When we had been attending the church for 3 years, a decision was made that someone was needed for missionary work in the Philippines. We had been married 2 years and we had just had our first son. We had a large hospital bill and were not sure if we could go. We talked with the hospital about our income and surprisingly, they forgave all our debt. We took that as a go-ahead to go to the Philippines. You are probably thinking by now that our church doesn’t do things the way most churches do. We don’t have board members, or the average set up of a business-church. When there is a need, our church looks to take care of that need. There was a need in the Philippines, so someone was needed to go there and help. The church chose us.
We arrived in Mindanao, the southern island, in May 2007. We brought 2 backpacks with all of the belongings we could fit in them. Our son had just turned 1 the week before we went. The plan was to stay a year since our visas were only good for that long.
The first few months were a time of adjusting. We also just found out that I was expecting our second child. It is very hot there and there are inconsistencies with the electrical companies so we were without power a lot. We would just sit around and eat ice popsicles to keep cool. My husband was gone most of the time to meet with people so our son and I were at home alone. I started to get very homesick and was having a difficult time. I felt that I was living on another planet. We didn’t know the language yet, so it was very hard communicating with anyone. I went through a state of depression and finally told my husband about it. I know that God’s grace helped me through that difficult time. I was willing to do whatever He wanted me too, be it however miserable, and when I was at my weakest point, He was there to help me through. About the time I was really struggling, we went to visit a family on the northern island of Luzon. While we were there, our house burned down in Mindanao from an electrical fire.
We had come in contact with more people while visiting Luzon for a few weeks, and really had no serious contacts in Mindanao at that time. We had been in Mindanao to help a man who was with the SDA (Seventh Day Adventist) church, but he had seemed to be in disagreement with what we were doing and teaching by the time we left to go to Luzon in Sept. Because of this, it was decided that we should stay in Luzon.
Our second son was born in Luzon a few months before our visas expired for the year. We had planned to try to have a natural birth (our first son was an attempted home birth that resulted in a C-sec) and everything was going well with the pregnancy. I was due on Feb 20th. On Feb 7th my water broke and we went to the hospital. Our son had to be delivered by c-sec since they could not induce due to me having a c-sec with our first son. When didn’t know it at first, but our son had what is called GBS (Group B streptococcus) It was so severe that it caused both of his lungs to collapse. He also had severe Pneumonia and was put on antibiotics immediately. He was put on life support and was not taking in oxygen due to his lungs, and his is O2 levels were at 20%. The specialist that was called in told us that we had to administer a drug within 12 hours of him being born for it to work. This drug would cause his lungs to start taking in the oxygen. There were many problems with this, a few being that it may not work because it mainly works for preemies and he was full term, and we had to come up with the money for the drug(2000$) in about 6 hours. Our bank was in the US and we have all these time zones to go through, so it was a real challenge to do it. I can say that it was nothing short of a miracle. We were able to get the money and but the medicine within a few hours left of the time. We didn’t know what the outcome would be for the next 12 hours. We just prayed through the night that the Lord’s will be done and that if He wanted to take him, we were surrendered to that. After 2 ½ weeks in intensive care, we were able to bring our son home. He will turn 1 this Feb 7th and is a precious joy to all of our lives.
We just returned from a brief 4 month stay in the US for financial reasons. We have church in our home here, with 2 families that have decided to follow Jesus. My husband is now teaching ESL in a Korean school to help support ourselves. That’s about as up to date as it gets. If you read this testimony and had any questions pop up in your mind, please look at our website (it’s the Church of Monett link). We address all the doctrinal beliefs on it and also what we are doing here and in the US. If you have any feedback, feel free to post.
