StAgnes
Member
As I promised earlier, here is the first part of my testimony. I apologize for any typing or spelling errors. The title will become evident in later portions.
This story is really more of an autobiography than it is a testimony, but it is ultimately a story of God's great Love. I cannot say it is a more amazing story than anyone else's, or that what I have to say is in any way profound. I am, after all, just a simple girl with a rather simple life. God didn't save me from some drug addiction or from a life of promiscuity. My story is not a tale of an extreme magical conversion; there are no moments of complete revelation. It is a long story, but I cannot pretend it is a jaw-dropping one. It is merely the story of an ordinary violinist with extraordinary dreams, and a far more extraordinary God.
Like most people who have the privilege of making it to the grand age of 19, I was born. In the process of giving me life, my mother came very close to losing her own. For whatever reason, one by one her organs were ceasing their function, and at one point she was actually dead. During that moment, she claims to have had what is commonly termed a "near death experience", she saw the ever famous "light at the end of the tunnel" accompanied by a complete, indescribable peace, and even (so she claims) spoke to someone who she is almost certain was Jesus. Though she never saw him, she heard his voice, and he told her that she could come with him---that she could have that peace---but remembering her brand new baby girl and her husband, she said "No, Lord I love you, but I must stay to take care of my family", and shortly after that she woke up, and gradually began to heal. She says it was the hardest decision she's ever made because the peace she felt was the warmest, most pleasant feeling, and that nothing has ever compared to the way she felt that night. (Trust me, this is important to the story).
My early childhood was fairly normal, nothing out of the ordinary. When I started school, I was one of the nerdiest little girls you could probably ever find---and probably one of the strangest---I had a deep love of books, talking to adults, and an even deeper love for rocks and fossils. I also had several very large fears. One was a very large fear of drugs---an enormous concern for the people who fell into the use of them, really---and the more selfish fear of thunderstorms. Do to my love of rocks and fossils, my ultimate ambition was to be either a geologist or a paleontologist---two words which my classmates could hardly pronounce, let alone understand. I was a nerd through and through, both a math whiz and an excellent reader; I read most of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes when I was still in second grade, and my math homework was always a topic of "conversation" between my parents and I, "Why," I protested, "do I have to keep doing math like this, when it's so easy for me? I want something harder!" I was a very smart little girl, and my dad says, very close to, if not completely, a genius. I'm not saying that because I'm proud of it, nor am I saying it to brag, I am only listing it as a fact in this story. It is important because it gives you an image of my starting point.
The summer after 1st grade, my family took a vacation to Florida. During that vacation there was a hurricane off the coast---it never hit Florida, but for a day or so, it made the sky to the west very, very dark. My family went to the beach that afternoon, and I remember refusing to get out of the car with them. The storm was so far away it never could have caused us any harm, but I was scared to death. My dad stayed behind with me, and during that time, while the rest of my family was off hunting seashells, he and I had a very long conversation about fear, and life, and especially about God. I told my dad that I wished I'd never been born, because then I wouldn't know what it was like to be afraid of something. It is an event I remember, because even then it was helping me shape my ideas about God, "If God really loved me, " I said, very un-like a seven-year-old, "then he wouldn't have made me, or at least, he wouldn't let me be so afraid." I was mad at God far more than I was afraid of that storm.
I had several other cases where I became extremely angry at God, once I prayed for a Unicorn---needless to say, my prayer was left unanswered. I remember asking God for all kinds of strange things, none of which would have done me or anyone else any good, but at least it lead me to a very consistent prayer-life. Even in my silly childish anger, I would go back to ask God's forgiveness, and to reason out the fact that, obviously if He didn't give me what I wanted, there was a good reason---I still kept praying for Unicorns for a long time though.
When I began 4th grade, the school started an advance placement program in math---something I eagerly took advantage of. It was the best year I'd had until that point, and the first year I'd ever made any lasting friendships. It was also a year when every student had to pick out a different instrument to play. I came very close to playing the cello, but after the orchestra teacher played her violin for us, I fell in love with it---whatever the reason (perhaps the hand of God) I wanted more than anything to be a fiddle player. Little did I know how much that decision would change my life---and how it would ultimately save it.
