My Testimonial

I'm getting baptized soon and I had to write a testimonial of my journey. Here it is:

When I was growing up, I always felt like I had an aching hole in my heart that could never be filled. I thought it was because I never knew my father, who chose his drug habit over his family and left when I was a baby.

In my teen years, I turned to alcohol and men to try and fill that void, but of course, that only made me feel worse. When I wasn’t caught up with partying and bad relationships, I threw myself into what ever I was doing and turned into an overachiever.

I became pregnant during a bad relationship phase in my junior year of college. I felt hopeless and alone. Looking back, I can see how God made several attempts to reach me, but I was too busy with school and single-parenthood to pay attention.

I wouldn’t say I had a bad life. I turned things around for myself and started living a more moral life. I stopped partying and developed a healthy attitude toward relationships with men. I was a “good person,” yet I still felt so much guilt and shame for all of the things that I’d done in my youth. I kept myself too busy to think about it too much, but that feeling of inadequacy was always there.

I was looking for a radio station one day that my husband had told me about and accidentally stopped on the Christian music station Air 1. I wanted the kids to stop listening to the popular radio station because of the inappropriate language, so I decided that even though we were not Christians, we would try out this station for a while. We listened for months. I knew the words to most of the songs, but I was still not a Christian. I wasn’t even interested in becoming one.

Then one day, one of the songs grabbed me. The line said, “I exist for You.” I remember thinking, “What is it about Jesus that could make someone say such a bold statement as ‘I exist for You’?” With that, I started to learn more about Jesus. I remained skeptical for some time, but the more I sought Him the more He showed Himself to me.

I don’t know exactly when, but I eventually learned to turn to Jesus when I felt sad or alone or worthless or guilty. I experienced His love for me and felt His forgiveness. Now, even when I don’t feel Him, I have faith that He is there. I finally have forgiveness for and freedom from my past mistakes. Now that I have had this burden lifted, I can live my life with a greater purpose – to follow and serve Jesus Christ.

We're Sorry

I was reading a blog yesterday that had a lot of anti-Christian comments. Not just anti-Pat Robertson or anti-Fred Phelps, but a total hatred of all Christians. I was sad that people have such a bad opinion of Christians.

Then later on, I was reading a message board that is Christian and I could not believe how many of the Christians on that board represented the self-righteous, holier-than-thou, God-loves-us-but-not-you type of Christians that everyone hates.

No wonder so many people dislike Christians. So many Christians give everyone a reason to hate us.

I had never in the course of my life had a bad personal experience with Christians, but that is largely because I went through most of my life not knowing any Christians. I was raised in a religiously sterile home. My mother had had such a damaging experience with religion, that she swore it off and never shared a single iota of her spiritual beliefs with me. We celebrated Easter and Christmas as purely secular holidays and I never, ever went to a church. I knew nothing about God.

Within the last couple of years I have had many personal encounters with God and I am now a Christian, but I came to that through a much different avenue than most people. It’s not about religion, it about a relationship with Jesus Christ. I’m not a Christian because I think I am perfect, I am a Christian because I know that I am so far from perfect that sometimes I find it hard to forgive myself, but Jesus will always offer me forgiveness. And I know that God loves me and wants to be a part of my life even though He knows that I will never be perfect.

When I was first curious about Christianity, my neighbor lent me the book, Son of a Preacher Man, written by Jay Bakker, son of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. Now there is someone who has every reason to hate Christians for being self-righteous and casting out their own when someone makes a mistake. Yet after a long battle with addiction, he was able to find his way back to Jesus because it is about Christ, not this religion called Christianity. Jay Bakker and some others started a church called Revolution. It’s interesting stuff. Check it out. This is what it means to me to be a Christian.