Showing posts with label My Testimony. Show all posts
Showing posts with label My Testimony. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Baptized for the Faith
After a few months of seeing the light and walking in it we decided to get baptized. My boyfriend had been baptized when he was 7 by the church secretary in the Baptist church. He was the “classic case” so to speak. He didn’t think that he was ready to be” saved” since he really had no idea what that meant. All he knew was that he didn’t want to go to Hell. So he said the “sinner’s prayer” and was added to the weekly “New member’s” quota. When we started reading the bible, we both saw that a child cannot decide to be a Christian until they are accountable for their own sins and can choose to follow Christ in everyday life. For example, Jesus says in Matt 5 “to look at a women and lust after her is adultery”. Can a child do that? Most definitely not. So they can not repent of such things. Also we saw that the bible teaches that baptism is like the death of the old self, and dying to sin and the world. When we saw the verses that teach what baptism is and who it is for, my boyfriend knew that at the age of 7, he was qualified to have been baptized. He was rebaptized, or baptized in the true sense, and I was baptized with him. A month after our baptism, we decided to get married.
Taking up the Cross
The more changes that I would make, God would show me more areas that I needed to change. And with these choices to change came a cost. With the choice to dress modestly and to eventually start wearing a veil came ridicule and separation from my friends and family. With the choice to separate myself from worldly things like TV, going to the movies, listening to worldly music, and celebrating holidays came more separation from family and friends and misunderstandings. My family and friends started to think that I was being brainwashed. I even had some of my closest friends try to talk me out of doing these things and they tried to tell me that it was crazy to believe in such things. Some of these friends also said that they believed that “since there is a God, then there has to be a goddess”.
I realized that real Christianity required choosing to do what was right, no matter what the cost, and that there always was and is a cost for choosing to follow Christ. The bible calls it“taking up the cross”. When you take up a cross, you are picking up an instrument of death. When you follow the bible, you choose to pick up a cross daily and die to your feelings, your desires, even your own reasoning. This is meant to try those who choose to follow Christ to see if they are genuine or not. The modern church would make it an easy choice to follow Christ by just saying a prayer, getting your golden ticket into Heaven, being an avid church member and still enjoying life the way you always have. You see, there is no cost in that type of choice, but only gain. Christ requires us to give our lives back to Him, and to let Him control every part of our lives. This was something so new to me. I had never seen anyone doing this in the modern church circles that I had attended. So I had to scrap all the junk I had been taught from those churches, since they weren’t even trying to follow the bible in the everyday simple things like dressing appropriately, purity in marriage, loving your neighbor, loving your enemies, the order in the home etc...
I realized that real Christianity required choosing to do what was right, no matter what the cost, and that there always was and is a cost for choosing to follow Christ. The bible calls it“taking up the cross”. When you take up a cross, you are picking up an instrument of death. When you follow the bible, you choose to pick up a cross daily and die to your feelings, your desires, even your own reasoning. This is meant to try those who choose to follow Christ to see if they are genuine or not. The modern church would make it an easy choice to follow Christ by just saying a prayer, getting your golden ticket into Heaven, being an avid church member and still enjoying life the way you always have. You see, there is no cost in that type of choice, but only gain. Christ requires us to give our lives back to Him, and to let Him control every part of our lives. This was something so new to me. I had never seen anyone doing this in the modern church circles that I had attended. So I had to scrap all the junk I had been taught from those churches, since they weren’t even trying to follow the bible in the everyday simple things like dressing appropriately, purity in marriage, loving your neighbor, loving your enemies, the order in the home etc...
Getting rid of my clothes
I had been thinking mostly about the clothes that I wore and knew that God wanted me to change. So I started to study about modesty.
I never knew that modesty applied to clothing. I thought that it was like being shy or embarrassed. When I did realize that it had something to do with clothing and the way you dress, I thought that I was modest because I didn’t wear the skimpiest thing that I could find, and I was embarrassed to be seen in a swim suit most of my life. But when I saw what the Bible said about modesty I realized what it wasn’t. It isn’t just covering up you body so that your skin doesn’t show( you can do that by wearing a spandex cat suit that is skin tight, or by wearing skin tight jeans with a tight long sleeve turtle neck) but that it is dressing in a way that hides the shape and doesn’t draw attention from the opposite sex. Modest clothing does not fit tightly to accent the parts of the body that attract others, but hangs loosely and covers the body to conceal those parts.
