My testimony

This year I joined on as part of the leadership team for our MOPS group.  I was asked to prepare a brief testimony for our next leadership meeting.  I thought I should share it here too.

My Testimony

     I consider myself lucky to have grown up in a Christian family.  My parents always were very involved in church and therefore, I was too.  My grandparents and extended family also played a significant role in introducing me to a healthy picture of what a walk with Christ looks like.  I asked the Lord into my life as a 6 year old.  I very clearly remember my parents putting me to bed one night.  I’m not sure why, but that night I asked them all kinds of questions and I told them I wanted to ask Jesus to be my Savior.  I prayed that night, with my parents by my side, that Jesus would be Lord of my life.

    Early on, my relationship with the Lord was mostly about wanting to please Him.  Of course I would make bad choices as all kids do, but even at a young age I felt the need to go to the Lord to make things right.  Beginning in 7^th grade I was introduced to having a “quiet time”.  I began this practice of meeting personally with the Lord and spending time in His word, but it wasn’t until my sophomore year of HS that I truly enjoyed it and met with God because I wanted to rather than because I thought I had to.  My senior year of HS my best friend’s brother died in a car accident and through that situation I understood that God is always good and is always in control.  Even in a horrible circumstance that was completely unexpected God proved Himself to me and I have never again doubted God’s control and God’s goodness. 

     Now that I have lived a little while, I see why God wanted to cement those two truths into my life at that age.  As an adult you see the suffering of the world and of those around you clearer than as a child.  You also face demands and responsibilities that deplete you mentally and physically.  Praise be to the Lord that through the power of His Holy Spirit I am able to draw on His strength and trust His guidance through all of life’s circumstances.  He has proved himself always faithful to His word.  He has shown me He’s able to provide financially.  He has encouraged and satisfied my weary heart over and over again.  My longing is to show the world around me that God through his son Jesus Christ is the only remedy to the brokenness they feel, no matter what it looks like. 

     “Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth.  He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.  He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.  Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.  They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”  Isaiah 40: 28-31

     So what are you hoping in?  Your good deeds, your money, your popularity? All our worldly things will leave you spent and wasted.  It is only placing your hope in the Lord that will sustain you through all of life’s journeys.