This story is really more of an autobiography than it is a testimony, but it is ultimately a story of God's great Love. I cannot say it is a more amazing story than anyone else's, or that what I have to say is in any way profound. I am, after all, just a simple girl with a rather simple life. God didn't save me from some drug addiction or from a life of promiscuity. My story is not a tale of an extreme magical conversion; there are no moments of complete revelation. It is a long story, but I cannot pretend it is a jaw-dropping one. It is merely the story of an ordinary violinist with extraordinary dreams, and a far more extraordinary God.
Like most people who have the privilege of making it to the grand age of 19, I was born. In the process of giving me life, my mother came very close to losing her own. For whatever reason, one by one her organs were ceasing their function, and at one point she was actually dead. During that moment, she claims to have had what is commonly termed a "near death experience", she saw the ever famous "light at the end of the tunnel" accompanied by a complete, indescribable peace, and even (so she claims) spoke to someone who she is almost certain was Jesus. Though she never saw him, she heard his voice, and he told her that she could come with him---that she could have that peace---but remembering her brand new baby girl and her husband, she said "No, Lord I love you, but I must stay to take care of my family", and shortly after that she woke up, and gradually began to heal. She says it was the hardest decision she's ever made because the peace she felt was the warmest, most pleasant feeling, and that nothing has ever compared to the way she felt that night. (Trust me, this is important to the story).
My early childhood was fairly normal, nothing out of the ordinary. When I started school, I was one of the nerdiest little girls you could probably ever find---and probably one of the strangest---I had a deep love of books, talking to adults, and an even deeper love for rocks and fossils. I also had several very large fears. One was a very large fear of drugs---an enormous concern for the people who fell into the use of them, really---and the more selfish fear of thunderstorms. Do to my love of rocks and fossils, my ultimate ambition was to be either a geologist or a paleontologist---two words which my classmates could hardly pronounce, let alone understand. I was a nerd through and through, both a math whiz and an excellent reader; I read most of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes when I was still in second grade, and my math homework was always a topic of "conversation" between my parents and I, "Why," I protested, "do I have to keep doing math like this, when it's so easy for me? I want something harder!" I was a very smart little girl, and my dad says, very close to, if not completely, a genius. I'm not saying that because I'm proud of it, nor am I saying it to brag, I am only listing it as a fact in this story. It is important because it gives you an image of my starting point.
The summer after 1st grade, my family took a vacation to Florida. During that vacation there was a hurricane off the coast---it never hit Florida, but for a day or so, it made the sky to the west very, very dark. My family went to the beach that afternoon, and I remember refusing to get out of the car with them. The storm was so far away it never could have caused us any harm, but I was scared to death. My dad stayed behind with me, and during that time, while the rest of my family was off hunting seashells, he and I had a very long conversation about fear, and life, and especially about God. I told my dad that I wished I'd never been born, because then I wouldn't know what it was like to be afraid of something. It is an event I remember, because even then it was helping me shape my ideas about God, "If God really loved me, " I said, very un-like a seven-year-old, "then he wouldn't have made me, or at least, he wouldn't let me be so afraid." I was mad at God far more than I was afraid of that storm.
I had several other cases where I became extremely angry at God, once I prayed for a Unicorn---needless to say, my prayer was left unanswered. I remember asking God for all kinds of strange things, none of which would have done me or anyone else any good, but at least it lead me to a very consistent prayer-life. Even in my silly childish anger, I would go back to ask God's forgiveness, and to reason out the fact that, obviously if He didn't give me what I wanted, there was a good reason---I still kept praying for Unicorns for a long time though.
When I began 4th grade, the school started an advance placement program in math---something I eagerly took advantage of. It was the best year I'd had until that point, and the first year I'd ever made any lasting friendships. It was also a year when every student had to pick out a different instrument to play. I came very close to playing the cello, but after the orchestra teacher played her violin for us, I fell in love with it---whatever the reason (perhaps the hand of God) I wanted more than anything to be a fiddle player. Little did I know how much that decision would change my life---and how it would ultimately save it.