Sometimes the testimonies you hear end with people getting saved, or asking Jesus to be Lord of their lives. I like to believe that is where mine starts.
I grew up like most minister's kids, in church nine months before I was born, involved in every activity available through the church while under my dad's roof. I asked Jesus into my life when I was 8 . . . and there He waited for me to do something with the relationship He started.
I guess you could say that I never knew I needed God until I --needed-- God. I never really had problems as a child. I had parents and grandparents who loved me, a nice house, good friends, safety. My great grandfather, who acted as my grandfather, died when I was 10, but it was one of those things where he was in the nursing home and it was time for him to go. It wasn't until I turned 15 that I started talking to God, asking for God's leading, trusting Him to Lead me.
My dad was going through some hardships in his job, and I remember telling God, okay, I understand it's time for us to move. So let's move where I can stay in school at my high school. When that didn't pan out, though a few opportunities opened themselves, I broadened my prayer again and again, releasing first my school, then my friends, then the state where I had grown up. Finally, the area I asked God to send us to was "whereever you want." I think God was readying me for what He had already planned to do with my father.
So, when we moved, I was okay. I was lonely, but okay. I remember times when the loneliness was so hard to deal with. I had friends--church friends and school friends, but I missed the companionship type conversation that comes from having close friends. I remember dropping on my knees in prayer one night, crying my heart out to God, and I remember the peace He gave me as He comforted me to sleep.
God answered that prayer in the smallest of ways, though after He gave me peace, I hadn't expected Him to do more. The next Friday night, there was a singing group traveling through town and they stayed with other church members. Certain church members invited me and my family to their home where I sat in on the conversations with that group of girls that I would never see again. For one moment, I was in the middle of that type of comradery that I so missed.
That night, I walked into my room and saw where I had knelt by my bed, and I remembered my prayer and praised God for His great love.
Other things happened that year. My grandmother I loved so much and who we had moved away from learned that she had cancer. Her health dropped quickly. She was unable to fly out and see me graduate from High School. It was one of the few things that I really wanted so badly and had asked for in prayer, but didn't get. I lost a friend in school to suicide. I had to find a college. I went on mission trips and saw God use me. I watched friends blossom in their relationship with Christ.
I can't say, now that I look back, that I kept on growing. I didn't. In fact, I look back on those years and wish that I could talk to God now like I did then. Not just talk to Him, but walk with Him. But it's hard. You get into your adult life and Bible Study doesn't come as easy, because adults don't have the fun in Bible study that teenagers are allowed. Worshiping God becomes mundane because it gets wrapped up in how much time we have to do it. People get busy. You find freedom and forget, and find that remembering is so hard with the constant noise around you. These are just excuses for laziness.
I love my Savior. His name is Jesus. I don't want to think about what my life would be liked without His peace, His Hope, His love. I know I am not perfect. I know that I have messed up in the past and that many have probably not ever seen Him in how I act or in who I am. But I'm trying. I'm growing. I'm running the race, trying to pick up speed, holding out my hands for the finish line. There's a crowd of witnesses surrounding me who have triumphed. Peter, Paul, Luke, John, Andrew, Thomas, my grandmother, my grandfathers. Their lives cheer me on.
In September of 2000, my brother and I were in a really bad car accident. He ended up in TCU~a trama part of ICU for a month. God was with us all the time~answering little prayers we didn't know how to say. From the doctor "subing" at the small hospital~and knowing how to get my brother easilly and quickly into the best hospital in the state, to the way God made sure the pastor was with my dad when he found out~mobilizing a whole church in prayer and support immediatly. So many people we will never know where in prayer for my brother. I even received a prayer pillow that matched some pillows perfectly that I had made~coincidence? Maybe, and maybe not even a big deal, but God works in sometimes small, mysterious ways.
In July of 2002, I felt God asking me to step out of my comfort zone. I'm still in the middle of all that~but the basic premise is from John 15 (which my pastor spent a summer preaching on). I tried to write the rest, but He's not done and the moment's incomplete. So as I grow and as I develope I'll let you know.
