[ Testimony ] How did you get saved?

[Caroline H]

I would like to know how you all came to know Christ and how old you were at the time....I will start.

My parents are Christian, and so I was taught about Jesus since I could drool. I spent my formative years learning Christian songs and learning all the classic Bible stories. My mother had always told me that one day I may feel like I want to ask Jesus into my heart, and she told me what it meant and what I should do. I didn't understand really, but I guess I tucked it away for later. One Sunday my dad woke me and my sister to get ready for church. I was alone in the bedroom, and suddenly I was overcome with an awareness that I didn't have Jesus living in my heart. The Holy Spirit was drawing me, and so I put my head in my hands and prayed for God to come into my heart and save me. I was 6 years old, and though I didn't understand everything I knew that I needed a saviour. I remember it fondly

Now it's your turn...

 

[Carol Lowery]

The book Devine Revelations of Hell by Mary Baxter was given to me by a christian, and it's about this women who the Lord took in the spirit to Hell so she would write about it so people knew hell did exist, but more than anything that Christ our Lord existed too for the unbelievers, though there were some things HE would not allow her to view due to them being horrific to the soul. It took her I believe about 3 years to recover from the experience physically, mentally, and emotionally before she could write the book. Though I didn't complete the book, I got about half way and I read something so profound that it literally made me get out of my bed and immeditately down on my knees. I was reading it, and kind of got a chuckle and said to myself "this book is like some horror movie I've watch" and was about to just throw it down in one sense and at another say well it's just another horror book so whats the difference. And as I turned the page to continue reading almost word for word I had just spoken was being acknowledged on the next page. For some reason I broke out in the shakes and got real scared, scared about dieing and going to hell, scared enough that I got up and down on my knees saying: Lord I don't want to go to hell, but I don't know what to do, will YOU help me Jesus? And I began to cry so uncontollably, shaking, fearful, crying Jesus please help me, save me from hell. Then this peace came over me and calmed me. From that point on there was something different, I felt like the Lord had this huge rope with the knot tied to the end of it and handed it to me to hang on, and the next two weeks I felt like I was hanging on to this rope and I was tossed into this rough sea in a storm and desparately with all my might hanging on for dear life.

The next weekend when I got home the Lord led me to this church that I still attend and due to my background I was not familar in what to do, but for some reason the Lord led me down to the altars on my knees, and I remember crying my heart out, and this little woman coming up and getting down on her knees and placing her hands on mine, and I found it so odd that it about made me pass out when she did. But it seem to intensify what I was already experiencing which at times was unbearable, and the storm got worse while hanging on to that rope. The next weekend when my husband was releast from the hospital and I knew he wasn't ready and I fled to my friends house that I've always had a key and a bedroom at their house for quiet times to think. We had a double wedding together, and they're lifetime friends, though that husband then and our son was killed by a drunk driver. And I go to their house use my key, peeped in through a slightly cracked door and everything seemed so different thinking they don't live here anymore, so I yelled out anyone home? And I heard Tammi said come on in girl, how have you been, and I mentioned how their home had changed and she said honey were Saved!!! And I told her everything that is going on and she said would you like to go to church with us and I mentioned that I would like that and that I had went to the church the previous weekend and I liked it but something was going on inside of me that I didn't quite understand. I remember hearing Tom and Tam that night praying and crying, and I thought I hope their Ok.

So I go the next day with Tommy and Tammi to church and of course I'm sitting way in the back so I can be the first one out the door. Pastor Livingston, was preaching and the whole time I'm thinking this man needs to shut his mouth cause he's scaring me to death. I "was" an alcoholic a fifth of liquor a day addiction, drug addict, in perversion, cussed, smoked, read tarot cards, palm reading, witchcraft though I didn't practice spells as such but witchcraft none the less, believed in reincarnation, quiji board user (stupid), believe that Jesus was an alien sent here to straighten us all out, materialistic, judgemental, violent, suicidal, knew it all (so I thought), molested by my real dad from the time I was 5 to 18 and haven't seen him since then and I'm now 55, etc. etc. and just plain rotten to the core of my being, and praise God forgiven and instantly delivered from with no withdrawl/cravings/desires in those 25-30 years of addictions through HIS forgiveness. HE had instantly cleansed me from all of it, everything! I felt so brand new, like a new baby being birth into the world.

