My Testimony

I was recently asked for my testimony so I thought I'd share it....

When I was little, about 7 or 8, my mom and I started attending church. I made a profession of faith, said the sinner's prayer, was baptized in a community pool and continued with my life.

When I was a teen my older sister wanted to be baptized but didn't want to do it alone.  As a loving sister, I offered to join her. So, I was baptized a second time, this time in a large tub in front of a l-o-t of people. Still went on about my life.

I continued my teen years.  I was the typical smart mouth kid, know it all teen that gave my mom all her gray hairs on her head. I almost didn't graduate, I went from boyfriend to boyfriend and partied most weekends.

As you can see, I was headed down the wrong path.  God, with all His mercy, had a better plan for me.

When I was 17 I had knee surgery that didn't go so well. I ended up being laid up for many weeks. During this time I remember taking to my mom's best friend, "Aunt Cindy." She was telling me about how her and her husband Dan had got saved.  I thought this woman had lost her m-i-n-d! Did I mention that these were my mom's biker buddies! After our several hour conversation, she invited us to church.

My mom, my boyfriend {now husband} and I got up the following Sunday and went to church. Since I was going to church and all, I decided to dress up, but because of my knee I wore knee high stocking instead of the regular kind.

Sitting in that church and hearing that pastor preach about hell fire and brim stone really scared me. This was the first moment that I really knew that hell was real and even more concerning to me,  I was headed there. The pastor gave an invitation but partly because I was on crutches and I think partly because I was embarrassed I did not go forward. I went home.

We get home and I am changing out of my church clothes when I realize my leg is swollen. Like, we had to cut the knee highs off swollen. We were so clueless - my mom just said for me to prop it up for the swelling to go down.

The next morning comes and still my leg is really swollen. A doctors visit and doppler later I had an all expense paid trip to the local hospital. I remember that right after I got the doppler test they wanted me to go directly to the hospital. This really scared me.
Beause of the surgery, smoking and birth control pills - I had a blood clot in my leg that could have taken my life. God however, had other plans.

The very same pastor that had given me the gospel visited me in the hospital. I repented of my sin and laid them on Christ Jesus. The Lord had changed my heart and put the rightousness of His son Jesus on me. 

It was amazing how the desires of my life changed. I was {and still am} a sinner - just a forgiven one! 

The third and final time that I was baptized was in the Chesapeake Bay.  This time I did it as a sign of my salvation!

Several years into being a Christian were a struggle for me, to the point that I wondered if the Lord really saved me then or sometime later.  I don't really know.  I don't have a date of my salvation, I just know that  somewhere in there the Lord did indeed save me. 

Eph 2 

1 And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;

² Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:

³ Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.

⁴ But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,

⁵ Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)

⁶ And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:

⁷ That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.

⁸ For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

⁹ Not of works, lest any man should boast.

¹⁰ For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.