Share Your Story
So, I thought I’d start a page where people could share their stories of God’s love in YOUR life, or through YOUR life. How have you experienced the LOVE of God personally?
None too big, None too small. God speaks quietly and sometimes loudly, but He still speaks!
Just post it at the bottom in the “Leave a Reply” section.
I pray that you will see the importance of this, and take some time to share a story of your own.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR POSTING and God Bless You!
Chris said
I’ll start. My testimony is not big and grand. I grew up in church and wandered away for a little while and came back.
Anyway, when I was 9, I went up to the front of the Church to “be saved”. Boy, those altar calls sure were inviting. Is that you God? Are you calling me? Eventually I went up with friends because it was the thing to do. I did it because I felt like I was expected to. You know, being the son of a Christian man and woman who were well known in the church and all.
Then, when I was 13, I was sitting in a revival service and the message was about being secure in your salvation. If you weren’t sure about it, you better be sure, or you were going to Hell. Now, I was as scared of Hell as anyone. But, I had known for a while that my salvation at 9 was a farce. I knew that it wasn’t real. The Holy Spirit had already been showing me my salvation was fake. I was a hypocrite. I stood there in that church with the white knuckles and all. I kept telling myself “I’m saved” “I’m saved” “I can’t go up. ” “I can’t embarrass mom and dad.” “I know I’m saved, right Lord?”
See, the Holy Spirit had turned up the conviction, the assurance that something was missing. I was a “good” person, but I didn’t have a relationship with God. I didn’t know the difference between head knowledge and heart knowledge. I had the head knowledge all right. I was a bible nerd even at 13.
So church finished and I made it home and I went to bed thinking I’d feel better in the morning. No sir. The Holy Spirit wasn’t having any of that nonsense. It was time to get it settled. I tossed and turned, tossed, turned, tossed, and turned some more. I was ill, I was upset, I had to do something.
So I got down on my knees and I started praying. And crying. Boy I cried. I was a hard egg to crack thinking I was saved, even at 13. Finally, there was an end to the crying and a peace. I knew I was going to be ok. That night I made Him Lord over my life. Now, I’ve slipped away from Him from time to time, but He’s taken me back time and time again. Sometimes it hurts a bit. Just like a father with his son, but we reap what we sow.
I love God. I love Him like my own Father but more because God doesn’t ever let me down. He is the standard that I can follow and know that He’ll never stumble.
Not everyone’s experience with God will be like this. Some are quiet, some are earth shaking. And most are in between. I’d love to hear yours!
In love,
Chris
fikalo said
Hi,
in response to your request, I figured I could give you a brief overview of the mildly bizarre story of my meeting Christ.
I was raised Roman Catholic but a lot of my family are atheist / agnostic, so while the Catholicism opened me up to the possibility of God’s existence, the agnosticism made me somewhat skeptical. I leaned towards evolution in my worldviews, as well. In fact, at Catholic school we were taught to filter our theology through the evolutionary perspectives.
Long story short, I ended up giving up on my Catholic faith. I couldn’t get the concept of a good & loving God to harmonise with the cruelty and brutality of Nature. However, my atheism was short-lived as I couldn’t adequately convince myself of the non-existence of a spiritual realm. I explored many different philosophies and by the time I reached university I defined myself as a Buddhism-influenced ecofeminist Wiccan. I had also explored a variety of alternative social theories.
However, I soon realised that when life got tough – and it did, including teen pregnancy, living with drug addicts and seeing close friends attempt to kill themselves – the positive slogans I liked to give myself did nothing to ease the pain and suffering of life. I wanted real answers, tangible answers that had a bearing on reality. I didn’t care what the answers were, but I needed them!
I studied a number of areas during my first 2 years of uni. I wrote assignments on the application of various religious perspectives to current social issues; the defining of cult practices as opposed to freedom-affirming religions; and studied a few social movements in depth – feminisms, animal rightsism, etc.
What surprised me though was the answers I found in Jesus. I couldn’t explain it. When I explored what the Bible said about certain issues, and compared it to the social facts, I was moved to the conclusion that the Bible couldn’t be dismissed lightly.
