My Testimony

I grew up with one parent who had a Roman Catholic background and the other with a Lutheran background. I was baptized Lutheran as a baby. My parents never practiced anything actively and only went to church when we visited my grandparents in Kansas on Christmas. No one in my immediate family nor very likely my extended family is saved. I began journaling at age 13 and still own most of those journals. At that age I decided I was an Atheist because of all the emotional pain in my life. Most of my early childhood I exhibited signs of what I now believe was bipolar depression. This was probably inherited from my mother. I mocked God for years in my supposed intellectual Atheistic freedom. A friend and I would blaspheme the name of God for fun when we knew Christians were in the same room. Where the rubber met the road however I found myself in secret crying out to God to show Himself in my moments of pain. If He existed I hated Him. The problem was that He had already shown Himself so many years ago and even gave us an extensive record of it.

At around 16 yrs. old I met a girl who was and probably still is a cultural Christian, but not a true believer. I began an immoral relationship with her that went on and off for about 4 years. I was what people would now call a "goth." My life was defined by my hobbies, Metallica, Marilyn Manson, etc. Somewhere in that time I took a step to believe in a god. My reason was that it at least would stop the Christians I knew from getting emotional and arguing with me so angrily, but for the degree of hardness that was in my heart this decision could only really have been motivated by the supernatural drawing of the Holy Spirit. I began attending church with her and FOR her. At about age 18 I came to a point where I understood the facts of the gospel and prayed to receive Christ. This was followed by a worthless baptism and a mere outward attempt at morally reforming my life. I called myself a Christian and wore the proper name tag for months without ever having a divine change of heart and true regeneration.

One morning I believe I attended church alone and the pastor said something God used to demolish my fake faith. The pastor said, "Jesus' message is this: 'If you follow me, I'll take care of you. If you follow yourself or someone else... you're on your own.'" The Lord used those words to show me that maybe I was still on my own. Not long afterward was a period of roughly 2 weeks where I cried out to God in true repentance toward Him. My mind AND heart had changed so much so that I turned away from my faith in myself, the sins I so loved, and toward faith in Christ alone. The defining moment when I had assurance of salvation was when my sin weighed so heavily upon me that I had the same feeling as the feeling you have when you have hurt the person you love the most. I hurt the Lord with my sin and I knew it. I literally trashed or sold all kinds of junk in my life that defined me... who I WAS, but who I now was not. God put a desire in me to soak up His Word and I attended as many Bible studies as possible.

I eventually ended that relationship. God used my greatest idol (infatuation and a false concept of love) to bridge the gap between He and myself. Within the next few years God put a burden on me to lead His people despite my overwhelming introversion and gave me the desire to see others grow in their faith. I am 24 now. Within the past few years God has healed me of my bipolar depression and shown me that I have an Advocate in Jesus Christ as I struggle in the Christian life. I applied to Moody and got in on the first try. The Lord has provided miraculously to keep me here and I can only be grateful and pray that I glorify Him first in all that's written here and all to come. My family is still walking in darkness and headed for the lake of fire and I take every opportunity to share te gospel clearly with them and answer their questions.

May God be glorified in your reading of this and may the many "I's" and "me's" in the paragraphs above be overtaken by the work of Christ displayed in them!