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What's Your Story?
- Thread starter Sweet Pea
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PapaLandShark
Post Tenebras Lux
Hi Sweet Pea,
I have the short version posted in my profile. Have to wait till this evening to post a "long" version.
/hugs!
I have the short version posted in my profile. Have to wait till this evening to post a "long" version.
/hugs!
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Papa! What an awesome testimony! I got saved by listening to the radio, and I have heard people say that no one ever gets saved from Christian radio or books and we are both living proof that people do!
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PapaLandShark
Post Tenebras Lux
Just goes to show the awesome power, mercy, and love of the Lord for us Lambslove. 
Was it a song or a broadcast?
Was it a song or a broadcast?
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Sword-In-Hand
Born again to raze hell
I remember it quite clearly, I just have trouble remembering if I was 12 or 13. I'm now 28 and it seems like old age is setting in lol. Anyway, I was at a church camp, and being the momma's boy that I was, I was homesick and making up excuses all the time for the counsellor to get me something to drink so hopefully by the time he came back I would be asleep. For some reason I couldn't sleep when I knew everyone else was. Basically I was just a scaredy-cat.
Anyway, I remember on one night, a Wednesday I believe, just being totally scared. All of my friends had found other friends and were pretty much too cool to hang out with me. I actually met some kids who treated me better than my own, close friends. I slept every night with my Bible close to me, because even though I was still just a kid, I understood that God could protect me and that just being close to His Word gave me comfort and peace.
As I lay there on that night, clutching my Bible, being scared for who knows what,I started praying. I knew why Jesus came to this earth and that pretty much He was awesome. I loved Him and never doubted that He was real and finally on that night, I just closed my eyes and said, "Jesus will you save me?" I'm getting teary eyed now just thinking about His response. He said, "Yes!"
That's when I became a Christian. Since then God has led me through trials that would lead to my testimony of God's healing and caring and lead me to be a sanctified Christian. But I love Him so much. Never could love Him enough, but I hope it increases daily. That's my story.
Anyway, I remember on one night, a Wednesday I believe, just being totally scared. All of my friends had found other friends and were pretty much too cool to hang out with me. I actually met some kids who treated me better than my own, close friends. I slept every night with my Bible close to me, because even though I was still just a kid, I understood that God could protect me and that just being close to His Word gave me comfort and peace.
As I lay there on that night, clutching my Bible, being scared for who knows what,I started praying. I knew why Jesus came to this earth and that pretty much He was awesome. I loved Him and never doubted that He was real and finally on that night, I just closed my eyes and said, "Jesus will you save me?" I'm getting teary eyed now just thinking about His response. He said, "Yes!"
That's when I became a Christian. Since then God has led me through trials that would lead to my testimony of God's healing and caring and lead me to be a sanctified Christian. But I love Him so much. Never could love Him enough, but I hope it increases daily. That's my story.
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I was always nominally Christian, floating around from one faith community to another as a child. When I was about 17, I started attending a Catholic parish when my sister converted. I attended off on on for about twenty years and finally got around to being baptised and confirmed in 2002. Now I am a much more active Christian.
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PapaLandShark said:Just goes to show the awesome power, mercy, and love of the Lord for us Lambslove.
Was it a song or a broadcast?
It wasn't a single program or song that convinced me, it was 6 months of listening. Faith comes through hearing the word of God, and since I had never heard any Bible teaching before, it was all new to me. I tuned in to listen to the teaching programs so I could make fun of them, but I didn't hear very much to make fun of. I thought the Bible was full of silly stuff like women must dress in fashions that are at least ten years out of date and they must submit to beatings from their husbands then get up and go serve him like a slave. I thought it would say that all sex is wrong and that even marital sex is evil and sinful (which is what the nuns taught us in CCD, but I can now see that they were coming from a perspective in which marital sex has to be evil or it would be desirable and they wouldn't be able to maintain their vows of celebacy). I thought it would say that life is a sinful misery and then you die and either go to hell if your sins are bad enough or go to purgatory where you would be in abject torture and misery until someone decided you had suffered enough to pay for all your sins (again, it's what we were taught in CCD). I thought God was didn't get personally involved with humans because we weren't good enough. I thought Jesus was crucified because he was too weak to get off the cross and save himself. I know that none of this is a current catholic teaching, but it is what the nuns taught us, so either they didn't know any better and shouldn't have been teaching or things have changed alot since the 1960s.
Then when I started listening to Christian radio, I found out all this stuff was bunk. I found out that God is not a semi-evil bookkeeper in the sky who keeps close records of everything we do and if we are not good enough we will have to suffer until he thinks we are. Instead, I heard about a God who is very personally involved in our lives, not as a bookkeeper or a kill joy, but as someone who genuinely loves us because he created us. I found out that he has plans for our good, not our destruction or punishment. I found out that he is not stern and impossible to please. I found out that he even sacrificed himself so that we can be good enough to be in his presence and that more than anything else in the world, he wants us to be in his presence.
