As a youngster we had many trials in our family. My younger brother was born with a rare form of eye cancer. He was always called the miracle baby because out of the 12 cases 9 died, 2 were blind and he survived with his sight. My older brother was always in trouble and eventually committed suicide while in prison. I was taken to church every Sunday by my Christian mother. My father refused to go and still does to this day.
I accepted Christ when I was nine years old. It was at a mission church from Kempsville Meadows Baptist Church in Virginia Beach, Va. I remember standing in the worship service during the invitation and the next thing I remember I was up with the pastor telling him I was a sinner in need of a Savior. I believe I was saved at this time but it was more head knowledge than heart knowledge.
I continued being faithful until I reached age 15. Then I started to rebel against everything including God. God protected me during those years for a reason even though I did STUPID things. I became a very hard and calloused person, not loving anything or anybody including myself. I finished school, got married, had a child and was on a fast career track. This was when God started working, although I was not aware of it at the time. My wife and I were headed for a separation when a job offer came that was not in the fast track. We moved to Enoree SC from Raleigh NC. We started back to church and I made the statement that I would go to preaching but not all that other stuff! If we had not made this move, I am sure we would have been divorced. This was the hand of God working in my life. The greatest miracle occurred later however. God started to work on my heart and changed it from cold and hard to one filled with love. This was a dramatic night and day difference. I began to have a real relationship with Jesus based on my heart condition. I began to understand why God saved and protected me all that time I was rebelling; it was to show and tell others about Jesus. I want everyone to have what I have in Jesus.
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I grew up in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. My mother and father divorced when I was in 4th grade and was raised by my father. As a child and young adult, I was very independent, selfish and discourteous. As I started college, my independence and desire to climb the corporate ladder became stronger. I did not have any desire to marry, because I felt that I could live my life alone and take care of myself. Living a lifestyle in the nightlife as a party girl didn’t make my life any easier.
During my sophomore year at Columbia College, I was invited to Campus Crusade for Christ at USC. I felt that I should become a Christian one day, but I had a misconception of the Christian lifestyle viewing Christianity as a form of Amish living. When I visited Campus Crusade, I realized that Christians were normal….they looked, dressed and acted like regular people. For several months, seeds were being planted into my life. During October 1994, when I was home with my father for Fall Break, I went to church with him at Clinton First Pentecostal Church in Clinton, SC. During the altar call, I invited Jesus Christ into my life. It was at that time that I realized that Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins, buried and was raised three days later. Immediately, I was convicted of sin and my lifestyle began to change. After finding a church home, I was baptized January 1999 at Northside Baptist Church in Columbia, SC.
Today, as a Christian, my life is altered. I have compassion for other’s and a desire to share God’s love with as many as I can through ministry. There are many decisions that I have made in the past 13 years that were not ‘my’ decisions but God’s decisions, and I have seen His faithfulness by obeying Him. Becoming a stay-at-home mom (6 years ago), moving to Spartanburg (4 years ago) and the complicated health of our oldest child has allowed me to see the power of God, power of prayer and power of the Holy Spirit. The best gift I have ever received is His salvation and the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38). Though life isn’t easy, even as a Christian, I have peace with Him because of my submission (Job 22:21).
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As a child, I was in church every Sunday, like it or not. By my ninth birthday my older brothers and younger sister had publicly accepted Christ as their savior. I believed Christ died for my sins and all the rest but I wanted to live my life as I pleased. I hated God for interfering. I showed my resentment with rebellion toward God and my mother.
When nine, I had an experience that made me think the rapture had taken place and I was left. It was a scary few minutes. However it was another year before I turned my life over to Christ. Every night I asked God to save me but He and I both knew I meant only until I awoke the next morning.
Then, at a revival meeting the preacher preached on our influence on others and the message hit me like a ton of brick. I was willing to live my life a while longer without Christ but I was not willing to risk leading my friends toward hell. I was the first one down front at the invitation.