When I realized this, jeans and pants were out of the question, since they are specifically made to accent certain areas, plus they are made to be tight fitting. All the clothes I had were completely immodest by definition so I got rid of almost all my clothes. I knew that I needed to wear dresses or skirts and loose shirts, but I had a real hard time finding any at all the stores I looked at. So it took me a long time to get some modest clothing. I actually had to have some made to fit the definition of what I saw in the bible. The bible doesn’t say exactly to dress in this sort of clothing, this color, this length etc... Rather it gives the reasons for dressing in that way and lets the reader decide what to where according to the reasons. Some people may argue that “I can wear pants and still be modest”. And I agree that some pants could be modest, but let me ask you this. When you go to a public restroom and are looking for the right one, does the picture on the girl’s bathroom have a girl wearing pants or a dress? Even society has separated boys and girl’s clothing in the correct manner! I hope that that would answer the pants question. So once I started to do what the Bible said in that matter, it was as though someone was shinning a light on the next step ahead on the path that I was beginning to walk on.
I never knew that modesty applied to clothing. I thought that it was like being shy or embarrassed. When I did realize that it had something to do with clothing and the way you dress, I thought that I was modest because I didn’t wear the skimpiest thing that I could find, and I was embarrassed to be seen in a swim suit most of my life. But when I saw what the Bible said about modesty I realized what it wasn’t. It isn’t just covering up you body so that your skin doesn’t show( you can do that by wearing a spandex cat suit that is skin tight, or by wearing skin tight jeans with a tight long sleeve turtle neck) but that it is dressing in a way that hides the shape and doesn’t draw attention from the opposite sex. Modest clothing does not fit tightly to accent the parts of the body that attract others, but hangs loosely and covers the body to conceal those parts.
When I realized this, jeans and pants were out of the question, since they are specifically made to accent certain areas, plus they are made to be tight fitting. All the clothes I had were completely immodest by definition so I got rid of almost all my clothes. I knew that I needed to wear dresses or skirts and loose shirts, but I had a real hard time finding any at all the stores I looked at. So it took me a long time to get some modest clothing. I actually had to have some made to fit the definition of what I saw in the bible. The bible doesn’t say exactly to dress in this sort of clothing, this color, this length etc... Rather it gives the reasons for dressing in that way and lets the reader decide what to where according to the reasons. Some people may argue that “I can wear pants and still be modest”. And I agree that some pants could be modest, but let me ask you this. When you go to a public restroom and are looking for the right one, does the picture on the girl’s bathroom have a girl wearing pants or a dress? Even society has separated boys and girl’s clothing in the correct manner! I hope that that would answer the pants question. So once I started to do what the Bible said in that matter, it was as though someone was shinning a light on the next step ahead on the path that I was beginning to walk on.
Walking in the Light
After the service the next Sunday, we stayed around for a while and asked some questions. My conscience was still bothered by the way I was dressing, so I asked some questions regarding the clothes I saw the women wearing. I also asked why they wore “that thing on their heads?” Bro D. just opened up the Bible and showed me what the Bible said about the veiling and modest clothing. He said” Read these scriptures and tell me what they say.” So I read it, and it very clearly said that women should dress modestly, and cover their head when they pray or prophesy - period. It was so simple and easy to see that it meant just what it said. I got my answers straight from the Bible. He didn’t give me any answers out of any theology books or bible help books; he just showed me the scriptures. He said” God wouldn’t tell us to do something that we couldn’t do, and that’s what we believe so we do what the Bible says”.
The next couple of weeks were sort of an awakening period for the two of us. Neither one of us had ever seen what we were seeing in the Bible before, nor had we ever been taught that the bible should be taken literally and obeyed. Bro D. said that if we had a question about anything in the Bible, we need to look up all the verses that pertain to the subject of our question and read all the context that the verses are in. That way we would be rightly dividing the Word of God, not just taking the verse that fits our view or what we think that it should mean. So that is what we did. My boyfriend started to make changes before I thought that I needed to. He cut his hair short, started getting rid of his trendy clothes, threw out his magazines and got rid of his TV and cds. When he did this, I was still thinking about a lot of things and hadn’t really made any changes myself. So I was thinking” Wait a minute!! Why are you getting rid of everything? There is nothing wrong with those things!!” He talked with me about it and told me “All of these things have separated me from God, and I don’t want them anymore because they will never bring me closer to God, but will distract me from Him.” I really thought about what he said and saw that it was the same case in my own life. So I had some changes to make.