I learned all this through many programs. Robert Cook, J Vernon McGee, Charles Stanley, Chuck Swindol, James Dobson, and so many others that I can't even name anymore, all share in the glory of bringing this anti-Christian to faith in Christ. I am the last person I ever thought would be a Christian, I hated Christianity so much. But faith does come through hearing the word of God and these people were all faithful to constantly give the word of God, in love not in anger or hate, and my heart and soul drank it up and found joy in the truth.
That's why I really think that all these evangelism tactics and tracts come to so little, because they try to reason with people about why they need faith, but there is only one key to evangelism that we should ALL remember, faith comes through hearing the word of God. And that's why you should send a check right now to your local Christian radio station!
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Gwenyfur
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I was saved when I was 12....shortly after that something happened in my life that I lost faith in God being God, and got so angry with Him that I went an entirely different direction. I turned to paganism, from there went on down all the way to necromancy. The whole time literally shaking my fist in the face of God. Acting out in a most horrendous way to the pain I thought He had inflicted. I felt betrayed by the One that promised to never leave me, protect me beneath His wings and stay with me no matter what....
Turns out even through all that...He did stay with me.
He reached so far down into the muck and mire I had immersed myself in and reclaimed what was His. He pulled me out of all the evil I had allowed myself to be oppressed by, through the fog of drugs I had used to escape reality with, and straight into my walled up, shrivelled, bruised and battered heart and gave me life again. He healed my bitterness and anger, He healed my hurts and heartache, and gave me a peace and capacity to love that I will never deserve...a gift of His passion and love for me...
I can't nail down one specific event that turned my heart, other than to say a year of dreaming...the dreams were horrific...some true events, some not, but He was there even then, calling to me, reaching for me...and He never gave up on me. He never turned away, never left even as I was continually hurting Him...The dreams are what led me to turn my face again toward Him, not in anger, but in seeking...in questioning...and once I realized He was still there and hadn't left, I was broken in spirit, and body, emotionally...I wept, not the crying of a broken heart, but the continual near rib breaking sobbing of the repentant...flat on my face before the Living God.
I've never looked back...I've faced the trials of leaving those hidden societies and lived...without the scars...
Through the years since, He's still by my side, and now using me to help others in crisis to not leave Him, to not believe that He's left them...to know that He's still there reaching out His hands to them...if they will just reach out and take His...
Turns out even through all that...He did stay with me.
He reached so far down into the muck and mire I had immersed myself in and reclaimed what was His. He pulled me out of all the evil I had allowed myself to be oppressed by, through the fog of drugs I had used to escape reality with, and straight into my walled up, shrivelled, bruised and battered heart and gave me life again. He healed my bitterness and anger, He healed my hurts and heartache, and gave me a peace and capacity to love that I will never deserve...a gift of His passion and love for me...
I can't nail down one specific event that turned my heart, other than to say a year of dreaming...the dreams were horrific...some true events, some not, but He was there even then, calling to me, reaching for me...and He never gave up on me. He never turned away, never left even as I was continually hurting Him...The dreams are what led me to turn my face again toward Him, not in anger, but in seeking...in questioning...and once I realized He was still there and hadn't left, I was broken in spirit, and body, emotionally...I wept, not the crying of a broken heart, but the continual near rib breaking sobbing of the repentant...flat on my face before the Living God.
I've never looked back...I've faced the trials of leaving those hidden societies and lived...without the scars...
Through the years since, He's still by my side, and now using me to help others in crisis to not leave Him, to not believe that He's left them...to know that He's still there reaching out His hands to them...if they will just reach out and take His...
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Diane_Windsor
Senior Contributor
I was born and brought up as a Southern Baptist in a religious family-my paternal grandfather was a Baptist deacon. I went to Sunday School and Big Church (yes, I still call it Big Church ) regulary with my parents and older brother. I was active in GAs, and went to GA camp at Lake Lavon in Texas-the whole nine yards. When I was twelve I professed Christ as my "personal Lord & Saviour" after some counseling sessions with my youth minister, and was baptised a short while later by the Reverend E.M. Hay.
Since you only ask for my conversion testimony I'll refrain telling you about my journey that started in college. That journey takes a lot more twists and turns.
Diane
) regulary with my parents and older brother. I was active in GAs, and went to GA camp at Lake Lavon in Texas-the whole nine yards. When I was twelve I professed Christ as my "personal Lord & Saviour" after some counseling sessions with my youth minister, and was baptised a short while later by the Reverend E.M. Hay.Since you only ask for my conversion testimony I'll refrain telling you about my journey that started in college. That journey takes a lot more twists and turns.
Diane
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