Your testimony

[Melethiel]

Well, in typical Lutheran fashion, I can only tell one story. There is but one testimony we give that accounts for our salvation.

Two thousand years ago, the Son of God became incarnate of the Virgin Mary, was made man, suffered on our behalf under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and burried. The third day he rose again, according to the Scripture and ascended into heaven, where he is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. Then in my infancy, God baptized me through the pastors of his church and my parents, placed his holy seal of the forgiveness of sins upon me. How did I become a Christian? That's how.

Yeah. Pretty much.

 

[LivingLifeHisWay]

GM: What a beautiful beautiful testimony. The way the Lord has been watching over you is absolutely wonderful. The healings, the dreams - everything is just so special.

Here are a few scriptures for you:

John 15:18-20>If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated Me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember the words I spoke to you: 'No servant is greater than his master.' If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you also.

Please know that I am in constant prayer for you my sister.

 

[LivingLifeHisWay]

My Testimony:

I was brought up in a dysfunctional Catholic family. I was taught that if I kept the sacraments I would go to Heaven. I was baptised, had my first communion and my confirmation but it was a legalistic process. Just things that needed to get done. My parents ignored and still do ignore God except when an occasion comes along.

I have a horrid past. Drug & alcohol dependancy, homosexual relationships, promiscuity and pretty much anything else that is horrid. I was married at 19 and divorced by 20. I was the "party girl".

I met my current husband who was brought up Catholic but also just going through the motions. We wanted to get married and started looking for a Pastor to marry us.

We met with one who told us we needed to go through a Bible Study with him before getting married. So we did. We studied the Gospel of John.

It was during this bible study that my husband and I came to know the Lord Jesus Christ as Lord. We repented of our sins and placed our faith and trust in Jesus. We were married 5 weeks later and have been living for God ever since. This was 4 years ago.

We now attend a Baptist church and both of our families bieleve that we are in a cult. But that's another story. ::

 

[JoeWill]

My latest offense is coming up with something unBiblical. Proof of my crapness, as if it was needed. So I'm left thinking there's little point.

The Devil knows that you've been made completely clean by the blood of Jesus Anna, he doesn't like that idea, so he tries to make you feel otherwise by whispering these internal accusations against you.

Don't listen to him. Stand up as a daughter of God.

We're all here for you and care about you deeply.

My Mum went to that creepy place at Boscastle too. She said it was a terrible feeling. Your testimony sounds like the one I read in Doreen Irvine's book From Witchcraft to Christ. Have you read it?

 

[DerSchweik]

I wasn't gonna write mine, but I seriously feel like giving up, so am hoping that going over my testimony will do some sort of good. Very long, and very boring, so I don't expect anyone to read it. I just want it "on paper" so I'll be reminded of how this *isn't* all a waste of time.

My parents were Christians til I was about 7, but I was never particularly involved in it all. Didn't get it. Was more interested in my toys. My mum then became a Buddhist and my dad became involved in masonry, just as his dad had been. I remember going to this guru dude's house with my mum every Thursday evening. He was a Japanese banker in the City of London, and he lived in an apartment, which was so minimalist I never knew where to sit. But in his front room, he had this gold, immensely ornate gold shrine thing and I remember it always used to freak me out.

There's a village in the South West of England called Boscastle - it was flooded beyond repair a couple of years ago, actually - and my parents took me there on holiday when I was about 8. Boscastle is renowned for being the last village in England that burned witches. It is - or was - aesthetically breath-taking. I remember it looking like a secret fairyland nestled bewteen these two huge hills, so it felt like a canopy. Through the centre, it had a babbling brook that flowed directly into the sea. There was a shop there dedicated to the witches, and one night we were standing outside it, the village was silent and deserted, and I don't know what happened, but I felt something reach inside my stomach and I heard someone tell me I was gonna die that night. I had a huge panic attack and just started saying Jesus' name to myself under my breath, which was peculiar because I didn't know Him.

After that, I forgot about Him again, and became just an appalling person. I was steeped in sin. I became a witch and developed a drug problem, was increasingly addicted to inappropriate contentography and actively went out of my way to blaspheme Jesus' Name. My former friends and I used to play a game to see who could out-do who in terms of blaspheming Him. I feel really sick thinking back to it, actually. I spent years and years stoned, going from man to man, claiming to be an atheist, but becoming increasingly drawn towards the LHP. I became a rune reader and tarot card reader and started practising psi-vampirism.