( I have to take a break for a moment, I'm just overwhelmed with tears now from HIS love and forgiveness).

And as the pastor is preaching I'm thinking if I die now I'm going straight to hell. I was so scared, I kept thinking please someone shut this mans mouth he's scaring me. And the funny thing about it, a couple of months later I listened to the audio tape and for the life of me I couldn't grasp why I was so fearful because he was saying nothing as I remember him saying. But at the end of the sermon he had altar call for those who needed prayer and those he said feel that God is calling them forward to accept the salvation of Jesus. I felt like I was being pulled up out of the pew, and I placed my hand on Tammi to let me by and I said to her, that's me, that's me. As soon as I stepped out into the isle, it was like this river was running through me of all mercy, all grace, all love like no other I had ever felt and it had me in full tremble to the point that couldn't hardly stand, or walk. And this river running through me was so powerful, (you know like when your looking at a river and it's trashing over the rocks with such force that if you went to stick your foot in, it would just grab ahold of you and pulled you in by the power of it?) This is what was running through me. I walk to the front and got down on my knees and this man knelt biside me and asked Do you want to accept the Lord as your personal Savior? For some reason I wanted it more than anything in the world, so he walked me through the sinners prayer, thank you Jesus. And then he asked me do you accept the baptism of the Holy Spirit? Not knowing what it was but I knew I wanted it more than the next breath I took in and I said YES with such urgency, and then he asked me did I accept my prayer language, and to me that was now I lay me down to sleep, but I knew I wanted it more than the next heartbeat I'd have, and I said YES! And then he said speak your prayer language and I said I can't, and he said don't worry about it, it will come. And as soon as he stood up, this langauge started coming from my mouth, and this sense that I was like a brand new baby, clean like no clean I had ever felt, and this language coming out and Tom and Tam came up and I had to fight to speak english just to ask what is happening to me, and Tammi said you are baptised in the Holy Spirit, and again I had to fight to ask what was I saying, and she said this is not my gift to interpet, and the power of what was coming forth from me was nothing I ever felt, (satan's power doesn't hold a candle to Gods holy power), and this man was waving his hand to get our attention said I know what she's saying, she's speaking Hebrew, I know this language, I know I'm from the Holy Lands, I'm from Jordan. And at the awareness of that I instantly was down on my face literally just knowing that Jesus loved me so much to save me, accept me as I did HIM, and that HE loves this once wretched creature like me, and that HE had me speaking HIS language, a language I've never heard, or spoke, and I'm just sobbing on my face feeling like I was in this bubble of the most purest love, of mercy, grace, compassion, forgiveness, words don't do it justice in discribing this love like no other, there's just no earthly words that can discrible it, and I'm sobbing and this language lasted hours, knowing Feb. 9th at 9:58am 1997 I am HIS, and this is now my true birthday.

