My testimony

"I will sing of the Lord’s great love forever; with my mouth I will make your faithfulness known through all generations."   (Psalm 89:1)

I'd been contemplating all week what to blog about.  Should I touch on my experience at the retreat?  Should I talk about the lessons that I'm preparing for the conference in Uganda? This morning, the idea occurred to me to blog the testimony that I prepared for the retreat.  We had been tasked to have ready a 5 minute version of our testimony to share at the retreat.  Several people would also share their testimonies in Uganda, so we were practicing keeping them relatively brief.

I had some slight anxiety in preparing my testimony.  I had heard many testimonies throughout my life, and the ones people seemed to really like had some huge dramatic event smack dab in the middle that brought them to Jesus and/or that God dramatically delivered them through.  I didn't have any dramatic life-or-death experience in my life to share. God has done plenty in my life over the years, but I didn't even know exactly what things to bring up.

In the end, I ended up praying for direction, typing out the experiences over my life that came to mind, and then editing those down to a 5 minute version. I was, in no way, ashamed of what God has done in my life, but I was anxious about sharing it.  I couldn't even pin down this anxiety.  I feel like I'm a fairly open book to people in that if they ask about something, I'll answer honestly.  If I have a life experience to share that seems related to the topic being discussed, I'll share it.  Why was I nearly shaking when it was my turn to share my testimony?

I zipped through reading my testimony at the retreat without even looking up.  I told myself that I was rushing, in part, to keep to my 5 minute time limit, but I knew that wasn't the whole truth.  I refused to look up because I was afraid of how it would be received.  I know others are anxious to share their testimonies that talk about really difficult times in their lives, and I understand that.  I wasn't sharing about any deep, dark, secretive time in my life though, and I was still terrified. 

In fact, once my emotions were brought even more to the surface by listening to other people's testimonies, I was a mess.  My poor car-mates on the way home noticed me crying in the backseat and tried to comfort me. It didn't exactly work because I didn't exactly know what was wrong. (Bless you both for trying though. I have memories of no one noticing me crying in a backseat, and I didn't need another one of those memories!)

I've had a few days to think about it now, and I think I understand it a bit better.  Bottom line is that I was anxious about being judged and misunderstood or about my testimony somehow making other people feel judged or misunderstood. It's somewhat ironic to me that even people with "nice" testimonies can be anxious about being judged, but they can, and I was. I've heard others discount people who have had "nice" lives as if those people can't understand hard times.  I've seen people form groups and friendships based largely on a shared difficult experience in their pasts.  I've definitely seen churches hold up the testimonies that show dramatic, difficult events.  I was anxious about being discounted. I know that sometimes people avoid others who they view of having a "rosier" past because they think the "rosy" people will judge them. I was anxious others would think I would judge them or look down on them for having a different past than my own. Basically, I was anxious that me sharing my testimony would lead to more exclusion rather than more connection. I may be an introvert, but we introverts long to connect with others too.

My story is one of God's faithfulness to me.  I know He can use it as an encouragement to others.  I don't think the enemy wants us sharing such stories.  I know that I am not the only one who has faced significant anxieties and fears when about to share what God has done for them.  I wasn't expecting to be so anxious since I wasn't revealing any dark or shady part of my past, but I think this is another reminder of the very real nature of spiritual warfare.  I refuse to let fear and anxiety stand in my way of proclaiming God's goodness. After I prayed this morning about whether or not to share my testimony in this blog, I came across Psalm 89:1-2 in my daily reading. "I will sing of the Lord’s great love forever; with my mouth I will make your faithfulness known through all generations. I will declare that your love stands firm forever, that you have established your faithfulness in heaven itself."  

I will share His faithfulness with others. I will tell them of His love for me and for them.  His faithfulness is established beyond a doubt.  Today is the date of my May fundraising goal.  I'm still $855 short of May's goal.  I know that He is faithful and that He will get me on this trip somehow. He will still be faithful even if I don't get $855 today. His faithfulness is established. I don't doubt it. Here's my testimony of God's faithfulness: 

I heard many times growing up the saying “God doesn’t have any grandchildren. Only children.”  My story is one of a loving heavenly Father who has always been faithful to me. 