The next couple of weeks were sort of an awakening period for the two of us. Neither one of us had ever seen what we were seeing in the Bible before, nor had we ever been taught that the bible should be taken literally and obeyed. Bro D. said that if we had a question about anything in the Bible, we need to look up all the verses that pertain to the subject of our question and read all the context that the verses are in. That way we would be rightly dividing the Word of God, not just taking the verse that fits our view or what we think that it should mean. So that is what we did. My boyfriend started to make changes before I thought that I needed to. He cut his hair short, started getting rid of his trendy clothes, threw out his magazines and got rid of his TV and cds. When he did this, I was still thinking about a lot of things and hadn’t really made any changes myself. So I was thinking” Wait a minute!! Why are you getting rid of everything? There is nothing wrong with those things!!” He talked with me about it and told me “All of these things have separated me from God, and I don’t want them anymore because they will never bring me closer to God, but will distract me from Him.” I really thought about what he said and saw that it was the same case in my own life. So I had some changes to make.
The Ugly Brown Cup group
We left a little while after the service and my boyfriend and I were discussing what we thought about it on the way home. At this point, I was not really interested in going back. I thought that maybe they were some sort of cult, and I also did not like the way my conscience was bothering me while I was there. My boyfriend thought that they dressed kind of strange, but he told me” I’ve been in churches all my life and all of them were like the beautiful, golden goblets decorated with jewels in the Indiana Jones 3 movie. They looked beautiful on the outside but on the inside they were just dead and the same as every other church. These people are different; they are like the brown wooden cup that no one would look for. These people are the Ugly Brown Cup group!” When he said this, I knew exactly what he meant. I too had been involved in all different kinds of churches, and they were all the same. They all had the same message, and the same product from that message.
These people were unlike any group that called themselves a “church”. They had something that was real to them, and you could tell that it permeated every part of their lives. We decided to go back the next Sunday to investigate what that something was. We thought that if they were a cult, they would be doing things that were not in the bible, like handling snakes or bringing harm to themselves or others. We had grown up knowing about people like David Cirecsh and how he, and others that started cults, told their followers that they had revelations from God, or would twist the scripture to mean something that they wanted it to mean (most of these groups were not allowed to even read the Bible except for the leader) or called themselves God, or had some kind of knowledge of the future that no one else had etc. So we knew that if it was a cult, things like that would show up. So we went back the next week.
These people were unlike any group that called themselves a “church”. They had something that was real to them, and you could tell that it permeated every part of their lives. We decided to go back the next Sunday to investigate what that something was. We thought that if they were a cult, they would be doing things that were not in the bible, like handling snakes or bringing harm to themselves or others. We had grown up knowing about people like David Cirecsh and how he, and others that started cults, told their followers that they had revelations from God, or would twist the scripture to mean something that they wanted it to mean (most of these groups were not allowed to even read the Bible except for the leader) or called themselves God, or had some kind of knowledge of the future that no one else had etc. So we knew that if it was a cult, things like that would show up. So we went back the next week.
Seeing the Light
About 4 months after we came back from the trip to New York, something happened that would change our lives forever. We had sort of been looking at how our lives were and we wanted to stop doing a lot of things that we saw were destructive (i.e. smoking drinking, drugs, etc) so we were making efforts to do this. We even considered going to a church, but we had no idea where to go. We actually looked in the paper to find one!
One night, while I was working in the bar I managed my boyfriend stopped by - I was surprised to see him since he had just left 2 hours before to go to a party in a nearby town. He sat down and said “The most amazing thing just happened!” I would have never guessed what he was about to tell me. “I just meet a man on the street, and we talked for a long time about the bible. He answered questions for me that I had never had an answer to, and explained it in such a simple way. What do you think about going to his church tomorrow?” I agreed but asked if it would be okay to go there looking the way we did. He said “Yeah, I asked the guy if I could bring my girlfriend.”
That night we made plans to go to this church the next morning. We got up early and drove 1 ½ hour away. We didn’t know what time the service started so we showed up early. We knocked on the door, and the man that my boyfriend had talked with answered. At the time I didn’t recognize this man, but later I would learn that this was the man I had seen so many times before in the downtown district where I worked. He stood on the sidewalk every weekend holding signs with messages on them against drinking and partying; all the bad things that people were doing in the place I worked. When I saw him my friends and I would mock him.