I couldn't keep my face off the floor even after we left church and I felt like a computer being downloaded with all this information I didn't understand. And the thing was the humbleness that I had just saturated me from inside to out in completeness, and all I could do is rock and cry and give in to the language. I went a couple of hours later back to the church I first went to, the Lord was leading there, so I knock on the door to the house next to the church not knowing for sure if this is where the pastor lived, sobbing and as he opened the door, he said praise God a new child of God, and invited me in. How he knew I don't know. He took me to the kitchen, and the whole time this language is still happening and as I walked into the kitchen there was that little lady who placed her hands on mine at the altar just smiling from ear to ear, crying halleluyah, thank you my Lord. Pastor Kemp placed his hand on my head and prayed Lord let me help her if it's your will that I do, and I almost passed out when he touched me, and the language stopped finally where I could talk english. So they sit me down at the table and he ask what are you experiencing? And I told him I felt like a computer being downloaded and these things are going through me head, and I don't understand what it means, and so he ask me what was my spirit hearing. I started telling him and he opened his bible and is flipping through the pages back and forth marking them with paper, and I was quoting scriptures word for word out of a bible I had never read. From that moment the Lord placed me in choir, prison ministry, youth leader, a van ministry where I went around picking up children whose parents didn't go to church, homeless ministry, you name it, HE has placed me with such a fire in my bones to spread the Truth of Christ and HIS Word. I have never been the same since Feburary 9th, 9:58am 1997 when my Lord snatched me up from the talons of satan with HIS beautiful love and forgiveness, and the awesome gift of salvation. And the funny thing the christian that gave me the book to read, that's her daddy's birthday.

(I may get this post done eventually, I can only cry with thank giving that we serve such an awesome God).

Since then I have led my step daddy and my mother to the Lord, my present husband, and step daughter, my friend that was in a homosexual relationship that cost him his physical life by his jitled partner because he chose Christ over him, my friend of 35 years, and her children, just by being who HE has made me and living the example of HIS love and guidence.

When I got home all I could see was port holes of the enemy in my house and I started pulling antique beer sign, light up beer signs, all the books, quiji board, alcohol, drugs, pipes for my drugs, books about spells, palm reading, my tarot cards, runes, and toys of monsters like pinhead off of hell raiser movies, throwing them out into the trash after I had taken a hammer to them. My husband was just in full fledge panic, saying honey what are you doing we can sell this if you don't want them, you're destroying hundreds of dollars this is our life, and I turned around and grabbed his hands and asked him, do you trust me? And he said yes I do baby. And I said trust me honey these are portholes for the enemy to come through into our home, and he continued to let me frantically throw the destroyed pieces into the trash. I can not sell these, or give them to another human being whether lost or save, their blood will not be on my hands or yours, I love them and us more than that. My home was completely changed within the week and started becoming that wife my husband should have had the whole time. A wife he saw in a complete new way and began treating me with a new profound respect and love that I hadn't seen before, and me too toward him. A love that led my husband to the Lord.

The Lord quietly removed every single person in my life that practice the same habits as me, without missing them or even desiring to see them, and replaced them with christian friends by the droves. But the thing that was amazing that when I would hear music at work and it was the old kind I listened to, I would hear different words other than what was being said, words from the Lord....HIS music. And I had people just coming to me out of no where for prayer everyday, and he provided me christian companionship everywhere I went blessing me and using me to bless others. And another wonderful things was that I had no withdrawls from the 25-30 years of addiction, but I could smell someone who had been drinking 30 feet from me before they would get to me and literally made me sick to my stomach and gave me the strength by my mere presence to lead them to the Lord no matter where I went, whether it was a gas station, hospitals, store, just everywhere I went, and gave me such a love and passion to lead as many as I could, whoever crossed my path to the salvation of Jesus. And this is who I have been in HIM ever since..........

Thank you my precious Savior for loving me. I will forever love YOU my Lord for you have always loved me.....Amen!

 

[Allen1901]

I saw a Video on youtube of a Christain talking about Their relationship with Jesus.
It's no longer there or I would post a link to it. It made Me want a relationship with God.

I'm a youtube Christian

God Bless!
Allen

 

[Laudate Dominum]

When I was a few months old, my parents had me baptized. And I'm not about to get into a debate about infant baptism; it is simply the point at which I began in my relationship with Christ. If you want to discuss infant baptism, don't hijack this thread, PM me instead. Thanks.

~LD

 

[Caroline H]

Nope, don't want any debates here

 

[Blazin Bones]

Hi Carol! I don't suppose you could break that into paragraphs?

 

[Blazin Bones]

I saw a Video on youtube of a Christain talking about Their relationship with Jesus.
It's no longer there or I would post a link to it. It made Me want a relationship with God.