When I was 21, I took a massive, massive overdose. I wrote a note, lined all the pills up on my window-ledge and started swallowing them one by one. I emptied 3 and a half packets, so I probably took about 70 pills or something. I was taken to the hospital in an ambulance when I was found at 4.30pm, and I was allowed to go home at 2am, because the doctors did a blood test and found there wasn't a single trace of anything in my system. Looking back I know it was a genuine miracle, but at the time - and for years after - I was too out of it to see it that way. I think I put it down to its being "one of those things".

I got a job with an organisation called Victim Support about 5 years ago - it's a *very* secular charity that provides support for victims of crime, and I was hired as manager of the Youth Support for London - and there was a guy there who was a Methodist, and a former policeman. He was really abrasive in some ways, but I was still drawn to his sense of peace, and I found myself going to work early most mornings so I could ask him questions about "his god". I was always very scathing inwardly, but I did know that on one level I really wanted what he had.

I left that job when I was offered a promotion at another Victim Support in a different part of London, and on my first day I met a woman my age called Sue who was the woman who provided a large chunk of the government funding for my job, so we went for lunch, and within half an hour, I found out she was a Christian, also. We used to have lunch together as often as possible, and I would ask her a lot of questions, too and gradually the LHP started losing its appeal somehow. But I still had a drug problem. For the next few months, through my job, I kept meeting Christian after Christian. It was just astonishing, because this is a field that's about as secular as it gets.

I should add that my parents divorced when I was 17, and both parents re-married. My mum and her husband became Christians - they're currently studying to be missionaries for the street kids in Brazil - and I know they were praying for me to be saved, but I actively fought it. I'd known in my spirit that God was calling me for about 3 years prior to my going to Him. But I didn't want it. It's partly what made me play the blasphemy games, I think.

But, anyway, in February 2006, I was at the height of my drug problem. I was smoking about £100 worth of weed a week and was starting to take harder drugs, and one Wednesday, I was on holiday at home lolling about completely stoned, and I sobered up in an instant. Weirdest thing ever. And I haven't taken a drug since. The cravings are still there sometimes, dreadful on occasion, but the addiction was gone in an instant. Another genuine miracle, which I didn't acknowledge.

At the time, I was seeing a guy called Chris, and we broke up on April 6th 2006, and on April 7th, I stopped resisting God and got on my knees and begged Him to be the Lord of my life. That was late on a Friday night, and it was a long weekend, so all the shops were shut until the following Tuesday. I was sooo desperate to get my very first Bible. On the Monday night, I was so incredibly excited about going to a local Christian bookshop and paging through all their Bibles and finding the one that was printed and bound for me. Had never read the Bible, nor heard any of it, even as a child, as Sunday School was spent colouring in.

That night I had a dream I was being attacked by demons. It was just horrific. Have always had dreams where I'm being chased and am running in slow motion, like I can't move my legs. This was no different, and they were chasing me through these streets and I could hear them getting closer, and suddenly I stopped running and got on my knees and started praying. I didn't know where the words were coming from, but it made the demons scream like they were burning. When I woke up, I remembered some of the prayer and I wrote it down and called my mum and told her about the dream and when I read her what I'd been praying, she started crying because it turns out I'd been reciting Psalm 91.

For me that was the final thing that absolutely convinced me once and for all that Jesus was with me. God still teaches me stuff through my dreams, actually.

So that's it. Things have actually been much harder since becoming a Christian and I keep waiting for things to improve a little, but they don't. I'm not even sure whether to press "Submit Reply", because I don't want this anymore. I'm tired of the crap that comes with being a Christian. I know that makes me a bad person. I love Jesus, but I don't like Christianity. My latest offense is coming up with something unBiblical. Proof of my crapness, as if it was needed. So I'm left thinking there's little point.

Dear Anna,

Tender hearts such as yours are rare.

"Yea though I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil, my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."

Hang in there ok? You're loved, you're special, and you're His.

God bless you.