A fellow sister in The Lord sharing her testimony. I was 9 when I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior but I failed to really grasp the depth of my sinfulness as that age. I excelled in learning the scriptures and have always had the gift of spiritual discernment which made Biblical understanding something I grasped well from a young age. I was a fantastically morale teenager and I thought that I was a good person despite my faith in Christ and what I now realize is so very important to my walk and the great magnitude of my redemption.
When I went to college I fell away from the Lord and stopped attending church( my parents had divorced my senior year of high school so I was kind of left to my own accountability to go). Regretfully, I made a lot of bad decisions and lived a life of sinfulness that saddens me deeply today. After a few years of this and the absolute realization of just how far from the truth the phrase “I am a good person because I am a Christian” was, God called me back to Him....how he called me back
It was after college and its actually very complex because He just had his hand in so many aspects of my life unbeknownst to me. I dated and “fell in love” with this guy I thought was “ the one” and he was bad news. The drinking and partying commenced and I just put my whole heart into this relationship that ended up breaking my heart and I didn’t handle it well. All the while, my sister was getting divorced and has a son that didn’t have any church exposure at all, and I took a new job where there was this guy there that I am still great friends with that was just in love with the Lord. I was so rebellious and such a know it all of course but he challenged me in his boldness and his no apologies method of calling me out on my lifestyle. At one point I remember he even told me I couldn’t be saved because I wasn’t showing evidence of the fruits of the spirit in my life. Over the course of a year, the Lord just worked on my heart and healed some of my hurt and I just started to lose interest in that type of lifestyle. All the while, I felt an increasing burden to at least expose my nephew to church because his home life was lacking stability. I just knew that he needed to know the Lord to stand a chance in life.
So, I first cleaned up my act a bit and with my nephew in tow started looking for a church. He was the one that suggested I try the big pink church despite me not wanting to. But I did it because if we don’t share with the future generations who will? And God commissioned us to do so. It just all came together after that and the Lord just convicted me to surrender it all and finally get off the fence I was straddling and dive in to a Christian walk with Him. Since then, I’ve had the privilege of getting to see my nephew accept the Lord as his savior, and his father did as well (not by my doing but he remarried and she is a Christian). So God used those people to pursue me all the while using me to help my nephew find the Lord too. And in the process, I met a wonderful Christian man who loves the Lord too in our orchestra and it’s just been an amazing few years. I hate I wasted so much time before.
Moving on...Since then,
I have such a deep understanding of just how wretched a sinner I and everyone else is and just how innately sinful our human nature is. We are so far separated from God in our sin that even turning our eyes away from him for a period of time can quickly lead us into that pit all over again. My blessing is that because of what I experienced and the poor choices I made in my young adult years, I have a stronger foundation of which I place my trust in now in Christ. I know in my heart that I was saved at 9 but I finally recommitted my life about 5 years ago to truly desiring and seeking the Lord and wanting to grow into a Proverbs 31 woman. That is one of my heart’s biggest desires. Im a work in progress I am indeed but my security is forever rooted in His grace, and not my ability to be good enough for Him. And upon surrendering everything over, in every area of obedience of my life to date, He has poured out blessings I couldn’t have imagined in my life just 5 years ago. And the best thing is, He never abandoned me in my shame. Our sermon Sunday was about how the Lord wastes nothing and it is all for His glory. I am living proof of that. Where I was and the mistakes I made helped me to step into a more solid relationship with my savior.
I have such a deep understanding of just how wretched a sinner I and everyone else is and just how innately sinful our human nature is. We are so far separated from God in our sin that even turning our eyes away from him for a period of time can quickly lead us into that pit all over again. My blessing is that because of what I experienced and the poor choices I made in my young adult years, I have a stronger foundation of which I place my trust in now in Christ. I know in my heart that I was saved at 9 but I finally recommitted my life about 5 years ago to truly desiring and seeking the Lord and wanting to grow into a Proverbs 31 woman. That is one of my heart’s biggest desires. Im a work in progress I am indeed but my security is forever rooted in His grace, and not my ability to be good enough for Him. And upon surrendering everything over, in every area of obedience of my life to date, He has poured out blessings I couldn’t have imagined in my life just 5 years ago. And the best thing is, He never abandoned me in my shame. Our sermon Sunday was about how the Lord wastes nothing and it is all for His glory. I am living proof of that. Where I was and the mistakes I made helped me to step into a more solid relationship with my savior.
Amen and Amen!
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