I'm a youtube Christian

God Bless!
Allen

That's pretty cool, especially since there are plenty of other things on youtube from a completely different side of things.

 

[Carol Lowery]

Hope in Christ that helps Tim......sorry for the inconvenience.....wasn't sure if it would all fit, so I was trying to save space. Some sites have limits, just so many characters.

 

[Caroline H]

It is a lovely testimony, and I'm sure it means alot to you Thanks for sharing.

 

[duval]

Several people were involved, both men and women over a period of about 10 years. I was a very hard case. They gently and lovingly sat down with simply the Bible and taught me my errors and how I could be simply a Christian, nothing more, nothing less and nothing different. At last, I obeyed the gospel of Jesus Christ. That has been a long time ago. I have never regreted it and never will.

 

[Paidion]

1.When I was only 5 years old, I remember a man of God coming to our house. His name was Bill Winslow, a “Shantymanâ€Â. He used to walk many miles to bush camps to bring the gospel to the men there. The tough men in these camps normally threw out any minister that dared to enter their camps ---- but not Brother Winslow! They gathered around him and listened to every word. Many submitted their lives to Christ.

One time in a house, Mr. Winslow was witnessing to a man, who was getting more and more disturbed. Finally, he shouted to Brother Winslow that he should stop preaching to him. In great anger, he threatened to throw Bill downstairs if he didn’t desist immediately. Brother Bill just kept right on urging him. Suddenly the man fell to his knees, repenting in tears.

At 5 years of age, when I came near Bill Winslow, I felt something wonderful emanating from him. I didn’t know what it was. All I knew was that if I sat anywhere near him, I experienced something very pleasant. I now know that his was the spirit of God flowing through him, and that I was somehow bathing in the overflow.

2. At age 7, I began attending a country Sunday School held in the one-room country school house where I attended. My teacher was Christina Winslow, Bill’s wife. I don’t remember anything anything she said in class. All I remember is experiencing that flow of love within me. I recall also, that she brought a cup with her whose exterior was white, and whose interior was black. My experience was new to me, and so powerful. I wanted to tell my brother Billy about it when I got home. Then, when I got there, I didn’t know what to tell him! I wasn’t sure what had happened to me. If I had known, I didn’t have the vocabulary to describe it. After that, I experienced that flow of love again and again.

3. I began reading the Old Testamentâ€â€from the beginning. When I got to Exodus, and the various feasts prescribed for the Israelites, I wondered why our family did not hold any feasts to honour God. I very much wanted to please God, and so I went to my playhouse and held my own private feasts in His honour.

Later, I read about the Israelites sacrificing to God. I asked my mother why we didn’t sacrifice to God. My mother replied that when Jesus was sacrificed, it was no longer necessary to have animal sacrifices. Her answer seemed to satisfy me at the time.

4. When I was 14, I encountered and began reading fundamentalist tracts which told about how to “get savedâ€Â.

“Have I done this?†I asked myself. And so I tried praying the prescribed prayer.

“Jesus, I realize I am a sinner, and that you died for me, so that I would not have to go to hell, but could go to heaven. I hereby accept you as my personal saviour.†Nothing happened. I didn’t experience a thing.

But not every tract said the same thing. Others suggested a different prayer. Maybe I hadn’t done it right the first time. I tried again:

“Jesus, I realize that I am a sinner, and that you died in my place. I accept your finished work on Calvary, so that God will no longer regard my sin, but your righteousness.†Still nothing!

Then I read fundamentalist literature that salvation had nothing to do with inner feeling. If I have accepted Christ, I just have to believe that He has saved me regardless of feelings or lack of them. Accept it as true because He said it. “He who believes has eternal life.†So I did. I believed, so I concluded that I was saved and had eternal life. More literature I read convinced me of “eternal security†(unconditional security). Now that I was born again, I could not become unborn.†I rested my belief on:

John 10:27,28 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand.

