My Testimony

It has been awhile since I've had the chance to blog, and as I sit here, two of my children are making requests of me. It is hard to sit down and accomplish anything that takes longer than 2 minutes in my house, but I am going to do this!!

I feel I want to be ready for our trip to Africa - not just financially, but emotionally, physically and most important, SPIRITUALLY. It is for God that we are doing this, and I want to keep Him as the center. I was reviewing my notes as to what we are to do to prepare, and I was reminded that we will most likely be called to share our own personal testimonies. I have shared it with specific groups before, but never wide open on the internet. I couldn't think of a wider audience to share it with.

My testimony starts as a young child. I was raised by God-Fearing parents that have a large reverence for God. It was truly a blessing to be raised in the home that I was. I understand that I was raised not only with the skills I needed to be a good, contributing member of society, but also with a relationship with God.

I attended the church I grew up in, happily serving, but often relying on my own human effort. I got married to my awesome husband at the age of 18, and I grew closer to God, having my still time with Him during my 1/2 hour commutes to university (yes, I do understand the irony of "being still" while driving at 100 km/hr). Nevertheless, while I was growing in the Lord, is was a very slow, gradual climb.



During this time, my husband had met some other men during a Promise Keepers weekend. They decided to get together once a week. While the group started rather informally, within a year, its focus had become spiritual. These men gather to pray and listen to God. It was during one of these evenings in early January 2011 that proved to be a major turning point for our family. My husband was told by God, very clearly, that we were to go to Streets Alive, our local street mission. We were to go there for church, as well as volunteer in as many ways as possible. While my husband was questioning whether or not he had heard correctly, God used two other men as His voice. Jake would ask God a question, and the answer would come immediately through one of these two other men. (The fun part was, these two other men had no idea that they were being used in this way by God, they just were having a conversation, and were having trouble understanding each other.) By the time my husband got home that evening, I was fast asleep, and he knew Gods will for us, but had no idea how we was going to bring up the subject with me. So he prayed while reading the Streets Alive Mission  - Matthew 25:35-45. God told him to simply tell me that I needed to seek God for a scripture.

The next day, I knew something was different about Jake. He had an energy that I had never seen before. When I asked him what was up, he simply instructed me to seek God for a verse. I was quite curious, so as soon as he had left for work, I got straight to it. I prayed, and opened the bible to the old testament (where I had been currently reading). God said no, and I moved on to the new testament. The first verse I came across was Matthew 25:35-45. I knew that this was the scripture that I had prayed for. It just doesn't come any clearer than that folks. It was pretty obvious what we were to do. And I am happy to say that we have done it. And it has given me freedoms that I never knew I could have. God has showed me time and again how He moves, and that it won't be done by my own power. He removed me from a prison of my own making - thinking that I had to do all the work. What freedom there is in knowing that I don't!

There is more to my testimony as God has taken me from a slow growth in Him, right on up to an exponential climb, but it will have to wait for another day. If any are interested in me blogging about that, please leave a comment below.

It appears my two minutes are up, as one of my children has locked themselves in the bathroom. God Bless!!