Testimony, I never quite understood the meaning of this word, so I took the liberty of looking it up. The first definition of testimony is one that is given in court, but the definitions I am most concerned with are the second and third definitions. They state that a testimony is an open declaration of faith, and proof. The stories you will read among these pages are an open declaration of my faith in Jesus Christ our Lord, and the proof of how he brought me through miserable times. Do not let that make you fear the content in which I will be speaking; there will be no preaching or a yelling, red-faced pastor that jumps through the pages at you, but I hope that this gives God the glory he deserves, shows some of you how much he truly loves and wants a relationship with you. I am taking the luxury of writing from a fictitious stand point, but the testimony given within this novel is very much my own.
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Chapter One:
I will find a way when there seems to be no way ~God
Driving to Ohio made my stomach churn every inch of the way. I had moved to Tennessee to go to a private Christian university. One of the many reasons I chose this school was because it was a Christian school. I dreamed of being surrounded by people who shared my belief in God, a world without the temptation of worldly values instead of Christian values. Over email I had agreed to share my testimony with an all-girls summer camp from my hometown, Reynoldsburg, Ohio. I was hesitant because my testimony, in my head, wasn’t that important. As the curvy, beautiful roads slowly turned into straight, four lane highways, I started thinking of what I should share and what I shouldn’t. My life was a testament to how amazing God was, but I didn’t need to pound the point home.
Once I reached the Ohio boarder my heart started thumping. I hadn’t seen my family in a while, and I missed them terribly. The familiar sightings of certain landmarks and local businesses made my urge to get home even stronger. I could probably drive to my house blind-folded if I wanted too. I wanted to see how much I had really changed, how much I had matured since I left. I felt like my time among Christian friends did me good, but going back into an environment where no one understood what it was like to believe in a superior being mapping out your life was going to be tricky. Once I entered into town I decided to stop at a Starbucks to sip on some coffee and read what I had written about my testimony so far because it was early in the morning, and my family were not the ones to get up early; I wanted them to be at least half coherent when I surprised them. As I pulled the two typed pages out of my purse, I sat down with a steaming cup of coffee, didn’t learn to drink that stuff until my first week of college classes. The plan was to write out the long version then just summarize the main points to explain to the girls that no matter age you are and what you are going through you can overcome it with faith. This was going to be the beginning of a very long month, a month to discover my own testimony and life story in Christ.
The way I wanted to arrange this story was to go backwards and tell the girls the parts of my testimony I discovered once I was saved, but I just felt that telling it from the beginning would make for a better understanding of how it all came together. The pages in my hand read as follows:
To start this project I sat down at my desk. I had never shared my whole testimony with any given person, and even the people closest to me only got my full testimony in short snippets over time. I knew the important parts of my story, but I didn’t want to generalize it too much or go on and on talking about myself. From the outside looking in, I have it all; my life may not be perfect, but people don’t see the reason I should promote my life story. I strongly doubted that a group of high school and middle school girls were going to actually listen to this story of how God conquered again and again. I looked around my brand new home: a college dorm. Being nine hours away from my childhood home, I became extremely homesick after my fourth week at college, so thinking back to my childhood should be a helpful reminder of how I longed to get away and needed to stay at my private Christian college, in the midst of other Christians.
There’s a trinket of sorts that sits on my desk shelf looking down on me, a small plastic water globe with a cute baby lamb laying in a meadow. She has a pink bow on her head and painted flowers along her body. Because of its age, the water in the globe has receded low enough so that the top of the lamb’s head is showing through. There’s just enough water to shake it and see the flowers float back down to the bottom. I’ve had this globe since I was three years old. It has survived two big moves, although the words are a bit faded, and the water is somehow evaporating. It gives me encouragement and bravery. I just look at it, and I know everything will be alright. The familiarity of it comforts me, and the saying along the front gives great wisdom to its readers: The Lord is my shepherd.
