I had to give (ahem, had the priviledge of giving) my testimony to our small group this week. Thought I'd post the written copy here for fun. Enjoy :)
Like everyone, I have a past filled with
sin. Before I became a Christian, I hit
the bottle pretty heavily, I could frequently be found in the arms of another
woman’s husband, and I was behind bars more times than I can count. Then, when I was almost five, God saved me. J Truth be told, the bottle was filled with
milk, the other woman’s husband was my dad, and the bars I was behind were on
my crib.
I was raised in a home where both of
my parents were Christians, both sets of grandparents were Christians, and many
of my aunts, uncles, and cousins were Christians. Going to church was normal for me. I attended AWANA and one Wednesday night, my
mom was making dinner while helping me learn my verses for that week. We had a breakfast bar area and I was up on a
tall bar stool watching her work and reciting what I would need to be able to
tell my leader later that evening. The
verse for that week was Romans 3:23: “For all have sinned and fall short of the
glory of God.” My mom was pretty good
about trying to explain the verses to help us understand what we were saying,
not just repeating random words and phrases to earn patches and snacks. She explained that EVERYBODY has done wrong
things including me: whether it was not sharing my toys, not obeying mom and
dad, or prying my little brother’s fingers off of the piano bench while he was
learning to stand on his own. J She said that
God is perfect and He can only be around perfect things. Because of my sin, I couldn’t be with God if
things were left alone. I thought about
that and started crying. I told her I
wanted to be with God. She came around
the counter and told me that God sent His Son, Jesus, to earth to live a
perfect life, to die instead of me for the wrong things I’ve done, and to
become alive again three days later. If
I believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, I would be saved. I told her that I did believe and she prayed
with me. While I may have been too
young to fully understand everything about the Gospel at that time, I truly
believe I was saved that night.
God
continued growing me over the years as I went through private Christian school,
and attended AWANA, Sunday school and church.
I was baptized by my dad in 5th grade. I
never really went through a rebellious stage, even in high school. That lent itself quite nicely to the
development of the “older brother” attitude that Craig Loftus spoke of last
week. I rarely showed it outwardly, but
inside I was usually happy when my classmates got caught doing something wrong
and were punished. I was really good at
following the rules, and thought they were getting what they deserved for
straying outside the boundaries. I was
not gracious towards them, and God convicted me of that years later- enough
that I emailed several classmates to apologize.
More recently, God has been showing me some areas where my expectations
of Him have been wrong. He has shown me
that I was viewing all of my rule-following as checkmarks to getting the
blessings I thought I deserved for making the right choices. It has been difficult to adjust my thinking
to the fact that living life as the Bible commands does not automatically mean
we will get everything we want. I am
learning that God’s plan is not always my own, but whatever He gives or doesn’t
give, is for my good and His glory.
So to wrap up, I may not be able to
look back at a sordid background and complete 180 degree turn that some people
can see in their lives, but I am certain that I am a follower of Christ, and
that God is working in my life to teach me how to live more like Jesus.