Rom 8:38,39 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Nothing can separate me from the love of God - not even my own actions. For I wasn’t saved by works, so I can’t lose my salvation through works. And therefore I came to the conclusion that it was impossible for me to go to hell.


5. After my father was killed in a hunting accident when I was 17, my mother and I moved to a nearby village. At age 18 and 19, I used to attend the Baptist Church at that village. I used to hear Tom Oshiro, the minister at the time, speak from Sunday to Sunday with great fervour, on submission and obedience to Christ. I used to wonder why Tom never preached the gospel. I was so spiritually blind that I failed to recognize that what he preached was the gospel. Tom urged the members of his congregation to submit to Christ. Tom had a wonderful way with young people. He organized young people’s meetings, and he asked me to lead them from time to time. In hearing me speak to the young people, Tom recognized that I had a spiritual problem. Once he asked me, “Don, what are we saved from?â€Â

Knowing the scripture, I said, “From sin.â€Â

Tom replied, “And what does that mean?â€Â

I answered, “We are saved from the results of sin.†I had in mind hell fire.

Tom said, “Don, no where does it say we are saved from the results of sin. It says we are saved from sin!†I didn’t accept it at the time. I thought Tom was wrong. But a seed was planted in my heart which eventually bore fruit.

A later Baptist preacher in the village suggested that I should be baptized. I didn’t think that baptism was necessary. The preacher told me that since Jesus commanded it, it was important. I asked whether I would be doing as well to get baptised in (I named another nearby church).

“Oh, no. They believe “so-and-soâ€Â, whereas we believe “such-in-such.â€Â

I used to wonder, with all the denominations, how could anyone know which, if any, is right. I couldn’t imagine the apostles Paul and Peter being Baptists, or Presbyterians, or Pentecostals!

In the summer in which I was 19, I worked for the CNR as a section man in a town about 120 miles away. There I attended a more conservative and fundamentalist Baptist Church. Both “eternal security†and “predestinationâ€Â, in the Calvinist sense, were believed. At this time, I was considering baptism. What I didn’t know was that according to conservative Baptist doctrine, you were baptized into the local church. When I learned that, I was reluctant, for I didn’t want to be in any denomination. I considered denominations to be man-made. But through seeking God, I came to believe that He wanted me to be baptized there. So I was baptized in that church. I was expecting the Spirit of God to fall upon me in a special way. But the minister didn’t seem to expect anything. For him, it was just a symbol of what had already taken place in me. Nevertheless, I felt that I had received the Spirit in a way that I never had before. I was blessed by the spirit of this church. Each meeting, the minister gave an invitation to come forward for whatever spiritual need one might have. For about a year, I lived in that town and attended that church.

The following year, I attended Winnipeg Bible Institute in Winnipeg. I was particularly interested in studying Greek. I wanted to learn what the New Testament writers really meant. For I was confused by various groups and denominations, each claiming to follow the teachings of the Bible exactly, yet teaching doctrines contrary to one another. I became interested in 2nd century Christian literature. I thought that those church leaders who lived in the days of the apostles or immediately after, were in a better position to understand the NT writings than present-day groups nearly 2000 years later. So I searched out these writings at the Bible school, and later found them in Christian book stores and purchased them for myself.

At the end of the year, I began to think that I had to think about earning a living. What could I do? I didn’t want to continue working as an unskilled labourer. I found out that I could become a qualified teacher by attending teacher’s college for a single year. So I went to Manitoba Teachers College. There I went to Bible studies with a group of Mennonites. They studied, of all things, First John. Now I had been almost ready to reject out of hand 1st John. For it contained statements that did not fit my theology of unconditional security.

I John 1:6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not live according to the truth;

I John 2:4 He who says "I know him" but disobeys his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him;

But especially:
I John3:7,8 Little children, let no one deceive you. He who does right is righteous, as he is righteous. He who commits sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.