I received that teeny globe from a daycare I participated at my mom’s family’s church, and while there isn't one specific story I could think of to share about my experience with God in my childhood, there were lots of little things along the way that shaped my memory and knowledge of Him. Let’s start with my earliest memory of learning about a higher power: BVS. Multiple years of my childhood I spent random intervals in bible vocational school during the summer. Many children know this as BVS because their parents took them every summer to learn about Jesus and how He is mighty to save. The kids that surrounded me were always unfamiliar; they always knew the stories, had been to church their whole lives, but I went to church only when my aunts took me because my parents were strictly not Christians. Aside from the fact that my parents never talked about a protecting, mighty God I just knew there was a God. No one had to teach me about a God who I could pray to. I knew that if I sent my prayers somewhere someone would answer. During the arguments and high tension in my house I would just send up a prayer in my head to someone to answer. I never expected them to be answered, but I knew if I prayed enough I would be at peace.
Looking back on all those little moments in time, I am extremely grateful for being exposed to the Lord at such a young age. I never fully realized how they all came together to influence what I thought about God, and how I never wondered if He wasn’t there. Most children who grow up in homes without Christ are never introduced to Him until they go to maybe middle school, but by then I had been exposed to such an amazing religion multiple times. When you enter school and start making friends one of the introductory questions you ask each other is what do you believe in. The two most treasured people in my life made it possible for me, today, to say that I believe in Jesus, and He is my savior; even though, back then I was more curious then definite in having any faith.
A very important factor to my exposure of a Christian faith was that my aunts were adamant about making the people in their households go to church every Sunday morning. My cousin Baby Danny and I were the same age, which made us automatic best friends throughout our lives. Although we fall away from each other I’m positive we’ll always be there for each other. Every weekend I would spend at his house, and we would go swimming and bowling, but most importantly his guardian was my aunt Cheryl; she made sure every Sunday morning she got us up in time to go to Gahanna Freewill Baptists Church. There was always a McDonalds run along the way, so Baby Danny didn’t complain too much; he absolutely hated going to church, and that feeling intensified the older he got. I, on the other hand, couldn’t get enough of this unknown world. We would be whisked away to a small, musky, brown room, while the adults went to church. There were never many kids, but the ones that were there were bored or knew everything. This made me so angry. I felt stupid; weren’t the Sunday school teachers supposed to teach you, not let the teacher’s pet show off. All the while, pieces of information seeped into my brain such as the stories of the bible, and their names. While this was fun, that small church didn’t have a BVS, so our summers were sometimes spent with our aunt Kathy.
I spent a lot of my time with my aunt Kathy because she had no children and enjoyed my company from my infancy to my full eighteen years of life, and I enjoyed her company just as much. She tells many stories of how she was amazed at how my young hands loved to touch the soft, delicate pages of a family bible even though I couldn’t read. At age two, she was afraid that I would rip the pages or color in the bible, but to her astonishment she watched as I rubbed my chubby hands along the pages page after page; personally, I think I was absorbing the information through osmosis, gradually absorbing and picking up on information without intentionally learning it. A picture with the verse John 3:16, for God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life, seemed to capture my attention so that sixteen years later Aunt Kathy made it a point to give me this picture. Along with these handy learning tools, my aunt would also read me stories from her bible, my favorites being the story of Adam and Eve or Noah. She will eventually lead me to a place where I find salvation, but that’s a later part of this story.
I know now you are ready to slam this book closed, and to never read this again nor recommend it, but wait the best is yet to come. This is the most boring part, but I find it the most important because you have to know where you come from to know where you are going. I have moved from my desk to a bible conference on the KJV, King James Version, bible, but this has to be finished. After thinking back to all these encounters with spirit-filled people and the church, I have found that I am surprised that I didn’t notice how God was working in my life earlier. It was like God was coming to me again and again, and I was too blind to see him. Sitting here in a room full of people who came willingly to listen to why the KJV bible is important makes me so excited because I am surrounded by people who are just as excited as I am about learning more about God, his word, and the values and beliefs that go along with believing in the faith of Jesus Christ, as I was not always graced with the presence of people who share the same excitement as I.
These pages looked pretty solid, but I was ready to delve into my true testimony, the things that shaped the person who I am and the world that I lived in. I packed the pages back into my purse and headed out the door; it was time to see my family again. Starting my car, a smile spread across my face once I heard my hometown’s country radio station come in through the speakers, how I had longed to hear it. The roads were straight and flat, far less intimidating than Tennessee roads. I took the long way around just to get a good view at all the scenery I had missed. I took long slow deliberate steps up to the door; this was it. All or nothing, here I was.
Gender:
Points: 368
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