"God, I don't know if You are there, or if You can hear me, but I sure need You. If what I have heard about Jesus is true, and if You are really there, I need You to save me, and to show me that You have heard me. I've messed it all up, and I can't fix it. If You will bring my husband back I will know that You have heard me, and I will read Your Book and I will tell everyone what You have done for me."
When I finished that prayer I was able to stand up, and to go on about the business of life, even with the pain of not knowing - it was the beginnings in my heart of "the peace that passes all understanding."
God did bring my husband back (though it was not His will that he remain), and He graciously sent people to my door to teach me how to read His Word. (How many of you have ever welcomed Jehovah's Witnesses to your house by saying, "I'm so glad you are here! God sent you to teach me how to read the Bible!"? (; I am not and never have been a member of that group, however.)
Because I didn't know all the Christian terms for being "born again of the Spirit" and "repentance" and "regeneration" and "prayer in the Spirit, " because I had no education in the Word or the Ways of God, I did not keep track of dates or specific events as they transpired. I only know this, that I was truly saved in the fall of '94, and within a year had begun reading God's Word, beginning with the Gospel of John, had found a good pastor and a Bible-believing church, had sincerely repented of my sins, asking forgiveness through the sufficient atonement of Jesus Christ God's Son, believed on Him Alone for Salvation, Justification, and Glorification, and had asked Jesus to become my Lord and Savior and take up residence in my heart! I was baptized in a local pond with tears of joy, all captured on video! I am in Awe of Him!
I was delivered from many, many evil ways and have a new life, walk in a righteousness not my own but His, and grow in wisdom and knowledge and faith as Jesus the Word and Spirit brings me through this process of sanctification until His Coming for me. I have believed His Promises.
I have been His friend for 11 years now, and love him with my whole heart. I love His Word and read the Bible daily. I memorize whole Psalms, whole chapters of the New Testament, and love to sing His praises! I pray on my knees every day, often three times a day, and pray with "all-prayer" in the Spirit all day long, fellowshipping with Him Who Is My Hope and Strength and Stay and Rock and Vine of Life, and delighting in our union through the Holy Spirit. I delight in the fellowship of the Saints. I love my enemies and pray for them. I preach the Good News of Salvation in Christ, sent to live and die and rise again by the God Who Loves Us. He has made me what I am today, and continues to make me into His image. He is my Redeemer, transforming not only me, but all my former works into a testimony to His Goodness and Deliverance Transforming Power! Amen!
I must say, that I'm a bit at a loss for words. You may have posted this before, but I have not seen it until this morning.
An incredible witness, and I have always been curious why you chose .30carbine as your handle ... and have been under a false assumption.
My mother once said to me if abortion had been legal in 1963, I wouldn't be here. One could argue such words from a Mom (and, sad to say, though she no longer wears the hippie beads, she's still 'hip' as ever), would pose a harsh challenge to a boy's heart; such an argument would be valid. But I testify something else she said that was much worse.
She is trained as a scientist. She teaches science to other aspiring scientists. And during one conversation long ago about 'what happened before the Big Bang', she said something along the lines that "the hallmark of the stupid is spending time on those ideas that are not testable."
Those words, from a Mom, were far more wounding ... for they encouraged that most dangerous of activities within me: prayerlessness. For prayer, paradoxically, is what God actually encourages us to do to, indeed, test him, in the human scientific sense.
For without Praying, at what other point can one actually test God? The one Bible verse I know of that speaks directly to 'testing' God in the approving sense is in the O.T., and involves tithing. But even that in context, means don't even think about tithing without attaching a prayer.
Reading your testimony, at first, was a bit loopy for me. But then I read the chapter 8 discussion above, and looked again at your testimony, and quietly the light went on, *click*.
"Daddy".
I get it - and I offer my prayers for others who may read it, and wonder 'what on earth??'......
And as for delivering you from the 'curse', let me offer this: it seems quite clear to me that though you may not 'feel' as fully delivered as you'd like, you certainly write about Christ in a such as a way as to indicate to me you are not under any curse at all.
Perhaps getting out from under a curse is a completely different task than getting under a 'blessing', in the sense the pathway for one is unlike the pathway for the other....
Being on my second marriage, of 11 yeears, I'm not a full expert. I can definitely report this: marriage is like golf. A LOT. A million ways exist to do it wrong, very few methods will work to actually make the ball go straight, provided you can actually get the club head on the ball.
Being out from under the curse of bad golf habits, I believe, requires just one step: that step of actually going to the golf course. And then, once you have hit a wall, and you want to quit, then do what I did. Find a teacher. The one I found did not ask me what fault I needed to fix.
He asked me, "What do you want?", and thus saved me from giving up on the game.
Have you ever noticed that in reality, the first words of our Lord, in the book of John, out of ALL the words he could have spoken in that first chapter, that those first words, in reality, are so unexpected? (If he had some engagement rings in his robe that the two disciples had known about, it would make a bit more sense I think).
The second words of our Lord indicate, for the first time directly what kind of Lord he is: a Revealer.
The third set of words from our Lord indicate something else about what kind of Lord he is: a Re-Namer.
A bridegroom names. A bride doesn't 'take' his name, if she is aware of what is going on. She submits to being named .... and then prays.
I really wish I understood all this when I was younger. But noooooooo. I had to deal with a Mom, who, funny, absolutely hated the idea of being named by any Man. Talk about confusing!
Your testimony was wonderful.