In came my husband who, despite some awkward moments on the journey, was committed to Jesus as Lord and Saviour. We were young parents, just married, struggling to stay afloat juggling studies with parenthood. I started following him to church, just because I figured that if it meant so much to him then I’d better learn what he believed. The church meetings always surprised me – the preaching was so relevant. They were taking the Bible and applying it to real, everyday situations. And I would look at the fellow churchgoers and wonder why it was that they had such loving, happy families and so much joy evident in their lives. At first I thought it was a joke, but no – they were actually like that. Not perfect – and willing to admit their imperfections – but genuinely seeking to serve Christ.
Fast forward a short while and I had a personal encounter with Jesus. I realised that I had to make a choice – accept Him or reject Him. There was no middle ground.
Well, I chose to follow Jesus. It genuinely changed me, working from the inside out, and still changes me. I love God and I love the Bible and I’m grateful for the revelation I had those years ago of Christ as Lord and Saviour.
Nowadays I’m involved in my local church, where I help out in the youth ministry (of approximately 600 – 700 teenagers). I lead a small group for senior high girls, where we talk about the issues I encountered on my own spiritual journey – questions about trusting the Bible is God’s Word even when many claim otherwise; realising the power we have to share God’s love with those who appear to be very far from Him.
Anyway, hope that shed a little light on my story!
fikalo
pauljub said
Hi Chris,
I was raised in a Christian home. I “tried” to please God always. Prayer was a chore. Reading was a chore. I testified of my choice to serve God when I was 9, baptized at 16. I experienced occasional moments of peace and victory, but nothing lasting.
When I was 28, I experienced re-birth as a Christian. This I fully acknowledge as my “born-again” experience, which I equate with receiving the Holy Spirit. Since that time, life has completely trashed me– diagnosed with various problems, huge false accusation, wife left me, etc. Yet through it all, I have been at peace. My peace is lasting. And I know constant victory over sin. I am not perfect, but I am not the habitual sinner that I once was. God is clearly alive and working in me.
Thank you for this posting, it’s a good idea.
God bless,
Paul
Doug Sauder said
Hey, my name is Doug, and if you’re reading this right now, and you’re a little bit skeptical, then you’re right where I was about fifteen years ago.
I was raised in a church and had a pretty normal family, a family that loved God. I understood at a very young age the Bible stories about God and creation and Adam and Eve, but as a teenager I started to ask myself a couple of questions. One of those questions was, “Is there really a God?” The other question I asked was, “Is the Bible like any other book?” What if my parents were wrong? What if the church and the Bible they read weren’t any different than any other book or any other church or any other religion?
With that, I began to step out into this place where I thought, “Hey, if I can’t see it, it’s not real. I’m going to do what’s real and what feels good.” So, the party lifestyle began for me, a little bit at a time, one compromise here, one compromise there. Pretty soon, I found myself in relationships with girls and alcohol and all the things that I thought were fun for me.
When I graduated at eighteen years old, I looked at my life and saw a pretty normal teenager. I had it all. I had my Camaro. I had my girlfriend of a year and a half. I had money in the bank. And I had a full scholarship to college. I was the all-American boy, what everyone thought America was all about. But there was something missing. I really couldn’t put my finger on it, but the week after I graduated I went on a camping trip with a bunch of friends. They happened to be Christians. They were playing a song in the car as I drove with them, and the song went something like this: “Where will you be a million years from now?” As I thought about that song, and I thought about my life, I thought, “Man, if I’m right, and there’s no God or heaven or hell, I’m living the great life, the perfect life; but if I’m wrong, I’m really wrong, and I’ve gambled everything on something that I’m not completely sure about.” I knew from my Christian upbringing that that gamble would lead me to a place called hell. That was a place I wasn’t prepared to go, but I also wasn’t prepared to follow God because I didn’t think he had proven himself to me.
I remembered back in my high school days after a party laying in my bed while my head spun looking at the top of my bedroom, just thinking and saying this kind of skeptical prayer, “God, if you’re up there, and you’re real, make a car drive by my house.” No car ever drove by, so I said, “See, this whole Christian thing is a joke,” and from that I concluded that there wasn’t a God.