When we arrived at church that morning he looked a little surprised, but he was hiding it I’m sure. He let us in and feed us breakfast, and then we sat around and talked for a little while. We heard people coming in the church, so we went upstairs for the service to start. Nothing prepared us for the type of church that this church was. All we had ever known of churches were large congregations of people charged up for a Christian rock show. Deacons ready to meet you at the door and walk you through a sinner’s prayer. Singles and youth groups designed by a sociologist, ready to jump in the church van and take them out for lunch and a movie and then get them saved. We were accustomed to churches remodeled by an interior decorator. Sound system capable of rocking the whole neighborhood with the gospel tunes. Walls and ceilings plastered with huge crosses, decorations with flowers and plants and the blare of a band to rev everybody up.
When we entered this church there was nothing like any of that. There were the old wooden pews with no padding, no cross in the background, and a simple pulpit. There was nothing really important to comment on - in fact there wasn’t even an amplifier to carry the preachers’ voice across the street. The people we saw looked like they were from another planet, and I’m sure that they might have been thinking the same thing. The women were dressed in long dresses or skirts and extremely modest shirts. Some of them wore a veiling (I had no idea what the veiling was at the time) so I thought that it was quite strange. The children were dressed unlike I had ever seen children dress before. They too were wearing dresses and skirts, and the little boys were wearing very plain button up shirts. Not actually your “Sunday best” garb I had always been accustomed to wearing. I instantly felt that I was dressed inappropriately and was quite embarrassed to be around the children since I was being a bad example by that. It was odd for me, because I had the attitude of” I don’t care what people think of me, and if they can’t accept the way I look, so what.” But I was completely ashamed to be around those children! My boyfriend wanted to sit in the front, which I was not comfortable with, but complied. I sat there through the entire service with my head low and could not wait to get out of there, so that the feeling of condemnation would be lifted from my conscience. After the service, we talked with some of the members, who surprisingly I found to be quite human and normal. Some of them said that they knew where I was coming from since they use to live the same kind of life. I felt really comfortable with them after this, and did not think that they were judgmental, but that they sincere and concerned.
One night, while I was working in the bar I managed my boyfriend stopped by - I was surprised to see him since he had just left 2 hours before to go to a party in a nearby town. He sat down and said “The most amazing thing just happened!” I would have never guessed what he was about to tell me. “I just meet a man on the street, and we talked for a long time about the bible. He answered questions for me that I had never had an answer to, and explained it in such a simple way. What do you think about going to his church tomorrow?” I agreed but asked if it would be okay to go there looking the way we did. He said “Yeah, I asked the guy if I could bring my girlfriend.”
That night we made plans to go to this church the next morning. We got up early and drove 1 ½ hour away. We didn’t know what time the service started so we showed up early. We knocked on the door, and the man that my boyfriend had talked with answered. At the time I didn’t recognize this man, but later I would learn that this was the man I had seen so many times before in the downtown district where I worked. He stood on the sidewalk every weekend holding signs with messages on them against drinking and partying; all the bad things that people were doing in the place I worked. When I saw him my friends and I would mock him.
When we arrived at church that morning he looked a little surprised, but he was hiding it I’m sure. He let us in and feed us breakfast, and then we sat around and talked for a little while. We heard people coming in the church, so we went upstairs for the service to start. Nothing prepared us for the type of church that this church was. All we had ever known of churches were large congregations of people charged up for a Christian rock show. Deacons ready to meet you at the door and walk you through a sinner’s prayer. Singles and youth groups designed by a sociologist, ready to jump in the church van and take them out for lunch and a movie and then get them saved. We were accustomed to churches remodeled by an interior decorator. Sound system capable of rocking the whole neighborhood with the gospel tunes. Walls and ceilings plastered with huge crosses, decorations with flowers and plants and the blare of a band to rev everybody up.
