Christian Testimony, pt. 3 - The Scales Fall Away

09/04/2009

<-- Part 1 & 2 that way.

So here we are. I'm in my Junior year of college and engaged in a climactic battle for my very soul. I didn't realize the significance of what I was experiencing at the time, but in hindsight I see how intense Satan was fighting for me. I was running headlong into Hell and not looking back.

But things were about to change. God is a fighter, too.

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My former boyfriend was enslaved to some very serious sins, but God began to use even him to reach me. You see, before he was convicted of a sexual offense and before he ever met me, he was involved in a mission team that had come to town to plant a new church. Indeed, he knew quite a bit about the Bible and had called himself a Christian for a good ten years. He had tried to share things with me during our relationship, but I wasn't open to listening to any of it from him, especially given how hypocritical it all seemed.

But after our breakup he kept persisting, so I'd sit and listen while he'd tell me things. It was the first time I had ever really heard about Jesus and what the Bible specifically said about him and his teachings. My reaction was not good. My roomie/friend had introduced me to the loving, compassionate nature of God, but my ex was sharing things with me that weren't so palatable. In fact, my reaction was fairly violent. I was indignant at some of the things I heard! Everything I heard, I heard through a feminist, liberal lens, so naturally I thought this Jesus character was anti-woman and super intolerant. It was really incredible how much anger I had toward a God I didn't even really believe in.

"I don't think Jesus is real," I said at one point. "A bunch of men just sat down together and made up these stories!"

I had started reading the Gospel of Matthew, but when I couldn't even believe that it was a true story...it didn't do me much good. Clearly I had a ways to go before I could even start listening to the Bible. First I had to know and believe that the Bible spoke of what was true.

I remember around that time, when I was all alone, I started, very timidly and cynically, to pray. "God, if you really exist..." was how I prefaced everything I said. Most of the time I just asked for a sign.

"Just show up here and let me see you!" I remember praying one night. "Then I will believe."

Then one day I was in Barnes & Noble and out of the blue I decided to go into the religious section. It was God leading me there, I really believe that, because I would have NOT gone in there on my own. One book stood out to me: The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel. I decided to buy it. I remember feeling embarrassed about even taking a Christian book like that up to the cash register.

A long story short, the book rocked my world. As I was sitting one afternoon alone in my apartment, I was reading it and had just hit about the halfway mark. Everything had been building, building, until finally I read something that truly...made the scales fall away from my eyes. I can still picture the moment in my mind's eye. I remember closing the book, tears filling my eyes, and whispering, "Jesus, you really do exist! You are God!"

Yes, it was that immediate and sudden. One minute I didn't know. One minute I didn't believe. The next minute I did.

After that I began voraciously reading the Bible. I accepted it all. The anger, the offense? Gone. Jesus was real. I was falling in love with him, hard and fast. The Bible was a true account of him and his teachings. There was nothing left to question. Either you accept it all or you don't. There really was no other option for me.

The only church I knew to go to was the one my ex had helped to start before he left it (it was an International Church of Christ [ICOC] denomination), so one weekend I determined I was going to go. I had never gone to church. I was so nervous I was about to throw up. But God strengthened me and I was able to walk in there. It was without a doubt one of the highs of my life. I loved it immediately.

Part of the ICOC's "method" of accepting members is requiring everyone to take part in an individualized Bible study. I met some amazing girls there and we started a Bible study immediately. They taught (as does the Catholic Church) that sins are remitted at baptism, so the ultimate purpose of the studies was to come to a final decision on whether one wanted to be baptized and live a new life as a Christian. I knew loooong before the end of our study that I wanted to be baptized. I was just ITCHING to do it. On March 5, 2003, on a dark Wednesday night, I was baptized in a cold hot tub in front of the entire church congregation. I will never, ever forget kneeling and shivering there in those waters and proclaiming with all confidence and tearful anticipation: "Jesus is Lord!"

"I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents." [Luke 15:10]

A wretch like me had been set free. Amazing grace, indeed.

Light flooded my life. In the course of a year I had gone from the very pits of sin...debauchery, impurity, rage, deceit...to the hilltops of grace. It sounds so romanticized but it was very, very real. I had teetered on the edge of Hell and almost chose to go down into that cesspool for the rest of my life. It would have been so easy. It would have been so easy to reject Jesus. To reject his existence, to reject his authority, to reject his teachings. I could have let the rage against him and his Christians burn and I could have continued on, doing things my way. There were many moments where I was determined I would. This Christian thing sounded too hard and it didn't fit into my worldview, anyhow.

But the Lord... *sighs* oh the Lord! He has done great things for me, and holy is His name. He has filled the hungry with good things and the rich He has sent empty away...



Part 4 to follow.

Year of the Priest, June 2009-2010

O Jesus, our eternal High Priest, give us truly holy priests who, inflamed with the fire of Your divine love,
seek nothing but Your greater glory and the salvation of our souls. Amen.