Post by nhisgrp on Jan 27, 2007 14:10:10 GMT -5
I gave this testimony when I became a member of my church. It is pretty long and I even shortened it quite a bit before getting up and giving it.
I was born in a Christian home. My parents were good ones. We got kisses goodnight and spanks when we were bad. We moved to here when I was 6. Shortly afterward I was called to give my life to Christ. At a church service I came forward during alter call and asked Him to come into my heart and forgive me of my sin. In the next year, after we had settled into a church, I was baptized. It was important to my parents that we came to that decision on our own. I remember the lake was bitterly cold and how badly I wanted to do it anyway because loved God so much. At that young age He had already been such a comfort to me. I remember that I had sleeping problems because of headaches and I would lie in his lap and be comforted by His hand until I slept.
My parents divorced when I was 8. For a while we bounced from parent to parent. I only went to church on the weekends I spent with my dad. When he remarried I got angry with him, stopped visiting him, and in turn quit attending church.
As a teen I became involved in some dangerous sin and by the time I was 19 I had two sons. I tried to be a good mom but God wasn't a very big part of my life. I went to church once in a while and prayed all the time for God to send a father for my children. I spent so much time trying to fill this void that it got in the way of a relationship with Christ.
Shortly after my second son was born I took a Bible study called Experiencing God. It was there that I heard John 8:47 He that is of God heareth Gods words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God. In all my life I had never thought it was a possibility that I was not a child of God, but I had never heard Him. I felt like my heart had been ripped out of my chest. I started sobbing. I was so hard that I could not explain to the women in the study what was wrong. They just continued class with me blubbering in my seat. When the hour was up the women stayed in and waited for me to regain my composure. When I was finally able to tell them what was in my heart they reassured me that if I was not a child of God the verse would not have touched me like it did. They said I probably was hearing Him, it was just a matter of recognizing what was Him. So I went home that night and prayed to recognize his voice. I asked and he gave, I heard Him. He told me that He was there, had always been there, and always would be there. I fell into his arms and wept myself to sleep like I had as a child.
For a while after that he was the Father I had prayed for all those nights. Everything I had, all that I was I gave to Him and life was as it was supposed to be. I no longer had this constant urge to find someone to fill the void in my family. The Holy Spirit completed it. He showed me everyday the blessings I had taken for granted in the past and new ways I could serve him. It was the happiest days of my life. When you get to that point with Christ it doesn't seem possible to turn you back on him again. He is so real and a life without him seems unimaginable. I wish I could say happily ever after and to this day it amazes me how far from that life I was able to go and how easy it was to do.
2Peter 3:14 …..be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless. In the dictionary it says being diligent means persevering through painstaking effort. I must have let my diligence wane because when the boy's father got out of prison instead of remaining in the Father who had protected us all this time I replaced him with someone not even close. I turned my back on God for a drug addict criminal. He did not give up on his old ways as he had promised so that didn't last long and I was back on my own. Still I didn't bring back the Father who had taken such good care of us. I went back to my life without him. I was working so hard at this time. Sometimes I worked until 3 am and would be so tired the next day that I had no patience with the boys. I would go to bed sad every night because I had fought with them all day. I decided I could work shorter hours in a bar but that was no good for me. I tried to go back to school but I had to work so much and make time for school and there was no time left for the boys so I dropped out. I was getting farther in dept everyday and my relationship with my kids was getting worse and worse. Finally I decided to send them to stay with a family member so I could work none stop, pay off my dept, and get us a different place to live. I thought if I could just have a fresh start things would be fine. Deep down I had an ulterior motive. Part of me resented that all of my friends could do whatever they wanted and I had to be responsible for these kids all these years. I thought with them gone for 6 months I could let lose a little and have some of the fun I could never have with them here. So when I wasn't working I was partying and at the same time developing a nasty drug habit. At the end of the 6 months, even though my bills were paid and a new place purchased, my lifestyle had been replaced by something in which no child should live. I had reached a low I never thought I could reach.