But God gave me his next chance because that weekend camping I was almost killed. Lightning struck right next to the tent where we were sleeping. It hit the tree; the light and the sound came all at once. If this sounds like one of those stories of an atheist becoming a Christian because of a lightning strike—well, it’s kind of like that because it happened to me. At that moment, I was so scared, I just stood there without being able to say anything or do anything. The Christian guy that was next to me, his name was Byron, and I remember his name and the look on his face. He just smiled and kind of laughed, and I looked at him, and I was so angry. He said, “Hey, if I die, I know where I’m going.” That made me very angry. I actually wanted to kill him, but it also made me think.
The next night I prayed a prayer that was probably the weakest prayer ever prayed, and it went something like this: “God, if you’re up there, and you’re real, I’ll follow you.” I remember after I prayed that prayer that the most incredible high and the most incredible peace I could ever imagine swept over my body. The fear of death was gone. I remember that feeling, and I’ll never ever forget what it was like to walk in confidence. To this day, I know that the life I have now is so much better than the life I had before. Before, I had it all from the outside, but now things were different on the inside. There was peace and a sense of purpose I never had before.
For those of you who are skeptically listening or reading, there is more peace and more purpose that you can get by taking that gamble. And it is a gamble to say, “God, if you’re up there, I’ll follow you.” My challenge is that you take that risk because it will make all the difference in the world in your life.
Craig Church said
Hi, my name is Craig Church. I am a full-time missionary evangelist. I would like to share how the Lord changed my life. It was in August 1999 that I finally realized what it meant to surrender it all. I was at a men’s conference in Charlotte, North Carolina listening to a message entitled, “Being a Godly Man in an Ungodly World.” The Lord used that message to bring me to the point of totally surrendering my life to Him. Up to that point, Jesus Christ had just been a part of my life. But, as I responded to the invitation, I layed down everything before the Lord. I surrendered my career, my family, my house, my life…….etc. I acknowledged that I had been doing things my way. It was then that I said, “Lord I surrender. Whatever you want me to do, whereever you want me to go….I am yours.” I want each of you to know, when I got up from praying, I got up a changed man. I had turned over many leaves just to have them blow back over and continue down the same path. This was so different. It has been 9 years ago and I haven’t been the same since. I answered the call to preach 4 months after that encounter and I am preaching the precious gospel all over the world. May we all understand that God loves us, He has a plan for our lives and He knows best. I want to encourage those that have never trusted Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior to call on Him now. The Bible says, “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” If you are saved and you have never surrender to the Lordship of Christ, I want to encourage you to move over and let Jesus drive. It will be the ride of your life.
Tony said
My dad was a Southern Baptist preacher but I don’t have any memories of him leading a typical Southern Baptist church. He joined the Army while I was just a toddler so all of my childhood memories are as him being a chaplain and a large portion of that as a hospital chaplain.
When I was 10 I remember one night asking Jesus into my heart. I did not know exactly what that meant only that it was the right thing to do. I don’t remember talking to anyone about that decision. I think it was the expected thing for a child of a minister to do.
As I grew up I heard many different conversion stories that included life altering changes once someone accepted Jesus as their savior. I never had this big shift in my life which often made me question if I had really done it right. I think I asked Jesus into my heart quite a few times growing up, never knowing if I got it right or not.
All was well while I was a pre-teen. I had some unexplained episodes as a 12-13 year old where I would lose my temper and go into a rampage on the playground, sometimes swinging wildly at whoever I was angry with. These incidents were few and far between so really uneventful. However, in hindsight, maybe there was a hint that something was not exactly right.
My freshman year of high-school we moved to Ford Hood, Texas. This is where Satan really made his move. I was hitting puberty in full stride, in a new environment with no friends and confused about all the things that confuse teen-age boys. I was ripe for the picking.
Being an Army brat I was used to moving around every couple of years. Up to this point, I always made friends through sports. I had also been in a fairly sheltered environment of the DOD school systems. Now I was in public high school with drugs, alcohol and racial tensions that I had never experienced before in my life.
I broke my arm right before the first football game. The only avenue I had ever known for connecting with new people and making friends was gone. Satan had some new ways in store for me.