The main purpose of my life since has been to influence others toward Christ. Fear may have caused me to turn my life over to Christ but love and appreciation keeps me committed. John 14:21 states that if we keep his commandments Christ will reveal Himself to us. Through miraculous help and protection in bad situations He has shown His care of and love for me many many times. Life has been difficult and many things did not work out the way I wanted but I could see Him best in the hard times and looking back, things turned out best for me. God’s peace, joy, assurance, comfort, and fellowship must be experienced to obtain the smallest understanding of the abundant life He offers us.
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As a child, I can remember my mother gathering enough energy on Sundays to force my older bother and me to go with her to church. We would try to make Sunday mornings aggravating enough until she would finally give up, and my brother I and would win the Sunday morning battle. The fact that my dad did not go to church helped my brother and I win some of these battles. Today I look back and thank God that my mother won enough of the battles to provide me with an awareness of God’s love for me.
I can remember the sixth grade like it was yesterday, especially one particular cold winter’s day when my dad took my brother and me fishing. Shortly after launching our boat and riding up a narrow creek, the boat motor hit a log in the river and I was thrown out of the boat into the cold, black, alligator-infested waters of South Georgia. With no lifejacket, one broken leg and the other leg gashed from the boat motor, my brother and dad said I bobbed under the water twice. Each time they didn’t know if I was coming back up or not. After near death and hyperthermia, the hospital patched up the exterior of my body with bandages and a cast on my right leg that came up to my hip. My faithful mother asked our preacher to come by the house and patch up my insides. I can remember him asking if I wanted to go under the waters for a third time (he was talking about the waters of baptism).
After accepting Christ as my personal Lord and Savior and being baptized fourteen weeks later, and after my cast was removed, I think the Sunday morning battles eased up for awhile. At least that was the case until my late teenage years. From age sixteen through age thirty-eight, I had reverted back to my Sunday morning battles. This time it was my wife that was forcing me to go to church. But once we started going to church, I could tell something was different. It was like God was quietly waiting on me to come back to Him. Once I stepped back into church, it wasn’t long before I was looking forward to church and I was looking for ways to serve the Lord. Thankfully today God has given me the opportunity, desire, passion, and love to serve in different areas of ministry in and out of the church… Interestingly, I am now teaching sixth grade Sunday school. I feel God called me to teach sixth grade through other areas of my life, and honestly I didn’t relate my salvation in sixth grade to me teaching that age until I was halfway through my first year teaching.
God bless the battles (and mothers).
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I, unlike a lot of other testimonies did not give my life to Christ at a young age. In fact as a young person I didn’t really go to Church that much. My parents divorced when I was young and my mother and I stopped going for awhile. I don’t remember ever going to vacation Bible School and the only time I remember Sunday School is when I was 4 years old. During junior high and high school my Mother and I attended church regularly but I never devoted my life to Christ, I didn’t really know what that meant. When I left for college I did all of the bad things that college kids do. I joined a sorority and partied at least three or four nights a week. I completely turned my back on God. For four years I never gave him a thought.
After college, I got a great job and moved to a new town by myself. My first day at work a co-worker turned around and asked me if I had found a church family. Honestly, I hadn’t even thought of finding a church. She encouraged me to visit which I did and she had a FAITH team visit me one Wednesday night. On that night I realized how empty my life was without Christ. I let Him into my heart and the next Saturday I was baptized. It was one of the most wonderful days of my life. I felt like I had a new beginning.
I wish I could tell you that my life has been perfect since I accepted Christ. But I am human. I have had my share of mistakes, but I know now that Christ is there for me. He loves me no matter what I do and there is nothing that can change that. Since accepting Christ I have married the most wonderful Christian man ever. We encourage each other in our walk and God brings us closer every day. I know now that Christ is the most important thing in my life not money, work or material possessions. He is a constant presence in my life and I am so glad that I found him. There will be trials in my life, I will sin and do things that I will regret but I know through it all He will be there for me with a love that I cannot imagine.
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