Testimony: True. Tearless. Tribute.

I usually try to keep my blog posts fun, humorous and short, so if that’s what you came anticipating today, I apologize for throwing you a curve ball, but I think if you stick around you will get more than you were expecting from me.

In recent weeks I have had guilt on my heart for allowing my blog to distract me from more important life tasks, so I have been praying that blogging would become an edifying experience for me, and that God might use my blog in an authentic and natural way to bring glory to Himself. Several things have happened in past days that lead me to believe now is the right time for a serious attempt to do so.

Yesterday, I read an amazing post by Angie over at Bring the Rain about how her current intimate relationship with God was formed. You should all take a moment to read it, as it is one of the most beautifully written pieces I've ever read, and I was an English major and English teacher once upon a time so I've read a lot. Angie's post spoke so loudly and directly to my heart that I have been inspired to share my own testimony about how God recently changed my heart and my life forever.

Last summer, I went through what I call a Spiritual Crisis. It was a depression actually. I was expecting a second baby and was terrified about how I’d manage to be a successful mother to two kids under two. I felt like my life was without purpose or direction; that I was stumbling through it accidentally when what I really wanted was to live - and parent - with intention. I needed a stronger relationship with my God. I did not want to be lukewarm, or distracted, or worldly. I wanted my love for Christ and commitment to his commandments to be like a fire within me, overpowering my sin nature and the temptations of this world with its intensity. I wanted my every action to be motivated by love for Christ, and I wanted to be an example of Christ-centeredness for my children.

I began desperately and frantically searching for the right book that would tell me how to achieve this, or for a Christian women’s seminar that would light this fire in me, teach me how to be a woman of Christ. I cried, and prayed, and Googled until all hours of the night for days on end. And then an epiphany dawned, not suddenly like the proverbial light bulb going on, but slowly, layer by sweet layer, God’s truth unfolded itself for me. I was making this so much harder than it was. I did not need a book, or seminar, or song, or person to teach me how to follow Christ. All I needed was prayer and God’s written word. How simple! In Angie's words, what I needed to do was "Disregard the manuals and pick up the brush."


So I began to pray and read the Bible regularly. I set aside time every morning and evening for devotionals. I would bring my failures and fears and weaknesses and wants to God, and I would beg for him to fix me. I would plead with him to show me what to do. And the most amazing thing happened. Everytime I finished praying, then opened the Bible to a random place, the Scripture that was before me was a direct answer to a question or worry weighing on my heart! And those answers began to change me, though I was still struggling with how to become the person I wanted to be. Part of me was still looking for that one perfect book, or person, or seminar that would do the work for me.

At this time, I was also feeling a burning need to go back to church (we had let sleeping in, running errands, home improvements keep us from church for months). For several weeks worth of Sundays, I ignored the need for a morning of worship in favor of doing other less important things. But one Sunday, I could not quiet the desire, so ended up at church in spite of the million other things we had planned for ourselves that day. That particular Sunday, there was a guest speaker, a missionary from Africa coming home to report on his experiences in Senegal. His sermon was titled, “Finding Your Way Through the Fog,” and started with this verse:

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.
Proverbs 3:5

And there it was again. So simple. The direct answer to my most fervent prayer. How?

Trust the Lord
Lean not on your own understanding
Acknowledge him in all your ways

I connected to that sermon more powerfully and intensely than I had to anything I’d ever heard in my life before. I was beyond moved; lifted up. It was as though that man was speaking directly to me. And I thought to myself, “Maybe he is.” In fact, maybe God was speaking to me through this man. This was a shocking idea to me. Though I’d casually believed in Christ as the Lord all my life, I didn’t believe that God still spoke to people, or performed miracles, or really showed himself present in the lives of us mortals at all. But every time I prayed for direction through the Scripture, a perfect set of verses presented itself when I opened my Bible. And when I didn’t want to go to church, an irresistible need to go drove me there. On the exact day that a man preached about how to find my way out of the fog of depression and inertia I’d been lost in.

And that’s not all. After the sermon, the missionary said, “If you are feeling lost in the fog, please do not leave here today without coming forward to speak to me, and letting me pray with you.”

I started to leave, then stopped mid-step and considered turning back and going to him. I had never, ever gone to the front of church to speak to the preacher in my entire life. I liked being anonymous, filing out and disappearing among the crowd without anyone even knowing I had been there. I was certainly not going up there today, when I didn’t even know what I’d say to the man, who was a perfect stranger, for crying out loud. I started to leave again, then stopped. I was in the midst of internal struggle. I kept hearing his words again in my head, “do not leave without speaking to me”. But I was so embarrassed. I didn’t want other people to see me going up there. And I didn’t know what to say once I was before this obvious Saint of a believer. In the end, my feet carried me to the front of the church against my head’s wishes.

When I got there, to my complete and utter humiliation, I burst into tears. I was crying so hard I could not even tell the man why I was standing there. I could only choke out an embarrassed apology. Try as hard as I might, I could not curb the tears, and could not find my voice. He said to me, “It’s okay. You don’t have to say anything, but would you allow me to pray for you?” No one had ever prayed for me before as far as I knew. I nodded my head yes, and he put his hands on my shoulders, then bowed his head. I bowed mine too, my shoulders still shaking with sobs. And when he began to pray, I was washed with amazement because his prayer was exactly what my heart would’ve prayed had it been able to speak directly to God without my clumsy words and thoughts getting in the way. I had not said anything to this stranger, but somehow he knew exactly what to ask God on my behalf. Again, I was struck by the thought that God must be at work here, helping small, broken, unworthy, little me.

I left feeling hollowed out, in a good way. Emptied of all the weights I had been carrying in the pit of my stomach. God had washed me clean somehow that day, and left a blank canvas that He could paint His will on.

For weeks after that day, God continued to work visible miracles in my life, even more astonishing than anything I've shared in this post. I want to tell you about those, too, but this post has gotten so long, and it matters deeply to me that you witness all the evidence of God's grace, power and mercy that I can present. So I will finish my testimony next Tuesday, if you all would be kind enough to join me again then. Thank you.

To Be Continued...


A Jay and Deb Production.