At first, my friends I met were new kids just like me and we hung out together trying to figure this high-school thing out. However, soon we all quickly learned that it was the crowd that liked to party that had the open arms for new friends. I would go to church but nobody in the youth group attempted to connect with me. I ended up hanging out with the un-churched crowd that was more than happy to take me in.
My senior year we moved to Panama. It felt like the end of the world moving my senior year. However, when I look back on it I think the move saved me from falling further into the pit than I had previous to that point. Panama was not my Damascus road but at least it slowed down my descent on another well known highway.
I graduated high school in Panama and attended two years of community college there. While I fit in better in Panama, getting back into sports and making new friends, I had already discovered another way to easily fit into a new crowd and that was the party crowd. I still went to church most Sundays and still considered myself a Christian but my lifestyle did not reflect it.
When my family moved back from Panama I attended UTSA for a semester where I met nobody. I was lonely and miserable. I did not know anyone at the school and I don’t remember even trying to get involved in a youth group at the Baptist church we attended.
After one semester at UTSA I transferred to Texas A&M. This was really my first time to live away from home for an extended period of time. I had no problems meeting people and fitting in at A&M. I found my way to a fraternity party and from then on it was four more years of party life and just enough school to finally get out with a degree.
I graduated from A&M and had a short-stint as a computer programmer for a small company before I got the job I still have today, nineteen years later. It was at this point in my life that Jesus started to call me back.
I still lived the party life after college. I had friends and I had girl friends and I really never gave too much thought about God or church. Every once in while the topic would come up and I would have a little bit of guilt rise up but I would quickly quench it.
For the most part I quenched the guilt by convincing myself that all the bad things talked about in the bible were either Old Testament or non-relevant New Testament writings by people other than Jesus. If the writing was not in red it really did not matter. However, I really did not know all the red writing either other than the popular sermon and Sunday school stories.
Nevertheless my soul yearned to come back even before I realized it.
I met a girl at work. I remember getting this huge crush on her. One reason was because she was cute. However, the other reason was that she attended a bible study on Thursday nights. Inside I wanted to go out with this girl, not only because I liked her but because I saw it as an opportunity to go to a bible study. I do not know how or why this desire was growing in me. It was just there.
I did take this girl out a couple times. I thought we had a great time but then she laid the bombshell on me. She said she could not date me because I was not a Christian.
“What?” As far as I knew I had been a Christian all my life. I talked to God a least a few times a month, more often if I was upset or feeling a little guilty. I told her, “good news! You’ve made a mistake, I am a Christian.”
Her answer was my blinding light, “I never would have guessed you were a Christian. You don’t live like someone that knows Jesus. You live the happy-hour life.”
That afternoon I went for a run and I heard Jesus say, “Tony, Tony, why are you persecuting me?” I wasn’t literally blinded but the spiritual scales did fall from my eyes.
I’d like to say that from that day on I went forward and sinned no more. I don’t know about other people but for me, I had strayed so far off the path that it has been a long journey to get back on it.
That relationship with that girl soon fizzled (she broke up with me to date a married man – crazy world). However, a few years later God did bring a wonderful woman into my life that was on her own spiritual journey back to Him.
Today I believe my wife, Amanda, and I are both on God’s path. We stumble here and there and wander off slightly from time to time but we never lose sight of where we need to be and follow Jesus back to his road.
I often wonder if I was really saved when I was ten or was I not really saved until I had my Damascus road encounter as an adult. I think the problem I had when I was ten was that I did not understand sin and I did not understand what it meant to make Jesus Lord of my life. I don’t worry about it too much because I know I’m saved now. However, it does give me a burning desire to disciple my children.
My kids believe in their heads that Jesus died for their sins because mommy and daddy say so. My desire is that they believe in their hearts that He is their savior and Lord. They need to understand sin, that they are sinners, and that only Jesus blood on the cross saves them from those sins. My prayer is that they don’t waste 30 years as a barren tree but that they bear fruit their entire lives.
Chris Taylor said
Fantastic testimonies, all of them!
Thank you so much for sharing. I hope more people will share their stories of experiencing God.
God Bless,
Chris