My Story

Ok, school is killing me right now. I have had zero free time lately. I’m actually rebelling against doing homework right now. So anyway…

Last night I was talking with 3 very close friends—my sister and two “adopted relatives.” (If you know my family at all you know that we have about 10 of these.) As we were talking, I realized that I had never heard their testimonies, and they had never heard mine. (Of course, I’d heard my sister’s, and she’d heard mine.) So we went around the table and each gave ours. It was a really bonding experience. I think it’s kind of crazy—and really sad—that we can hang around with our closest friends all the time and they still may not know the story of what God has done in our lives. So… here’s my testimony, the story of how God has rescued me and forever changed me:

When I was 6, my great-grandpa died. Everyone told me that he was in Heaven now, because he had Jesus in his heart. If you didn’t have Jesus in your heart, you went to a really bad place called Hell when you died. I didn’t want to go to Hell, so I walked down the aisle at church one Sunday morning and asked Jesus into my heart. My life didn’t change. I remember not long after that, my mom told me that I needed to be reading my Bible every morning to hear what God had to say to me. I told her I didn’t like reading my Bible—it was boring. She told me that the Bible was God’s word and that if I was God’s child, I should want to hear what He had to say. That made me really mad. Who was she to question my salvation??

Fast forward 3 years: June 25, 1999. It was a Sunday morning. During the service, I felt God telling me something: I was not His child. (I really can’t explain how I knew it was God. But it was completely unmistakable.) This made me mad, and I spent the whole service, especially the invitation, telling God that He was wrong. I had “asked Jesus into my heart” when I was 6, so I was going to heaven no matter what. I spent the whole afternoon mad and depressed. That night, we went back to church for our annual “Starlite” crusade. It was rainy, so instead of being outside we had to have it in the auditorium. This was the night that would change my life forever.

When the pastor got up to speak, I was riveted. I felt kind of betrayed, like he had read my mind and found the one weakness in my argument with God. He preached about repentance. Over and over again, he said that word. Repent. Repent. Repent. I had grown up in church, so I knew what it meant. To “repent” literally means to turn around. It’s walking away from the wrong choices you’ve made, and saying “Never again.” As the pastor spoke, I realized: I had made wrong choices, choices that hurt God. I had broken His laws without even caring. And I had never, ever told Him that I was sorry, or asked Him to forgive me. And I deserved Hell. I’d spent my whole life in church. I was a “good kid.” So I thought that meant I deserved Heaven. I deserved a relationship with God. I didn’t. I deserved to be alone with my mistakes for eternity—without God. (Side note: That’s what Hell is. It’s not a place of fire where Satan is king. It’s a place of complete darkness and solitude and utter loneliness. Anyone who says “Oh I’m going to Hell because that’s where all my friends will be” doesn’t have a clue what they’re talking about. Humans were created for relationships, and Hell is a place with no relationships whatsoever.)

I knew that I had to ask God’s forgiveness for everything I’d done to hurt Him. So when the pastor began to invite people forward, I went to my mom and told her I needed to be saved. She was surprised but went down with me—as well as my brother, who also decided that he needed to be saved. I went down and spoke with a counselor. I honestly don’t remember what they said—I already knew what I needed to do, and I was impatient to “officially” pray and tell God what I needed to tell Him. As I told God that I had broken His rules, and hurt Him, I felt something indescribable.

I felt His forgiveness washing over me, like the waves in the sea, cleansing and restoring and redeeming.

He is the giver of peace that passes all understanding. No matter how far we’ve run from Him, how hard we have fought against Him, He’s always reaching out to us. He’s always longing to pour His incredible unending love over our miserable selves. He is the Peacemaker, the Restorer. He is the glorious King of the universe, and He left that and became a man. He was brutally beaten and mocked by the insignificant little creatures that He made. He allowed them to drive iron spikes into His hands and feet, and hang him naked on splintery beams in front of a jeering mob. He took everything that I deserve, all of my punishment, and bore it all—so that I wouldn’t have to. He loved me that much. He took more than a bullet for me. He took Hell itself.

Because of this, He deserves all my praise, all my obedience, all of my love, and all of my life.

“For You have made me rejoice, Lord, by what You have done; I will shout for joy because of the works of Your hands.”—Psalm92:4