He who does right is righteous, as he is righteous

I didn’t believe I was righteous by doing right! I believed in imputed righteousness, not my own righteousness. My own righteousness is as filthy rags in God’s sight. I believed in positional righteousness not actual righteousness, because Jesus the righteous One died in my place. Now when God looks at me, He no longer sees my sin but Christ’s righteousness. But this statement says "as he is righteous". He was righteous, not because righteousness was imputed to Him, but because He did right. Here it states that Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil. That’s not what I believed. I believed He came to save us from hell!

But somehow I was able to re-interpret first John, and tried to convince the others about “eternal securityâ€Â, as I called it. One of them asked, “Where do you get that, Don? Where do you find that in the Bible?†I answered immediately, “Why, you find it on every page!â€Â

Two years later, I married June, and in September obtained a teaching position at a Manitoba Hutterite community. I had been told by my Mennonite friends that Hutterites were the black sheep of the Anabaptist family, and that they knew nothing of salvation, that it was a religion of works. In trying to bring the gospel to the Hutterites, I discovered they knew far more about salvation than I.

In those days, June and I attended meetings with Major Ian Thomas in Winnipeg. He spoke about the deeper life in Christ. He was so dynamic that though he spoke 2 hours, it seemed like 15 minutes. He compared our place with Jesus with the Israelites coming out of Egypt. He said there were three categories of people: (1)those who are still in Egypt  the lost. (2) those who have come out of Egypt, have crossed the Red Sea, and are wandering around in the desert  carnal Christians who have been redeemed by faith in Christ through His reconciling death but are living in spiritual poverty.(3) those who have crossed the Jordan and are living in the promised land  those who are submitted to Christ, those in whom Christ is living His resurrected life. I accepted this message wholeheartedly, and sought to commit my life to Christ in a way that I hadn’t previously. I began to proclaim this message. I wrote three tracts and had them printed: Are you an Unbelieving Believer?  based on Heb 3:12 “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God.†Will your Christian Works be burned? based on the wood, hay, and stubble of Cor 3:11-15. “If any one’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fireâ€Â. The Difference between Christians and Disciples. This tract defined “Christians†as those in Ian Thomas’s second class, and “disciples†as those in the third class. However...this Christian work was burned! For, years later I read these words in Acts 11:26 "Iin Antioch the disciples were for the first time called Christians." I realized there is no difference between Christians and disciples. “Christian†is just another word for “disciple.†I didn’t want anyone to get hold of this false teaching, and so I burned the tracts.

While at the colony, one of the men gave me a copy of the book “The Sermon on the Mount†by Clarence Jordan from Georgia. Clarence and his fellow Christians used to meet together daily, had all things in common as in Acts 2. Their community was called “Koinoia Farm.†The man who started Habitats for Humanity, got his inspiration from Koinonia. Clarence emphasized literal obedience to the teaching of Christ. "He who hears these words of mine and does them is like the wise man who builds his house upon the rock." I came to see that there is only one kind of Christian, the kind who have submitted to Jesus as Lord!

During those days, I used to read aloud to June, Justin Martyr’s “Dialogue with Trypho.†Justin had been a follower of Plato, but was converted when he met an old Christian while meditating, seeking to see God with the eyes of his soul. Trypho was a Jew who together with his companions met Justin while he was in a lonely place. They discussed spiritual things for days. I was filled with new understanding concerning the many Old Testament scriptures in which Jesus appeared on earth, and the many prophecies in which his birth was predicted. It was during those days that early Christian literature hit me right between the eyes concerning my beliefs about unconditional security.I repented of this false belief, and opened my mind and heart to the truth as revealed in Scripture.

Since this time, I have realized that Christ requires my total allegiance. Unless He is Lord of all, He cannot be my Lord at all.

"Unless your forsake all and follow me, you cannot be my disciple."

I cannot do it from self effort, but the grace of Christ enables me to do it.

Titus 2:11,12 The grace of God has appeared for the salvation of all people, training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and to live sensibly, uprightly, and piously in this age...

