinner, didn't see any need for repentance, and didn't know I needed saving. Those things were for the "real" sinners... You know, rapists, thieves, murderers, etc. But although I spent those years "not getting it", my late mother-in-law pointed out something very true... I WAS building a good foundation that would serve me well later, because one of the wonderful things about the youth group was that we did bible quiz competitions and we went to youth conferences in Green Lake, Wisconsin. I LOVED both of those!! I learned a LOT of scripture from both of those, too, especially having to memorize two different books of the gospels word... for... word. Including their scriptural "addresses"... You know, chapter and verse numbers. How on earth did I miss the message that we are all sinners and we all need Christ to save us?!? No clue. I can only guess that until you're truly ready to accept Christ, the bible is somewhat of a mystery, sort of like Jesus' explanation of teaching through parables... those who are wise understand, while those who are ignorant walk away clueless. I wasn't ready to be wise yet, I guess.

Fast forward a decade, after my life had hit rock bottom because I'd made a real mess of it all. I won't go into detail, but my mess included walking away from church when college convinced me it was all a myth anyway, fabricated to comfort the ignorant masses when they didn't have science to explain things; a failed marriage; "serial monogamy" with too many men due to trying to prove I was loveable, and always feeling less so with each one; growing health problems; depression; overworking; few REAL friendships; suffocating loneliness... Need I say more? I finally recognized that everything I did just made things worse, and as my current-and-for-life husband says, the first AND second rules to apply when you find yourself digging yourself into a hole is to stop digging and STOP DIGGING. So I did. And because I could see no other way out of it all, I cried out to the heavens, "IF there is a god out there, and IF you even care, please get me out of this mess I've made of my life, because I sure am doing a lousy job of it. I need help!"

And you know what? He honored that. Soon I found doors closing and other doors opening... MY plans went awry, but things started falling into place through no effort on my part, until I found myself in a life I never imagined I could have: remarried (this time to my best friend), living a few hundred miles away from where I had been, just starting over, and soon settling into a new job as full-time homemaker and mother. In the beginning, I didn't want to be 'conceited' enough to make the assumption that this was the God of the Bible answering my prayers just because that was the 'religion' I had some experience with, so I researched other religions, asking each time, "Is this You?" It didn't take me very long, though, to figure out that the God answering my prayers was doing so out of love, because I had absolutely NOTHING to offer Him, except myself, and I already knew that wasn't much, certainly not enough to 'pay' for all that I was receiving. That left only love as a viable motive for answering my prayers. And only one religion in the whole world is centered around a God of LOVE... Christianity. Sure enough, when I asked, "Is this You?" the answer I heard, as audibly as if Jesus were standing there in the flesh though I knew I wasn't hearing it with my ears at all, was "Yes. It is I."

I was hooked from then on... I believed unequivocally that there was indeed a God, and that He was the God of the Bible. But I still didn't know just WHO God was, not fully, because I still didn't understand anything about His nature, His persons, His commandments, or His gift of salvation. I still didn't know I was a sinner... sure, I'd made some mistakes, but other than making me feel soiled and used, I still considered myself a pretty good person. Especially since I blamed other people for most of those mistakes! Now, some people have insisted to me that God doesn't even hear your prayers until you're a true Believer, but my own experiences deny that. God meets us where we are. Granted, many prayers no doubt go unanswered in the uninitiated due to praying for things that go against His nature, His will, His plan, or are asked for the wrong reasons. That’s true of believers as well. But if answering our prayers that ARE in line with all that He is will draw us closer to Him, do you really think He's the sort of God to turn a deaf ear? Not me!

It took a few more years for me to learn what I was missing. Of all things, it took a cultist debating me about scripture! The cultist, of course, was trying to convert me to his religion, but it didn't work out that way. God used my argumentative nature to draw me into scripture, which I had found supremely boring and confusing prior to this... I read scripture to refute the cultist's interpretation of verses taken out of context. Among other things, the cultist was arguing that there is no hell, that people who aren't saved will simply cease to exist, and that only 144,000 souls out of all earth's history will be saved... all from this cult, of course. I totally confounded this man by pointing out that his cult already boasted more than 6 million members at that time, so obviously only a tiny fraction of them were going to be saved, and if the worst that was going to happen was that I'd cease to exist, then it pretty well argued in favor of doing whatever I wanted, didn't it? Poor man was reduced to insulting me because he had no rebuttal for that. LOL

A curious thing happened, though... the more I was reading Scripture in order to argue with this man, the more I wanted to read for myself. Finally the verse about thirsting after the Word like a hart thirsts for water made sense (Psalm 42:1-2). And oddly enough, it ALL made sense. It was as if someone had applied a de-coder to it, because I was suddenly SEEING whole passages that I had not noticed before, even amongst the two books I had once memorized (what a paradox!), and I finally read enough for the salvation message to click... I was a sinner that could not save myself, but I could accept Jesus, who was fully God, fully human, and still alive today (how had I ever missed THAT, as many Easter services as I had attended?!?)... I could accept Jesus as my Savior and King and be saved. I could ask the Holy Spirit to live in my heart and guide me daily. I could submit my will to that of my Father in Heaven. Oh, how I wanted that!!! But first I needed to repent, and for the first time in my life, I saw myself as I truly was... and I cried for three days. My poor husband thought I'd cracked and was having a nervous breakdown, because I could not stop crying and hanging my head in shame. But then, all cried out, I asked for forgiveness, and for salvation, and for a personal relationship with Jesus...

It changed me forever.

I still make mistakes, but they rarely go long before I'm prompted to repent and correct them. I still have serious health problems, but I have comfort in His companionship, draw strength from Him, and experience hope and JOY in spite of it all. I've grown more in the last ten years than I did in the first 3 decades, and He isn't finished with me yet.

Father, thank You so much for loving us! Thank You for providing a way for us to be in communion with You! Thank You, Jesus, for coming to save us! Thank You, Holy Spirit, for giving us guidance! Father, I pray that my testimony will touch a lost soul's heart, and plant the seed of desire to be one of Yours. I pray that there will be someone available to them to answer their questions and explain the salvation plan to them, me* if no other. Give them the courage to take that first step towards you, and may they be aware that You are there to meet even the smallest step. Thank You for the joy that abounds every time another soul is saved! Thank You... for everything... Amen.

*If you have questions about being saved, and don't know where to turn for help, feel free to send me a message, and I will assist any way I can. And certainly, if my testimony spurred you into accepting Christ, I'd love to hear it!