Being asked to write ‘my testimony’ is both an honor and a daunting task. The truth is, my conversion often seems like just a small part of how God has continually flooded me with grace and unconditional, illogical love.
I was taught about the character of God years before I understood the full implications of grace and redemption (Who does?). I was raised by a devoutly Catholic mother who often told me about an all powerful, loving, nurturing God as she would tuck me in at night. She taught me all the standard Bible stories, and they never left me. She died when I was 14, and as a teen and young adult I was a ‘seeker’ in the truest sense of the word. I read the Book of Mormon, Buddhist writings, the life of Gandhi, secular humanistic teachings, and more. None of this, however, ‘stuck’. My mom had lain too stable of a foundation.
During this time of seeking, God bestowed His grace on me in so many ways:
Ø My college roommate was the campus ‘Jesus freak’. He drove me crazy, and, at the same time, showed me the love of Christ in ways I’d never seen from a peer before.
Ø I totaled my brother’s car on icy roads on my 22nd birthday. Had I slid left instead of right, I would be dead today. I came out without a scratch.
Ø I hitchhiked from Farmington to Portland with a friend during hurricane David in 1979. We didn’t so much as catch a cold.
Ø Patterns of sin in my life, that may not be appropriate for this format, never led to the potential damage these things could have caused.
After college, I accepted a job in South Carolina, teaching in a rural school system. I saw a poster up in the Laundromat one Saturday advertising a local folk singer coming to the Methodist church in town. Being lonely and bored,and a fan of folk music I went. This became my home church. After a year and a half, the church had a ‘lay witness weekend’; basically a revival meeting led by lay people. An elderly, retired doctor from Georgia befriended me, answered my questions patiently, and, on Saturday night, invited me to the altar. By this point in the weekend, Jesus had already gotten hold of my heart, but I gladly went forward to make my conversion public.
In truth, this is where my testimony starts, not where it ends.
Ø God has brought me out of a pattern of self injury and allowed me to help several young people through the same struggle.
Ø Within a week of my conversion, Sue came to the Lord, and we were engaged shortly afterwards. I have been faithful to the same woman ever since.
Ø God comforted us through years of infertility treatments and consultations and gave us three children that were conceived naturally.
Ø God has taken my favorite hobby, juggling, and turned it into an evangelistic ministry that has traveled all over the US and into four foreign countries.
The truth is, though, that I need the grace of God as much today as I did in 1985, when I was converted. Praise God, He pours it out just as willingly as He did then.