My "simple" Testimony

I love hearing the amazing change that takes place in people's lives when they make the decision to enter into a relationship with Christ. I love hearing how the "ordinary" become the extraordinary when they accept Christ into their heart. I often get swept up in a bit of envy when hearing the radical changes and long for a more captivating testimony. I used to want the life altering, bottom of the barrel, at deaths door, dramatic proclamation of salvation that can makes you sit at the edge of your seat. I do not have that story.

I grew up in a Christian home. I attended church. My mother was the head of the church counsel and my father an active volunteer. We went to church family camp in the summer where I was baptized in the Cascades with my mother by my side. My first job was working at church in the childcare room on Wednesday nights and I volunteered every summer in high school at VBS. Christianity was something I grew up with.

My social circle was no different from my family lifestyle. I was blessed to have good friends and I attended a private Christian school from preschool through graduation. I never drank, did not have premarital sex, and never took any drugs. I graduated high school with flying colors and went on to a private Christian college. In short my childhood, though not flawless, was one that fostered a deep relationship with Christ both in the home and outside the home.

I accepted Jesus into my heart at an early age. I remember hearing the story at church and coming home that Sunday pondering it in my heart. I must have been 4 or 5 years old but I vividly remember sitting on our navy blue plush couch with Sunday football in the background and asking Jesus into my heart just like my Sunday school teacher told us how to. It was simple, it was quiet, it was a deep personal choice I made and I was changed. In all its simplicity it was the most radical day of my life. It was the day I became extraordinary. It was the day I accepted a deep love, a life calling, a salvation.

So though my testimony may seem ordinary, simple, and plain it is the love story of my life. Nothing quite compares to someone loving me so deeply that He lay down his life to save me, to redeem me, to spend eternity with me. My testimony is that I went from being unsaved to being saved and to me that is an extraordinary story.

I don't want to keep my simple story a secret because it won't do any good if I don't share it. Though my story won't make a dramatic Hallmark movie it is powerful. My prayer is that if you are reading this and you don't have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ that you explore one. If you don't know what that means, if you don't know where to start then contact me and I would love to give you some verses to read. I pray that you may come to know the deep love of our Heavenly Father who will protect and guide you through this ever changing life and welcoming you into eternity when this life is over.

"Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think" - Ephesians 3:20