When we entered this church there was nothing like any of that. There were the old wooden pews with no padding, no cross in the background, and a simple pulpit. There was nothing really important to comment on - in fact there wasn’t even an amplifier to carry the preachers’ voice across the street. The people we saw looked like they were from another planet, and I’m sure that they might have been thinking the same thing. The women were dressed in long dresses or skirts and extremely modest shirts. Some of them wore a veiling (I had no idea what the veiling was at the time) so I thought that it was quite strange. The children were dressed unlike I had ever seen children dress before. They too were wearing dresses and skirts, and the little boys were wearing very plain button up shirts. Not actually your “Sunday best” garb I had always been accustomed to wearing. I instantly felt that I was dressed inappropriately and was quite embarrassed to be around the children since I was being a bad example by that. It was odd for me, because I had the attitude of” I don’t care what people think of me, and if they can’t accept the way I look, so what.” But I was completely ashamed to be around those children! My boyfriend wanted to sit in the front, which I was not comfortable with, but complied. I sat there through the entire service with my head low and could not wait to get out of there, so that the feeling of condemnation would be lifted from my conscience. After the service, we talked with some of the members, who surprisingly I found to be quite human and normal. Some of them said that they knew where I was coming from since they use to live the same kind of life. I felt really comfortable with them after this, and did not think that they were judgmental, but that they sincere and concerned.
Life changing choices
When I was 22, I moved into an apartment by myself. I was still holding down the same jobs in the restaurants and bars that I had worked in for the past 3 years. It was at this time that I went through a very lonely and dark depression. I would cry myself to sleep a lot. I hadn’t had a boyfriend for about 1 year, and I felt very lonely since everyone else around me was in a relationship. That Christmas, my parents gave me a bible. It sat in the box that it came in for about 2 months. One night, I decided to take it out and try to read it. I didn’t even know where the New Testament was, so I started in Genesis. When I looked at the words on the page, it was like they were written in some unknown language. I couldn’t even read through the first chapter. So I put it back in the box and it stayed there until 2 years later.
I had decided to move in with a friend to save money when I was 24. The year before, I had made a trip out to San Diego, California to visit my brother who had moved there a few years before. When I was there I made the choice to move there by the next summer. So when I came back, I moved out of my apartment and moved in with my friend. He needed help with rent. One day, about 6 months after I moved in he came home with a friend that I vaguely remembered meeting before. He was younger than me by about 4 years and had a girlfriend at the time. I saw him from time to time over the next 2 months. Then my roommate suggested one day that I date his friend. I said” No way! He’s too young for me, and besides, he has a girlfriend”. My friend then told me that they had broken up. So the next time I saw him, I thought about what my friend had said. We ended up becoming friends, this turned into a relationship beyond friendship. I struggled with the decision I had made about moving to San Diego that summer, because I didn’t want to break off the relationship. He asked me to take a trip with him to New York to visit his sister, and I decided to take the money I had saved to move to California and spend it on the trip to New York. It was final that I was not moving.
I had decided to move in with a friend to save money when I was 24. The year before, I had made a trip out to San Diego, California to visit my brother who had moved there a few years before. When I was there I made the choice to move there by the next summer. So when I came back, I moved out of my apartment and moved in with my friend. He needed help with rent. One day, about 6 months after I moved in he came home with a friend that I vaguely remembered meeting before. He was younger than me by about 4 years and had a girlfriend at the time. I saw him from time to time over the next 2 months. Then my roommate suggested one day that I date his friend. I said” No way! He’s too young for me, and besides, he has a girlfriend”. My friend then told me that they had broken up. So the next time I saw him, I thought about what my friend had said. We ended up becoming friends, this turned into a relationship beyond friendship. I struggled with the decision I had made about moving to San Diego that summer, because I didn’t want to break off the relationship. He asked me to take a trip with him to New York to visit his sister, and I decided to take the money I had saved to move to California and spend it on the trip to New York. It was final that I was not moving.
My testimony
Choosing to walk in darkness
Well, I figured that my testimony would be the best place to start my blog, seeing that you don’t know me and probably won’t ever meet me face to face, or maybe you do know me and don’t really know much about my life. I’ll just use this as a way to introduce myself, and also so you will know where I’m coming from when you read future posts. I’ll break this up into a few posts, so bear with me as it might take a little while to publish it all.
