How do you feel when someone tells you to share your testimony? The majority of us panic, become anxious, heartbeats quicken, cold sweats break out, and bodies tremble with fear. We fear that others will judge us or believe our story is simply not powerful. We live in an era of self-actualization. Evangelism used to point outward. We spoke the existence of God, objective truth, and the historical reliability of the redirection. Now, our testimonies easily sound like another self-idolatry and self-congratulation story.
My life as a Christian has significantly changed. I have experienced tremendous spiritual growth and have completely changed as a person. I endured many hardships, lived through disappointments, watched things fall apart in front of me, sacrificed many things, and changed my lifestyle before transforming into the person I currently am.
This is Me-
I believe in God, not because my parents told me, not because the Church told me, but because I’ve experienced His goodness and mercy myself! Growing up I began to feel forced to go to Church and thought I knew how to make it all on my own. Everything became a routine and checklist for me. This was the foundation for an uneasy lifestyle. I have experienced unhealthy relationships, family struggles, deaths, and medical challenges. At times in my life, I began to question God’s love as I was fighting Him and the enemy. I began to not feel His love and turned to worldly things to find acceptance. Any time I looked in the mirror, I always saw a flaw I could pick at, I began to change who I was to fit the crowd and became the girl I never wanted to be. I was broken and wanting to be loved. People told me “God loves you, He is embracing you, He wants you to run back, His open arms are waiting for you.” I wanted to believe those words with every ounce of my heart, but the enemy told me I had done too much wrong for God to ever love me the way He intended. After going through a revolving door of life chaos, I was full of brokenness. After years of running God was creating a beautiful collision! My lack became plentiful, my confusion became clarified, my test became a testimony, and my life became full of breakthroughs, miracles, and changes because God created a longing heart. I realized when I was at my worst, when I was at my lowest point, when I absolutely couldn’t clean myself up and there was nothing anybody could do with me, right at that moment, Christ said: “I’ll take that one, That’s the one I want!” I was standing before Jesus, completely exposing all of my flaws and insecurities- worse than that- my sins were right in front of His face. Against all reason and rationale, He looked at me and declared me beautiful, spotless, righteous, and justified. By God’s grace, I am becoming a woman of courage, strength, self-discipline, diligence, wisdom, discernment, compassion, and true beauty. His grace says I don’t have to be good enough because Jesus was perfect. I have not gone too far and I can come back. I’m not what I did on my worst day. I have power over sin. It’s not too late to step into what God has for me. I’m not what other people try to label me to be. I can’t out sin the price Jesus paid. I had to let go of control and realize in order to get past my past I had to be willing to restore my brokenness. It took time to accept me for who I am. Until Jesus Christ was the obsession of my heart, I always looked to worldly things to meet my needs only God could fill. He is making a way, giving me strength, wisdom, and direction in the doors He is opening for me. As the trials and tribulations pass I know God isn’t going to disappear or forsake me. I grew into a wanderer questioning if He loved me or if He could ever love me again. Growing into a deeper relationship with God I have seen His mercy and faithfulness. My story might not be tragic, but God created our stories to be unique, purposeful, and something to cherish!
It is definitely a testimony of God’s power when we shower love upon those who hurt and betray us. You never know how sharing your experiences can help others facing the same obstacles, or how the new person you’ve become can inspire others who seek to discover the God that completely changed you.
We are never so healed that we don’t need Jesus every single moment of every single day.
The beautiful thing about God is that even though we can’t fully comprehend His love, His love fully comprehends us. He doesn’t promise days without pain, laughter without sorrow, nor sun with rain. But He does promise strength for the day, comfort for the tears, and light for the way.
God expects us to simply share what we know to what we have seen Him do in our lives. We don’t have to have the Bible memorized or be able to answer every question that someone might have about God. These incredible stories don’t have to be spoken in a crowded room over a speaker, but can simply arise during a conversation over a cup of coffee at Starbucks. Don’t be afraid to divulge the messy details of your life with others- they may ultimately lead others to a relationship with God. He uses broken people to share hope to a broken world. Your circumstances are part of His divine plan.