I became a Christian at around the age of 4.  I actually don’t even remember my initial conversion. However, I do remember being not much older than that and lying in my bed at night praying over and over again for Jesus to come into my heart.  I had this slight panic that if I’d asked Him into my heart an even number of times then it would be like turning off a light switch and He wouldn’t be in me anymore, so I’d fall asleep asking Him into my heart over and over again just to be safe.  While my theology clearly needed some developing, I had a heart for Him from a very young age and He was faithful to love on me as I slowly learned more about Him.

Although I know the truth of God not having grandchildren, I was very blessed with a pair of Godly parents.  My dad was in the pastorate during much of my childhood, and they both taught at Christian schools and served as principles of those schools throughout most of my childhood.  They never pressured me into any issues of faith. They knew that my faith had to be my own and they encouraged me to question and learn and seek.  I loved doing just that.

When I was 7 or 8 a big shift happened for my family.  The church and school board had decided that the high school where my parents taught wasn’t making enough money to justify the effort, so they were going to shut it down.  My parents were convinced that God wanted it to stay open, so they volunteered to work for free. We didn’t really have savings, and we no longer had a clear income. For years, we lived off of whatever donations people were led to give us, and my parents often tried to take summer jobs to make ends meet.  Eventually, they opened their own church and school, and they still didn’t charge tuition at the beginning.  God was so faithful through all of this. We kept the same roof over our heads.  We always had food to eat and clothes to wear. He provided faithfully, and my sister and I learned from young ages the truth of His ever-faithful provision.

Throughout junior high and high school, I never rebelled.  I never needed to. I asked to be baptized in the Holy Spirit when I was about 13. My dad told me to first pray and find out how God saw me.  What was my identity according to God?  I prayed for weeks about this.  I tried offering God suggestions, as if He needed them.  One night, one word popped into my head while I was praying about this.  I knew I hadn’t thought that one word myself.  I’d gotten my first obvious answer to prayer, and it was simple and profound to me.  The word God gave me was “princess.”  I knew what that meant.  He was the true King, and He saw me as His daughter. I have thought about this often over the years.  I’m so grateful for His incredibly loving answer to prayer and for the wisdom of my earthly father in directing me to God for my identity at that age.  I had the love and freely given wisdom not only of one earthly father but of an infinite heavenly Father too.  What could I have rebelled against?

College brought probably my most tangible and continuing answer to prayer that I have yet experienced.  I could tell that a relationship I’d started with a man 9 years older than myself wasn’t really going anywhere, and I was ready for a real relationship.  I decided one night to really pray about it.  I remembered the bold honesty of Job and how God didn’t smite him for his honesty, so I decided to be bold and honest too.  I told God that I wanted a relationship, and that since I never wanted to date just for fun, I wanted a relationship that would lead to marriage.  I remembered that God said in Matthew that He only gives good gifts to His children, so I felt confident that He wouldn’t give me this relationship that I was asking for unless it was good for me.  While I was being bold, I said that I wanted this relationship to start in the next 2 weeks. It wasn’t an attempt at a demand. I was sharing a true desire with my Father, and I knew that He could handle my honesty.

Three days after this, Philip emailed me out of the blue.  We had gone on 2 dates over a year before that, and that had been it. We hadn’t kept in touch. He wasn’t even in the state when he emailed me, but the timing of it definitely piqued my interest.  I emailed back. We emailed till he came back to town and started dating shortly after that.  On our 6 month dating anniversary, we got engaged, and within the next year, we were married.  I had been careful not to assume that the timing was a definite indication that we should marry someday. I let the relationship take its course, and I didn’t tell Philip for some time about my prayer.  I asked him one day why he had emailed me out of the blue.  He told me that he had had a dream the night before that I needed him. He believed the dream was from God, so he sent me an email.  He had no idea what I needed him for exactly at the time!

Our relationship has not always been a walk in the park.  There were times I even considered leaving him.  Our engagement was so rough that I handed my engagement ring back to him at one point, but we’ve never left each other. 

We got married a couple weeks after I turned 21.  We’ve had to grow a lot over the years to make this marriage work. We determined to grow together even when it was difficult.  We still have a lot of growing to do, but we celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary this January. Philip is a constant reminder to me of God’s faithfulness and His answers to prayer.  The theme of our wedding was “faith,” and we named our first daughter “Melody Faith.”  I see my life as a sort of dance of faithfulness.  God has been eternally, never-failing faithful to me.  His faithfulness has allowed my faith in Him to grow and thrive. I know that in any and every stage of life, God will continue to be faithful to me.