An anniversary and a testimony

The more I think about it, the better I feel about switching to posting only once a week. I could post just about anytime on Sundays, but on Thursdays, I would get home too late and would often end up posting very early Friday morning. The numbers I receive from Blogger indicate that Thursday/Friday posts tend to be less read anyway, so unless something should happen that would make me change my mind, it's just going to be new posts on Sundays from now on.

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Yesterday, March 28, was an important anniversary for me. Three years ago, I got saved by the grace of God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

When I realized the anniversary was coming up, I had originally planned to post my testimony. I the  decided that I wanted to write about how things have been going this past year since the last anniversary. When the time came to start writing, I realized that I needed to post my testimony, as it's been a long time since I've shared it with anyone.

I post it here as it was written for a Fundamentals of the Faith class I took almost three years ago, the summer after I got saved. (Any text in the italic/parenthese are notes added specifically for this post.)

1. Before I was saved, I was not doing anything with my life. I was not accomplishing anything, I really had no goals, and I was deeply unhappy. I have been coming to Grace ever since I was born, but I had no spiritual life, and I wasn’t cultivating those relationships I thought I would have. I really did believe that I was saved, and even went so far as to be baptized; however, there was no spiritual fruit. I did everything I could to shut people out of my life, and all I did was try to make myself happy. All I got for that was a lot of wasted years and nothing to show for it.

2. I was laying in bed one night in mid-February; something had been bothering me for days. I was so scared about what was happening that I started shaking uncontrollably for about two minutes. However, I didn’t tell anyone about it; I just sat on it for about a week and a half. One night after that, I just had a total breakdown. I realized that I was so unhappy, that I had nothing to live for, and most importantly, that I wasn’t saved. (Note: I have since remembered that I first realized that if I were actually saved, there would be spiritual fruit, and there was none.) I prayed with my parents for God to come into my life. In retrospect, I realize that I hadn’t prayed for salvation, but that God would take away my loneliness. I started to attend the Doulos fellowship group, I began volunteering on the church campus, and I began attending the Men of the Word study on Wednesday nights with my dad. All throughout that month of March, however, I still was gripped by this crushing agony that wouldn’t go away no matter what. I just kept breaking down over and over again, such that by the end of March, I was wondering if this horrible heartbreak was what it meant to be saved; I was so despondent that I actually wanted to die. Still, I was so scared of what might happen that, reflecting back on it, God was keeping me from taking my own life. Someone had given a workbook by Wayne Mack as a means to begin exploring Scripture. While looking for a particular verse, I stumbled on James 1:8, “he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways”. It was in that moment that I realized that all that had happened was because I had not given myself to God. Two days later, I was talking with my dad, telling him that I was struggling with whether my faith was strong enough. He told me that genuine faith doesn’t come from us, but that it is a gift from God to us. In that moment, I prayed to God to save me from my sins, to give me the faith I needed to believe in Him and follow Him. (I actually prayed, "Lord, give me the faith to believe.") When it was over, every bit of sorrow and grief that had gripped me was gone. I knew I was free and that God had taken them from me. 

3. Since then, God has caused me to grow in so many ways. The early going had its ups and downs, but God, through Scripture and the support of my new brothers and sisters, has carried me through. I had wanted people to care about me for so long, but what I really needed was to care for others. God has given me a heart that longs for others, and cares for their well-being. I have been blessed with opportunities to meet the needs of others, and others have been a source of encouragement to me. I have been exploring and considering opportunities for ministry and praying that God will lead me to those opportunities. (In this past year, it seems like I've let that pursuit of ministry opportunity fall by the wayside. Pray that I would seek those opportunities again, with a heart of gratitude and mercy.)