If I have a time of need, where I just can’t seem to be able to do what I should, or refrain from doing what I shouldn’t, I can, through faith, come to the throne of grace and receive help from the One who was tempted in all points such as we are, and yet without sin.

 

[Caroline H]

Paidion,
I enjoyed reading your testimony, thank you for sharing. Would you believe that my father knew Major Ian Thomas when we lived in England? In 1986 when we first landed my father was assigned by the Global Outreach Mission Board to attend 6 months at Capernwray Hall Bible School in Carnforth. At that time Ian Thomas was there, and he and my father became well aquainted...Interesting stuff

 

[Carol Lowery]

Beautiful....Paidion, I loved every bit of it, so touching, just down right full of tears of joy. What a great adventure our Lord brought you through in leading you to HIM...awesome!

 

[Allen1901]

I find it interesting that nobody taking the poll was Saved in a Church.

God Bless!
Allen

 

[Caroline H]

Do we have any more testimonies?

 

[Entropic_Prodigy]

As a rule, it usually takes something big to get my attention. My "big" came in the form of a woman that I wanted very badly to be my mentor. The very first thing I would like to point out is that when God wants your attention, he usually hits you directly, and from all sides.

I was really more of an atheist a few years ago than anything else. I equated God and the bible with UFOs, Fairies, and Santa Claus. Around the same time I started going to school a couple of years ago, it seemed like every time I turned around, there were people throwing religion and bibles at me. My sister in law, who is a big religion buff, used to come over and talk about Jesus, Mormons, Pagans, and Jehovah's Witnesses constantly. (Those are the big ones) To me it was really uninteresting and kind-of annoying, but we love her, so... I also live right next to a gas station, and the owner used to constantly ask me if I'd "Accepted Jesus as my personal Savior" every time I stopped in to get something. THAT really was annoying. I quit going there for a little while until ownership changed hands. I was also going to school to be a Medical Assistant, and one of the things we touched on briefly that started some good conversations were various religious beliefs of patients, and how it impacted their quality of care. My instructor was also going through the slow declination of her father's health at the time, and she happened to broadcast several times that he was an atheist, and how his caregiver was a Christian and they wanted to fire him, because it was making her dad uncomfortable. During this time, I also had the flying spaghetti monster decal on my car that used to get a lot of attention from the Mormons my husband works for.

So anyway, during all of this I took a class that was kind of like a psychology class, and had a personality component in it. It was one of the most interesting classes I'd ever taken, and the instructor was hands down, the best instructor I've ever had. I held plenty of conversations with her over the course of the quarter I had her for, and I distinctly remember what a rain on my parade it was when I asked if she mentored students and she told me that she did not, and that even if she did, any advice or direction she would give me would come from a biblical standpoint. I remember being in disbelief, and asking her exactly what that meant. I believe she just repeated herself, and explained that she was a Christian, and advised only from a biblical point of view. After the gas station, my sister in law, people constantly coming to my door and being flooded slowly over a period of time, it was kind of a cracking point. I don't think I was very polite to her at all, and she just kind of responded that if I wanted to know more, I could come back and talk with her another time. She mentioned a video that she had, and asked me if she could bring it in for me to watch. I told her to go ahead, and left her office. I actually wish I could find the video she let me borrow somewhere, because it was really kind of good. It was called "Dinner with a Stranger" or something like that. Anyway, I watched it and decided I'd better do some investigating. I read the four Gospels over the same weekend she gave me the video, and decided I should entertain the idea of looking into things a little more, because the message of salvation and just the mere possibility that the books that I had just read were true had already impacted me so much.

I talked with my soon-to-be mentor several times in the weeks leading up to Easter Sunday, and I finally accepted her invitation to visit her Church right before Easter weekend. As if agreeing to go wasn't enough by itself, I had a life-changing "incident" happen to me that Saturday night, the day before I was supposed to attend my first service. I won't go into a bunch of detail here, but I did make it to Easter service, just not in very good shape. If nothing else, it did made me more receptive to everything -- I really felt like I was in need of some serious salvation that day.