One day someone very close to me said something extremely hurtful at a very bad time. At that moment I hated everyone. No one was my friend. All they wanted was what they could get from me. They had taken almost all of it and what I had left I was keeping for myself. I thought a lot of other things that I won't repeat here only to say that they were very awful things to have go through you head. I don't know if any of you have ever felt true hate before and I pray that you never do. It has to be the most painful emotion there is. There cannot be hate without a broken spirit, but that moment of hate brought forth a love in me that I never knew existed. Since that time, resentment towards the people around me has been much harder to come by because I can now know what they have in their heart and have pity instead. I was able to forgive the many people in my life that had hurt me.
So, rock bottom? I've had so many of these rock bottoms and I've always come out of them saying I hope that was bottom. I can't possibly go any lower than that. So I started climbing up again. I cleaned myself up again. Only this time I had this new love that I had never felt before and with love comes pain. As I looked at the world around me I was so saddened by the state of it all. Being a mother I became very afraid that I had jeopardized my children's salvation by the way I had been acting. For the first time in long time I brought my dilemma to God. He gave me the answer at 3am one morning. They needed a secure home and fast. It was a painful decision to make but I knew in my soul that it was Gods will. So they started going for visits to their new family. At first I went with, then they went alone and that December we made the transition. The first few weeks I was ok. Then in the beginning of Jan. I went for a visit. I came home on Friday. I was supposed to go to work on Saturday but I rolled over, turned off the alarm and didn't get out of bed for a month. Eventually I had to pay bills again so I got up and went back to the easy money at the bar. I slipped back into old habits and went on a two week long drug binge. Now the longer you do that stuff the worse of a beating you are going to get and after 15 days I was in for a dousy. I spent hours on the couch doing lamas breathing and thanking God for putting me in my place. When the worst was over I lay there, a big pile of mush, for the first time in my life I felt ashamed for what I had done to myself. All this time I hadn't cared about the hurt I had caused myself. I felt plenty ashamed when I hurt someone else but I never cared about my life. I started crying out to God, begging him for forgiveness. He had given me this wonderful gift and I had brought it back to him beaten and battered. I again surrendered my life to him. I tried to continue to pray but not even my mind would work like it was suppose to. I said I have come back to you a worthless heap that can't even think but I am yours. What do you want of me? He spoke to me and said psalm 46:10 Be still and know that I am God. So I did just that, something so simple yet I had never done it before. As I lay there crying and pleading for mercy I felt the cool hand of God wash over me and take away the pain I had cause over the past few weeks. When he was done I was flooded with his love as I cried for the family we had once been and that I had destroyed. He once again held me so I could sleep. I spent the next few weeks resting, reading his word and praying. This time I was in bed to be still as he had asked, not because of self pity.
I'm sure you all know that I can't stand here and say that I've been the perfect Godly women since that day but I can say that I have been learning a lot. What I've learned has lead me here. I tried in the beginning to fit back in at the church were I grew up but soon found that through the years they had changed and we no longer saw eye to eye. The inerrancy of scripture had always been a corner stone of my faith. In my search for a family of believers I was surprised how many people no longer accepted that the Bible means what it says. I would read a verse that any child could tell you the meaning of only to have an adult try and twist it to fit some worldly view. My dad and I had some talks about it and he pointed me in the direction of this church.
I love it here. I look around during the service and I see open Bibles, worn and used. A congregation that can stand up and read Gods word in unison. A pastor that is prayerful, kind, and a wonderful teacher. I am finally in a place that understands the importance of preserving the word of God. Most importantly our pastor always fits in the salvation message at the end of every sermon.
I was remembering back to that moment as a child when I answered an alter call and accepted the gift of salvation. I could never remember the place. I called my dad one day to ask and he told me that when we moved here they had come to a service here when trying to decide on a church. He told me it was the very church I am attending now where I gave my life to Christ all thoughs years ago and I truly feel that I have come home.
Since then I have gotten married and have two children with my husband. I was disobedient to God when I married because he is not saved. Please pray for him if you get a chance. He does come to church with me every Sunday.
