Later Edit :Here's my testimony. Sorry it is so long!
My Testimony.
My journey to Christianity probably began about ten years before I actually became a Christian.
I was brought up in a non-believing household. Some members of my family were very anti anything religious. So God was never mentioned other than in a derogatory way.
Then in 1971 when I was 21, two things happened.
Firstly, I got married (to someone who was also a non-believer).
Secondly, my friend became a Jehovah's Witness.
These two things were the beginning of my journey,.
I was quite interested as to WHY my friend had become a JW. It had happened quite suddenly. One week she was trying to avoid them, the next week she had joined them. So when she asked me to go along to the Kingdom Hall, I went. So did my husband.
Although I thought most of what they said was not relevant to my life, I did learn two things from them.
- That there were a lot of people around who sincerely believed in God and wanted to do his will. Coming from an atheistic family, I genuinely hadn't known that before.
- That the preacher didn't have to be someone who dressed in robes and spoke in a holy voice. The person who'd preached at the Kingdom Hall was just a member of the congregation.
I didn't become a JW and my friend cut off contact with me after that.
Then my husband started working with a man who was a clairvoyant in a Spiritualist Church.
We got invited. We went. I felt that the clairvoyance he did in church was very stage-managed ('I've got someone coming through beginning with B'...of course, lots of people have names beginning with B and someone in the congregation was sure to think it was their loved one!). But when we went back to his house for drinks afterwards, he started going into deeper stuff, and it was scary. We had no more to do with it.
But I did learn from it. I remember thinking 'If there is a God, he would not be creepy like that'.
The next thing that happened was that my husband's best friend, who was a Christian, came back from the States where he had been touring in a Gospel Band. I knew he was a Christian, but he was a very quiet person and although he spoke to us about his faith, none of it seemed to sink in with us. But this was a Christian influence in our lives and I remember he and his girlfriend (later his wife) saying they would pray for us.
Then in 1976 we moved house and it was near to where my husband's friend was living with a Christian couple (B and S). I got to know the wife, S, a little bit, and we often passed the time of day.
In 1980 when I was expecting our son, I had to go into hospital for several months due to problems with the pregnancy. S came to see me every single week without fail – more than some members of my family. This impressed me, and I remember thinking that she didn't just speak about her faith, she lived it. So after I got out of hospital with my son, I took her up on her invitation to drop in for coffee.
We became friends and walked miles with the children (her son was two years old). I asked her loads of questions about her faith. I was very impressed with her answers. If she didn't know, she would say so, which also quite impressed me. So many people try to waffle it through, instead of just saying that they don't know.
I began to think that IF there was a God, I wanted to be on his side, because not to be on his side was a no-brainer. Why would you not want to be on the same side as this all-powerful Being?
One night, when the news on TV was particularly depressing, the thought came to me that B&S had something I hadn't, which was the assurance that, even if the news is depressing, even if they were about to be killed, that there is something bigger than that, above all that, in charge of all that. How I envied that assurance! I knew it was because they were Christians I wanted it. However, there was to me, a huge stumbling block. I still didn't believe in God!
I found myself walking to their house, going in and saying 'I want to be a Christian, but I don't believe in God' . To me this was in insurmountable problem.
But B didn't seem to think so. He said, in his quiet, calm manner, 'well let's see what God can do, shall we?'
He asked me to pray with him. I said no. He asked me why. I said it would be hypocritical of me to pray, because I didn't believe. So he asked if HE could pray. I said yes – that was OK because he was a believer. He prayed for me. I can't remember the prayer, but I went away, still not believing, but knowing I had done the right thing.
Over the space of a few weeks, I began to see things differently to how I had seen them before, through a different lens. I went to prayer meetings with B&S and was always moved by how the people there talked to Jesus as though he was sitting next to them. One day after about six weeks, I realised, quietly, that it was all real. Jesus WAS sitting next to them. I asked someone in the prayer meeting how you knew if the Holy Spirit had come to you. They said ' You KNOW'. Well, I KNEW.
B and S, my husband's best friend and another friend who lived nearby helped me greatly with my early Christian walk.
I was baptised by full immersion about six months later.
I have now been walking with the Lord for 45 years and learn more and more about him as time goes on. There is always more to learn. The Church I attend is an Anglican Church, part of the Anglican Mission in England (AMiE). This is a growing fellowship of faithful Anglican churches who are passionate about gospel mission. The minister is the son of my husband's best friend .
My husband became a Christian four years later. But that is his story.
