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"The Lord Works In Mysterious Ways"The testimony of a Christian is very important for their spiritual growth. By telling others of your life's ups and downs you can encourage others in their spiritual walks, but more importantly you are free from the trap of guilt and the feeling that the mistakes made were so terrible that no one should know about them. As Christians we are to love unconditionally, forgiving as the Father forgives. We are to rejoice at the salvation of our brothers and sisters, no matter what happened in their past. They have been freed from their eternal damnation by the shedding of Jesus' blood. The slate has been wiped clean. The following is my testimony. It may not be the most grand of testimonies, but it is mine and I know God can use it to reach someone. There are parts of my life I have not been proud of and that I am still not proud of, but I am in hopes that this will encourage someone else. I was brought up in the Lutheran Church. Baptized as an infant and somewhat forced to attend Sunday School every Sunday. There were times that I did not object to going to church and there were times that I did not want to go at all. I learned about all the 'well-known' stories of Jesus and many other things. It wasn't until 6th grade that I heard about salvation (though that term itself was not used). I remember sitting in my 6th grade Sunday School class and having a guest speaker from the high school youth group. Now this was a really big deal! He was from HIGH SCHOOL!! He talked about his decision to give his life to Christ and what that entailed. He also talked about this feeling that he had at the moment he asked Jesus into his life. He described it as "tingling" and "fulfilling" as if his heart was completely transformed. He said that all you had to do was pray to Jesus to forgive you sins and ask him to come into your life. Now, being in 6th grade, I was very curious. I wanted to know what it felt like to have my heart transformed. So I closed my eyes and bowed my head and said "Jesus, come into my life!" and I sat there and I sat there and I waited and I waited, but I certainly didn't feel my heart being transformed. So, I forgot about it. A few years later, I came to fully understand what it meant to give my life to Christ. I went to confirmation camp the summer before my freshman year in high school and had a blast. I was so great learning about Jesus. One night, we met for a group event and watched the video for Michael W. Smith’s song, "Secret Ambition". It was at that moment that Christ’s death on the cross became real to me. It was at that moment that I felt my heart being transformed. It was the most wonderful feeling in the world. 
So, that’s it - that’s how I became saved. Of course, that was only the beginning of my walk with Christ... Throughout my life I have always struggled with a low self-esteem and trying to fit in. Though I was saved and had Christ living in my heart, I still felt empty, so in 9th grade, I joined the cheerleading squad. I thought popularity would help me feel better and that cheerleading was the sure way to become popular. I told myself that that year, my friend and I were going to become popular. Little did I know that cheerleading would drag me down even more. My cheerleading coach was very demanding, which can be a good thing, but in this case, it was not. Instead of focusing on the talent of her cheerleaders, she focus on how they looked - she wanted all of us to be "skinny" and have nice legs. Being a short person and being in dance for 12 years, I did not have skinny legs. (Muscle doesn't have places to disperse to when you are short!) One day, I asked my coach how I could improve my jumps and she told me that in order to improve my jumps, I needed to lose weight. She also managed to throw in that I didn't have good dancing skills. (She didn’t like the local dance studio and told me that they don’t teach very well – I guess that made me a bad dancer…) She said this TO MY FACE! Not something you should say to a young teenage girl!! I couldn’t believe it, and I was devastated. I was even more devastated when I didn't make the team the next season. Soon after, my dancing skills really did start to suffer. I no longer had any confidence in myself. I found that I would compare myself to everyone – worrying about my weight (even though I was perfectly fit and healthy) and my looks in general. I would get compliments from others about how well I danced or how good I looked, but it didn’t matter. I thought that they were all lying. I thought about starving myself, but I just could do it – I had to eat, no matter how much I didn’t want to. Though I looked and acted fine on the outside, inside I was such a mess. Christ was really important to me, but I wasn’t “walking the walk.” I developed a very bad mouth and I would swear all the time (of course, not in front of my parents). I also started watching a lot of movies that I should have never watched. Pornography became an addiction. Sounds weird that a young girl would have that problem, but I did. I also always found myself wishing for a boyfriend. If I had one, I felt pretty and desirable, but without one, I felt ugly and unwanted. I was really lucky that I never got involved with drugs or alcohol. I never really struggled with anything like that. I always knew that it was wrong and I was always scared that something really awful might happen to me if I did try anything. My home-life started getting more and more stressful and I would fight with my sister all the time. My mother and I had our bouts as well. My temper was horrible – I found myself flying off the handle over every little thing. I remember screaming at my mom once, telling her that I could wait until I was 18 so I could get out of our stupid house. Now, I had my good times in high school. My youth directors at church were awesome and we got to go on many amazing trips. The summer after my freshmen year in high school, we went to West Virginia and did Habitat for Humanity for 4 days. I learned how to drywall!! We also got to go white water rafting on the New Gauley River. It was amazing! I also go to go to Washington D.C. for a big youth convention called DC/LA. But, out of all the youth trips I went on, our trip to Montana was by far, the best. You can read more about that in my essay “A Mountaintop Transformation.” My walk with Christ was a huge rollercoaster. Church played a big part in my life, but the problem was that it was just a part. Christ didn’t encompass my entire life. It wasn’t until the summer after my senior year in high school that things started to change. My best friend was involved in a relationship with a guy who I did not like in the least bit. I thought that he was the biggest jerk. One evening, I got into a verbal fight with him and said a lot of mean things – of course, what he said to me, was much worse. (Not in God’s eyes, but in mine it was worse.) I drove home from her house so full of anger that I can’t even describe it. I just remember saying over and over “God, I’m sorry, I