I actually waited maybe a few more weeks after that to go ahead and pray [with her] for Jesus to come into my life, but after Easter Sunday, my mind was pretty much made up. There were some things that changed almost immediately in my life that took a total 180 right away, and then some others that were more slow-coming. Some of the richest gifts by far have been people, surprisingly.

I now work in one of departments my mentor teaches in, and the specific program I work in helps single parents on welfare go to school and find living-wage jobs in the community. It's not all that glamorous, because most of the people that I have contact with have kind of a dim outlook on life, and they aren't very appreciative, optimistic, or abundant in social graces. Most of my co-workers, or people that I work closely with, are Christians, and I feel very comfortable there. My boss has become another very important mentor of mine -- she's a single mother who adopted a little baby that had fetal alcohol syndrome and some other physical problems about 14 years ago. I've never met anyone so strong and compassionate in my life, and I never want to work for anyone else; she's also a former journalist, and I've never met someone so uniquely brilliant before. I've found more wonderful people over the last 12 months than I've ever found anywhere all over the world before in my life, and I've lived a lot of places, and I've met a lot of people.

My daughter also entered Kindergarten this year. Since I'm still going to school, I've been taking the money from my part-time job and sending her to a local Christian School. Of the many in the area I had to choose from, I had narrowed it down over this last summer to two schools. When I asked my mentor what she thought about one of the two schools I was looking at, she responded that she was a little prejudiced, because she taught seminars in their Church, and had also sent both her kids there from 5th grade on. I really didn't need to know anything else at that point. My oldest daughter loves her "special" school and tells me how much she loves her teacher and classmates at least once a week. It's just so neat to see positive things happen, and actually have proof and know that you're on the right path with things.

BTW, if I could take the opportunity to ask for prayers because my boss has been hit with pneumonia. There's patients at my internship that are hospitalized right now, and it's hitting a lot of people pretty seriously.

Anyway, this is my testimony -- sorry it's so long. (but you asked, so...)

Blessings,

ENTP.

 

[Caroline H]

Thanks Entropic! I love hearing how God has moved in other people's lives. Isn't it wonderful when you know he seeks you out personally, and calls you to know him intimately?

 

[Ginger]

Great idea for a thread. I loved the testimony especially about youtube - wonderful to see how God can work in all things to bring people to Christ, things I wouldn't first of all think about as being an evangelical tool.

My father was a pastor and we were staying with my grandparents on holiday in Belfast. In those days especially there were lots of 'revivals' and 'hell and brimstone' sermons at these places with visiting preachers (glad there was as it was that fear of hell that made me ask Jesus into my heart)

I was 8 or 9 and I remember being on my own sitting on the bottom of my grandparents stairs being scared witless as I knew without a doubt if I died I couldn't go to heaven just because my parents were going there. And that I was going to hell - I knew that 100% - no doubts in my mind, so there and then I asked Jesus into my heart and life so I could go to heaven with my parents.

Nothing magical happened but I knew 100% I was saved once and for all time at that young age and that has stayed with me till now. And even though through the years we get doubts about certain aspects I have always known I was saved, nothing with what I did but believing and accepting the One who died for me who covered my sins and took it away by His blood and resurrection, and knowing and trusting in that, in His grace, that has always kept me and given me strength in Him.

John 10 28-29
I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand.

 

[Carol Lowery]

ENTP/ginger/caroline...[all of you] Loved your testimony.

I am thoroughly enjoying these testimonies. They're so powerful, and beautiful, and just real tear jerkers.....just so awesome!! And I love the confidence/boldness without doubt of these testimonies of salvations....you know the "knowing". Gosh, I'm going to be a weeping christian til the day I die. You guys got me good! Ahhhhh I needed a good old fashion nose cleaning!

 

[Entropic_Prodigy]