If you have any questions I am an open book.
I was born in a Christian home. My parents were good ones. We got kisses goodnight and spanks when we were bad. We moved to here when I was 6. Shortly afterward I was called to give my life to Christ. At a church service I came forward during alter call and asked Him to come into my heart and forgive me of my sin. In the next year, after we had settled into a church, I was baptized. It was important to my parents that we came to that decision on our own. I remember the lake was bitterly cold and how badly I wanted to do it anyway because loved God so much. At that young age He had already been such a comfort to me. I remember that I had sleeping problems because of headaches and I would lie in his lap and be comforted by His hand until I slept.
My parents divorced when I was 8. For a while we bounced from parent to parent. I only went to church on the weekends I spent with my dad. When he remarried I got angry with him, stopped visiting him, and in turn quit attending church.
As a teen I became involved in some dangerous sin and by the time I was 19 I had two sons. I tried to be a good mom but God wasn't a very big part of my life. I went to church once in a while and prayed all the time for God to send a father for my children. I spent so much time trying to fill this void that it got in the way of a relationship with Christ.
Shortly after my second son was born I took a Bible study called Experiencing God. It was there that I heard John 8:47 He that is of God heareth Gods words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God. In all my life I had never thought it was a possibility that I was not a child of God, but I had never heard Him. I felt like my heart had been ripped out of my chest. I started sobbing. I was so hard that I could not explain to the women in the study what was wrong. They just continued class with me blubbering in my seat. When the hour was up the women stayed in and waited for me to regain my composure. When I was finally able to tell them what was in my heart they reassured me that if I was not a child of God the verse would not have touched me like it did. They said I probably was hearing Him, it was just a matter of recognizing what was Him. So I went home that night and prayed to recognize his voice. I asked and he gave, I heard Him. He told me that He was there, had always been there, and always would be there. I fell into his arms and wept myself to sleep like I had as a child.
For a while after that he was the Father I had prayed for all those nights. Everything I had, all that I was I gave to Him and life was as it was supposed to be. I no longer had this constant urge to find someone to fill the void in my family. The Holy Spirit completed it. He showed me everyday the blessings I had taken for granted in the past and new ways I could serve him. It was the happiest days of my life. When you get to that point with Christ it doesn't seem possible to turn you back on him again. He is so real and a life without him seems unimaginable. I wish I could say happily ever after and to this day it amazes me how far from that life I was able to go and how easy it was to do.
2Peter 3:14 …..be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless. In the dictionary it says being diligent means persevering through painstaking effort. I must have let my diligence wane because when the boy's father got out of prison instead of remaining in the Father who had protected us all this time I replaced him with someone not even close. I turned my back on God for a drug addict criminal. He did not give up on his old ways as he had promised so that didn't last long and I was back on my own. Still I didn't bring back the Father who had taken such good care of us. I went back to my life without him. I was working so hard at this time. Sometimes I worked until 3 am and would be so tired the next day that I had no patience with the boys. I would go to bed sad every night because I had fought with them all day. I decided I could work shorter hours in a bar but that was no good for me. I tried to go back to school but I had to work so much and make time for school and there was no time left for the boys so I dropped out. I was getting farther in dept everyday and my relationship with my kids was getting worse and worse. Finally I decided to send them to stay with a family member so I could work none stop, pay off my dept, and get us a different place to live. I thought if I could just have a fresh start things would be fine. Deep down I had an ulterior motive. Part of me resented that all of my friends could do whatever they wanted and I had to be responsible for these kids all these years. I thought with them gone for 6 months I could let lose a little and have some of the fun I could never have with them here. So when I wasn't working I was partying and at the same time developing a nasty drug habit. At the end of the 6 months, even though my bills were paid and a new place purchased, my lifestyle had been replaced by something in which no child should live. I had reached a low I never thought I could reach.
