testimony

We did a thing at church a while back with poster boards-called Cardboard Testimony. It was a chance to say our testimony without having to actually speak. I am not a person who likes to speak in front of a crowd, I’m actually pretty content to sit in the corner and watch others interact. Call it anti-social, call it shy, or call it Asperberger's...but whatever you want to call it, it's me :) anyway, I participated in the 2nd one that our church did. I can't remember exactly what my board said, but it was something like this:

(On the front)
Divorced, single mom
Felt lost and alone
2007-my dad died, 4 surgeries
Felt like an orphan
No hope

(On the back)
July 2007-the Harley ride that changed my life
Dec 2007-Saved by Grace, started coming to church
Child of God
Felt like part of a family

That’s the best that I can remember. But I think the point is pretty clear. On the front you put where you were in life before God, and then on the back you put how your life has changed since God entered. That makes it sound like He wasn't always there...He was always there since the day I was born, just waiting for me to notice He was there.
So, to explain why it took me 29 years to realize He was there, I have to explain my upbringing. I was raised with a very vague understanding that there was a God. I remember being told very little about Jesus, and the concept that there was some 3 part spiritual being was totally out of my grasp. I remember thinking of God and angels as what we see in cartoons or Monty Python movies...some big, bearded guy on a cloud with a lightning bolt, ready to smite at a moment's notice. I was always fascinated with Greek Mythology, so my view of God was a combination of what I was taught at the Kingdom Hall and my imagination of what Zeus looked like. To me, they were the same.
Then, as I got older, I used to believe in the whole "coexist" idea, that there was a God, but He had many different names, all the many religions were right. Picture a wagon wheel with the hub being God, the spokes being all the different religions. In my opinion at that time, all roads led to God if you believed. I really didn't know that I was on the path to Hell until I was about 29 yrs. old.
I don't remember how the conversation was started, but after dating for about 6 months, Dave told me that he was a Sunday school teacher. It wasn't that he was hiding it; it just never came up in conversation. I didn't even own a Bible, and that wasn't ever a subject that was talked about. It was December 2007, and I had just come home from the hospital after having surgery #1. I started asking questions about God and Dave was answering them. He moved my couch over so that I could look at the computer while he looked up bible verses and explained things to me. We both have talked about how we don't even remember most of what we talked about, how he knew exactly where to find the answers to all my question, but we talked for hours.
At that point in my life, my best friend was wiccan and was dating a guy within her beliefs and they were telling my about different rituals, tarot cards, worshiping gods and goddesses, and basically anything you could think of that would be against God. Without me even knowing what was happening, it was like a spiritual war was going on in my living room any given day. She was doing everything she could to turn me against Dave, focusing on little things and blowing them out of proportion so that I would see how bad he was for me and my kids and how I needed to kick him to the curb because he wasn't good enough for me. Whenever she would come over when Dave was visiting, you could literally feel the tension in the air, it was so bad at times that I felt like I couldn't breathe, or think straight, or even focus on anything. Now I understand what was happening-but at the time I was so confused.
Dave took me to a Christian store and bought me a bible and I went to church with him at this little country church with a handful of people. I instantly felt like I was part of something wonderful when I walked in the door. I still didn't understand a lot, but I knew that place was something special.
The next day I was back in the hospital ready to have unexpected surgery #2 and it had barely been a week since the last one. Before Dave left that night to go home, he said a prayer with me, which was something that I had never had done for me before. After he left, I was scared, surgery was to be first thing in the morning, and I felt this sense of urgency that something was missing. A restless feeling, it was an awful feeling-and it sounds crazy, but around the edges of that awful feeling was a feeling of something light and wonderful. I thought a lot about what we had talked about over the last week, read some of the verses we had highlighted in my new bible, and around 3 in the morning, I knew what I had to do. And once I accepted Jesus, I wasn't scared anymore, I could feel that light and wonderful feeling all around me, holding me secure and carrying me through.
I made it through the surgery with some trouble, but after a day or so, I felt like a new person. I was up walking, had no pain, and couldn’t wait to wake up every day and read something new in my bible. Then, another setback landed me back in the OR for surgery #3. It was hard to not get discouraged, but Dave helped me through. Every day after work, he would be up there to see me in my hospital room, ready to read to me when the medicines made my vision too blurry. This wonderful man, who was so scared of hospitals and sickness, was comfortable sitting in a chair by my bed with his sock feet resting on the bed, just reading me verses and answering any question that I had.
After a week being held hostage in a hospital room, I finally got to go home with some strict instructions of what not to do. It would have been easier to make a list of what I COULD do. My friendship with my wiccan friend was strained, the few visits that happened after the surgery were very uncomfortable and thankfully just stopped.
Fast forward about a year or so, and that little country church became my family’s home church. I had tried taking the kids to a church close to our house-and it was a wonderful church. Great kids programs, a lot of their friends went there, but I wasn’t getting anything out of it. I found myself dreading getting up on the mornings I couldn’t go to Bethel, but got them to church anyway ‘for them.’ So we all started going to Bethel. The kids were bored at first, but quickly found their way. They now help in the nursery during services, or children’s church, my son helps in the 2yr old and under class for our youth program. They had no trouble feeling like the belonged at Bethel, and can't wait to go to church every Sunday and Wednesday. Both of them were saved and baptized this year. And now I know that the children God gave me will always be with me. There will be a day when we won't be together here on Earth, but I know that we will be together eternally because of His love.
It’s interesting how timing works. We didn’t know that day in the summer of 07 that a motorcycle ride would change our lives so much. God’s plan is always a perfect plan, and always happens on time. Circumstances don’t always make sense, and may not seem to be a good thing at the time, but they happen for a reason.