I was born in California and lived there until I was 10 ½ years old. We were basically your average American family – two kids and a dog. I have 1 brother who is 5 years older than me, so I’m the baby of the family. My parents owned an automotive business that did real well financially. My family and extended family have always claimed to be apart of the Baptist church, my great grandfather being a Baptist preacher. So we were raised going to church at Baptist churches. Both my brother and I attended public schools until we graduated. When I was 10 ½, my parents decided to move our family to Missouri. We ended up moving into a small town with the population of around 7000. It was a huge change for us, because all we ever had known was California city life, so we had quite an adjustment.
When I was about 12 years old, I started feeling accountable for my life and actions. At that time, my family was attending a First Baptist church and I was in the youth group, choir, and all the other activities that go along with it (i.e. co-ed lockdowns, swimming parties, movie nights etc.) It was during this time that I started to choose the path of darkness. I really struggled for awhile, because I wanted to do what was right, but everything that was in my life was teaching me ungodliness. Yes, my parents did try to teach me right from wrong and instill good in my character, but the World had always been apart of our home and it controlled us wholeheartedly. We celebrated every holiday the way the world does, watched TV daily (including MTV and the other channels that kids shouldn’t watch), rented the latest movies ( including romance, horror, comedy with all the junk that comes with them) wore the coolest fashions, ate at popular restaurants, and just enjoyed everything the world had to offer. My friends were worldly and I was heavily influenced by them also.
At this age I started feeling that I was doing wrong somehow, and that God wanted me to do what was right. The only ideas of righteousness that I had were to not do bad things like smoke, drink, drugs, lying etc, because my parents didn’t do those things. So when I would do anything that I knew was wrong, I would feel terrible. But I didn’t know how to stop. My parents would tell me that something was wrong and that I shouldn’t do it, but then we would sit down as a family and watch a movie that glorified the things they said were wrong. This showed me that sin wasn’t rejoiced over, but that it was tolerable.
This is where the confusion began, because I had heard what the Baptist taught. “Not one is righteous, no not one!” the preacher asserted from the pulpit every Sunday. After hearing this it made sinning seem acceptable, and inevitable. So trying to change the bad things I was doing was actually pointless, because it was suppose to be impossible.
So I realized that the salvation message I was taught and was useless, since everyone who believed it was suppose to be “made righteous” yet they expected to forever live as sinners. All of this seemed really frustrating and pointless, so I quit going to church altogether, and dove head first into the world - I never got saved. If you’re reading this you may be thinking “that poor girl” or “someone should have helped her”; but not getting “saved” or going down the “Romans Road” was actually the best thing that happened to me.
By the time I started high school two years later, I was fully walking in darkness. I rebelled against my parents in every possible way. I went to co-ed sleepovers, drinking parties, dyed my hair, got facial piercings, and started experimenting with drugs. My brother had also chosen to walk in darkness and I looked up to his example, and followed it in every way that I could. I had multiple boyfriends and with those came visits to the health clinic for birth control, abusive relationships, emotional torments from breakups, more drugs, and more darkness. I fought daily with my mother, I was disrespectful and hateful. I ended up moving out with some friends at 17 to get away from “being told what I can and can’t do”.
With this new found freedom in my life, I did whatever pleased me. I could hold down a job if I liked it, but I could also quit it just like that if I didn’t. I had gotten a job in a city, so I was traveling back and forth to work. I had also moved back in with my parents for about 6 months to save money. My mother and I got into another argument, so I moved in with some acquaintances to the city I was working in. I was about 19 at this time. I moved around quite a bit for the next few years; living by myself, having roommates, and also living with my brother for a time. My jobs varied from one thing to another. I mainly had jobs at restaurants and popular bars in the downtown district of the city I lived in. Waiting tables was the type of work I had always done since my parents bought a restaurant when we moved to Missouri. I liked the atmosphere and I got to met new people all the time. Of course this introduced me to even more darkness, and I became absorbed with trying to make a lot of money and live life to the fullest while doing it.