One day someone very close to me said something extremely hurtful at a very bad time. At that moment I hated everyone. No one was my friend. All they wanted was what they could get from me. They had taken almost all of it and what I had left I was keeping for myself. I thought a lot of other things that I won't repeat here only to say that they were very awful things to have go through you head. I don't know if any of you have ever felt true hate before and I pray that you never do. It has to be the most painful emotion there is. There cannot be hate without a broken spirit, but that moment of hate brought forth a love in me that I never knew existed. Since that time, resentment towards the people around me has been much harder to come by because I can now know what they have in their heart and have pity instead. I was able to forgive the many people in my life that had hurt me.
So, rock bottom? I've had so many of these rock bottoms and I've always come out of them saying I hope that was bottom. I can't possibly go any lower than that. So I started climbing up again. I cleaned myself up again. Only this time I had this new love that I had never felt before and with love comes pain. As I looked at the world around me I was so saddened by the state of it all. Being a mother I became very afraid that I had jeopardized my children's salvation by the way I had been acting. For the first time in long time I brought my dilemma to God. He gave me the answer at 3am one morning. They needed a secure home and fast. It was a painful decision to make but I knew in my soul that it was Gods will. So they started going for visits to their new family. At first I went with, then they went alone and that December we made the transition. The first few weeks I was ok. Then in the beginning of Jan. I went for a visit. I came home on Friday. I was supposed to go to work on Saturday but I rolled over, turned off the alarm and didn't get out of bed for a month. Eventually I had to pay bills again so I got up and went back to the easy money at the bar. I slipped back into old habits and went on a two week long drug binge. Now the longer you do that stuff the worse of a beating you are going to get and after 15 days I was in for a dousy. I spent hours on the couch doing lamas breathing and thanking God for putting me in my place. When the worst was over I lay there, a big pile of mush, for the first time in my life I felt ashamed for what I had done to myself. All this time I hadn't cared about the hurt I had caused myself. I felt plenty ashamed when I hurt someone else but I never cared about my life. I started crying out to God, begging him for forgiveness. He had given me this wonderful gift and I had brought it back to him beaten and battered. I again surrendered my life to him. I tried to continue to pray but not even my mind would work like it was suppose to. I said I have come back to you a worthless heap that can't even think but I am yours. What do you want of me? He spoke to me and said psalm 46:10 Be still and know that I am God. So I did just that, something so simple yet I had never done it before. As I lay there crying and pleading for mercy I felt the cool hand of God wash over me and take away the pain I had cause over the past few weeks. When he was done I was flooded with his love as I cried for the family we had once been and that I had destroyed. He once again held me so I could sleep. I spent the next few weeks resting, reading his word and praying. This time I was in bed to be still as he had asked, not because of self pity.
I'm sure you all know that I can't stand here and say that I've been the perfect Godly women since that day but I can say that I have been learning a lot. What I've learned has lead me here. I tried in the beginning to fit back in at the church were I grew up but soon found that through the years they had changed and we no longer saw eye to eye. The inerrancy of scripture had always been a corner stone of my faith. In my search for a family of believers I was surprised how many people no longer accepted that the Bible means what it says. I would read a verse that any child could tell you the meaning of only to have an adult try and twist it to fit some worldly view. My dad and I had some talks about it and he pointed me in the direction of this church.
I love it here. I look around during the service and I see open Bibles, worn and used. A congregation that can stand up and read Gods word in unison. A pastor that is prayerful, kind, and a wonderful teacher. I am finally in a place that understands the importance of preserving the word of God. Most importantly our pastor always fits in the salvation message at the end of every sermon.
I was remembering back to that moment as a child when I answered an alter call and accepted the gift of salvation. I could never remember the place. I called my dad one day to ask and he told me that when we moved here they had come to a service here when trying to decide on a church. He told me it was the very church I am attending now where I gave my life to Christ all thoughs years ago and I truly feel that I have come home.
Since then I have gotten married and have two children with my husband. I was disobedient to God when I married because he is not saved. Please pray for him if you get a chance. He does come to church with me every Sunday.
If you have any questions I am an open book.