know you’re not supposed to hate anyone, but I can’t help it, I HATE HIM! I HATE HIM! I HATE HIM!” I was balling and I’m sure that I would have gotten in an accident if God hadn’t been protecting me. When I arrived back at my house, I slammed the car door, went inside, slammed the front door so hard that it shook the entire house, threw my car keys at the wall and screamed “I <bleep> HATE HIM!!!” right in front of my parents. After that, the tears came, and I ran down to my room. When my mom came in, I was really worried that I would be in big trouble for swearing and throwing my keys, but instead, she was so comforting and understanding. We talked for awhile and I felt better. Later that night, I called my friend to see how she was doing, her boyfriend grabbed the phone from her and started cussing at me, calling me every profanity in the book and threatening me as well. When I hung up on him, he called back (this was around midnight) and told me that I better not hang up on him again. He continued to cuss at me and I hung up again. When the phone rang, I ran upstairs and asked my dad to answer the phone. Her boyfriend didn’t call back after that. I laid down to go to bed and thought about the events of the day. It was at that moment that I gave up another thing I had been holding on to…I asked God to take away my anger. I didn’t want to be mad anymore. I just prayed and cried on my knees for a long time and I finally fell asleep. The rest of the summer was rough, I almost lost my best friend because of her boyfriend, but we managed to survive, though she decided to stay with him. My temper was gone and I started feeling better about myself. I also started leaning on God for more and more things. At the end of August, I left for college. Looking back, this was one of the most significant times in my walk with Christ. My first two weeks at college were really hard. I was really lonely and missed my friends and family back at home. One night, I remember praying to God and asking Him why I didn’t have any friends. I was cool because it felt like Jesus was just sitting on the couch in my room listening to me while I talked, and I could take my eyes off of the couch. That night, I had this dream in which God spoke to me. He reminded me that He will never leave me and that I am never alone. The very next day, I started making some really good friends. A few weeks later, my two new friends and I were sitting in my dorm room talking about how we had a hard time doing our quiet-times every day. We decided to meet 3 times a week for a small Bible study. Soon after, we started inviting other friends and after a few months, the small Bible study group, SALT (Satan’s Adversaries Living the Truth) was born. It was amazing leading Bible studies and having group activities. We wanted to provide fun activities, away from parties and drinking, for those on campus. The group was a great success (thanks to God and God alone!!). At the end of my freshman year, one of the girls that I started SALT with, started acting very strange. She had recently met a guy and she was very consumed by him. He was telling her that God hadn’t forgiven her for things which she had confessed and she seemed to become very depressed. She stopped talking to me, but for some reason, I didn’t realize the extent of the problem until it was too late. We left to go home for the summer and I never heard from her again...at least not until the beginning of the next school year. In early September, we heard that our friend was getting married. It was horrible news. We knew that this marriage was not a good thing. She had disowned all of her friends and family and we were all heart-broken. We decided to drive up for the wedding – we wanted to try to stop it, but also knew that we probably wouldn’t be successful. When we arrived, we found out that we were too late. We prayed with her parents and later tried to see our friend, but we were locked out of the church. We spent a lot of time praying and finally headed back home. We then realized that we were not meant to stop the wedding, but that we were there to support her parents. They were so grateful that their daughter had friends like us, even though she didn’t realize how much we loved her. Soon after the wedding, we started getting threatening phone calls and letters from her and her new husband. We knew that this was the work of Satan. It’s such a long and complicated story that I really can’t in to detail about it. I’ll just say that I learned a great deal about Spiritual warfare and about how Satan works to deceived others. (To this day, our friend still has not contacted her parents or any of us – it is very sad, but I know that one day God will deliver her – I pray for her often.) I also learned a lot about compassion that year. My first year at Carthage was a year of change, a year of turning away from my sin (I stopped swearing among many other things). My second year at Carthage was a year of growth – I learned so much about God and had a wonderful relationship with Him. (Oh, and I almost forgot!! I also learned a lot about VeggieTales!! If you haven't seen a VT episode, they are hilarious!) At the end of my sophomore year at Carthage, I decided that God wanted me in Texas. So, I said goodbye to Carthage, and to all of my wonderful friends and headed south. To quickly sum up the past two years of my life, I dealt with loneliness again. It took me a long time to make friends. After my first year, loneliness was no longer a problem, but I started to get very depressed because I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. The past two years have also been a big struggle spiritually. I’ve been on again, off again and I know that I’ve been missing out on a lot. I have been wanting to move and go back to school for quite awhile, but only recently has that been finalized. I also finally figured out what I want to do with my life….I want to teach Kindergarten. I am very excited for what’s coming up in the future. I will finally be living in the same town as my boyfriend (we met when I was a senior in High school – he was in TX and I was in MN. He’s one reason that I wanted to move to TX in the first place.) I will also be returning to school after two years of waiting. I got a job teaching preschool at a church and I am super excited. I can’t wait to work with little kids and teach them about God. I’m also hoping that it will help me get back to the place I need to be spiritually. I’m just so glad that God never gives up on me (or anyone else!!). He is so faithful, so forgiving, and so loving. I’ll add more to my testimony later...but this is as far as it goes for now...only God knows what the future holds... To read more bits and pieces of my testimony, please visit my Essays Page. All of my essays were inspired by real events that have play big part in my testimony. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me at KBred@hotmail.com! God bless you all! |
Some of My Favorite Bible Verses
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John 14:6 |
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