Well, I figured that my testimony would be the best place to start my blog, seeing that you don’t know me and probably won’t ever meet me face to face, or maybe you do know me and don’t really know much about my life. I’ll just use this as a way to introduce myself, and also so you will know where I’m coming from when you read future posts. I’ll break this up into a few posts, so bear with me as it might take a little while to publish it all.
I was born in California and lived there until I was 10 ½ years old. We were basically your average American family – two kids and a dog. I have 1 brother who is 5 years older than me, so I’m the baby of the family. My parents owned an automotive business that did real well financially. My family and extended family have always claimed to be apart of the Baptist church, my great grandfather being a Baptist preacher. So we were raised going to church at Baptist churches. Both my brother and I attended public schools until we graduated. When I was 10 ½, my parents decided to move our family to Missouri. We ended up moving into a small town with the population of around 7000. It was a huge change for us, because all we ever had known was California city life, so we had quite an adjustment.
When I was about 12 years old, I started feeling accountable for my life and actions. At that time, my family was attending a First Baptist church and I was in the youth group, choir, and all the other activities that go along with it (i.e. co-ed lockdowns, swimming parties, movie nights etc.) It was during this time that I started to choose the path of darkness. I really struggled for awhile, because I wanted to do what was right, but everything that was in my life was teaching me ungodliness. Yes, my parents did try to teach me right from wrong and instill good in my character, but the World had always been apart of our home and it controlled us wholeheartedly. We celebrated every holiday the way the world does, watched TV daily (including MTV and the other channels that kids shouldn’t watch), rented the latest movies ( including romance, horror, comedy with all the junk that comes with them) wore the coolest fashions, ate at popular restaurants, and just enjoyed everything the world had to offer. My friends were worldly and I was heavily influenced by them also.
At this age I started feeling that I was doing wrong somehow, and that God wanted me to do what was right. The only ideas of righteousness that I had were to not do bad things like smoke, drink, drugs, lying etc, because my parents didn’t do those things. So when I would do anything that I knew was wrong, I would feel terrible. But I didn’t know how to stop. My parents would tell me that something was wrong and that I shouldn’t do it, but then we would sit down as a family and watch a movie that glorified the things they said were wrong. This showed me that sin wasn’t rejoiced over, but that it was tolerable.
This is where the confusion began, because I had heard what the Baptist taught. “Not one is righteous, no not one!” the preacher asserted from the pulpit every Sunday. After hearing this it made sinning seem acceptable, and inevitable. So trying to change the bad things I was doing was actually pointless, because it was suppose to be impossible.
So I realized that the salvation message I was taught and was useless, since everyone who believed it was suppose to be “made righteous” yet they expected to forever live as sinners. All of this seemed really frustrating and pointless, so I quit going to church altogether, and dove head first into the world - I never got saved. If you’re reading this you may be thinking “that poor girl” or “someone should have helped her”; but not getting “saved” or going down the “Romans Road” was actually the best thing that happened to me.
By the time I started high school two years later, I was fully walking in darkness. I rebelled against my parents in every possible way. I went to co-ed sleepovers, drinking parties, dyed my hair, got facial piercings, and started experimenting with drugs. My brother had also chosen to walk in darkness and I looked up to his example, and followed it in every way that I could. I had multiple boyfriends and with those came visits to the health clinic for birth control, abusive relationships, emotional torments from breakups, more drugs, and more darkness. I fought daily with my mother, I was disrespectful and hateful. I ended up moving out with some friends at 17 to get away from “being told what I can and can’t do”.
With this new found freedom in my life, I did whatever pleased me. I could hold down a job if I liked it, but I could also quit it just like that if I didn’t. I had gotten a job in a city, so I was traveling back and forth to work. I had also moved back in with my parents for about 6 months to save money. My mother and I got into another argument, so I moved in with some acquaintances to the city I was working in. I was about 19 at this time. I moved around quite a bit for the next few years; living by myself, having roommates, and also living with my brother for a time. My jobs varied from one thing to another. I mainly had jobs at restaurants and popular bars in the downtown district of the city I lived in. Waiting tables was the type of work I had always done since my parents bought a restaurant when we moved to Missouri. I liked the atmosphere and I got to met new people all the time. Of course this introduced me to even more darkness, and I became absorbed with trying to make a lot of money and live life to the fullest while doing it.
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