My Testimony

 

“Do not remember the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions; according to Your mercy remember me, for Your goodness’ sake, O Lord.” ~Psalm 25:7

Even as a child, I thought and felt deeply about things. I can remember lying on my back in the grass on a summer afternoon, watching the puffy white clouds drifting lazily across the vibrant blue sky. I was alone in the field surrounding our rented farmhouse, and I was five years old. I remember that I was watching the clouds and wondering about them. Was God up there somewhere with those clouds?

I had heard about God my whole life. My mother was (and is) a devout Christian, and my parents took us to church regularly.

One day, I heard my parents talking about someone who had died. Death was something I feared. I asked my mom what happened when people died, and we talked about heaven and hell. I was afraid of hell, and I knew I didn’t want to go there. Through tears, I told my mom how scared I was to die, and she told me if I loved and believed in Jesus and gave my life to Him, I would go to live with Him in heaven when I died.

I couldn’t remember a time when I didn’t believe in Jesus. I had always believed in Him. In my childlike mind, I knew and understood that He had come down from heaven to be born as a baby to the virgin Mary (I had no idea what the “virgin” part meant, though), and then He lived a sinless, perfect life, and died on a cross to save me from my sins. Then He rose back to life on the third day after being crucified, and went back to heaven. I fully believed that.

So, that day with my mom, I prayed a prayer, asking Jesus to forgive me for my sins, and to “come into my heart.” I felt happy knowing that at least I wouldn’t have to go to hell when I died.

When I was nine, we had moved to a different state, and we went to a different church. Some of my friends were going to get baptized, and I decided this would be a good time for me to be baptized, too.

About two years later, my parents separated, and I moved to a different state with my mom and brother. We moved from a small town to a large city, and my whole world was turned upside down.

Now that Mom was a single parent, she worked all the time. She had a long commute from our apartment in the suburbs to her job in the city. My younger brother and I each had a key to the apartment, and we would come home to an empty house, on our own for several hours. We were nine and eleven years old.

Usually, we had friends accompany us to our house. or we went to theirs. Their parents weren’t home, either. We would spend the afternoon watching MTV, eating microwaved pizza bites, drinking Dr. Pepper, and playing video games.

At first, my grades were good. The teachers at my new school liked me. I was quiet and compliant, always did my homework neatly, and never caused any trouble.

But I felt lost in the sea of students at my large middle school. And worse, some of them were picking on me. I had glasses and short, curly hair. I had no clue about the latest fashions, and we didn’t have the money to buy a $50 pair of Guess jeans. I hated my life. I realized that in order to stop being picked on, I had to become cool somehow. I ditched the glasses for contacts, grew my hair out long, and started wearing makeup.

Fifteen Years Old
By the time I was fourteen, no one was bullying me anymore. Guys were interested in me, I had some loyal best friends, and life was good. Or at least it should have been, I thought. Except it wasn’t.

It was all empty. Relationships with guys, dating, cool clothes, the “in crowd,” it was all emptiness and meaningless.

Around this time, I started partying. It was summer, and parents were going out of town on vacation, leaving their teenagers at home to fend for themselves. And that meant an empty house with no parents. Which meant “party time.” And that meant lots of smoking, drinking, and loud music.

I won’t describe everything that happened at these parties, but it was a wild time. Then disgruntled neighbors would call the cops, several police cars would show up, and we would all run to our vehicles and drive off as fast as we could, before we got caught.

We had friends in college, so we went to several college frat parties with more of the same type of debauchery, only worse.

On nights when there wasn’t a party, we would go to nightclubs downtown. Even though I was only fifteen, I could pass for eighteen. An older girl who had similar features gave me her old ID to use. One night my best friend and I snuck out of my house after my mom was asleep, and stole her car. We drove it from the suburbs all the way downtown. I didn’t even know what I was doing, and I could have killed us, driving at 80 miles per hour and then flooring it to 100 on the interstate.

One night during a Nine Inch Nails concert at a club, someone gave me some LSD to try. Another night at a party, someone passed around a marijuana joint. And this was my introduction to drugs.

My life began spiraling downward. All I had wanted was to be accepted and to find love and happiness, but it had all turned into a sad, depressing nightmare.

Trying to escape my grim reality, I switched schools several times (including a private Baptist school, a Catholic college prep school, and ending up at an inner-city public school) and began to identify with the goth crowd. I started spending a lot of time alone in my room, listening to sad, depressing music. My life seemed devoid of meaning, and empty. I contemplated suicide. I started wearing all black, as sort of an outward expression of the darkness inside of me.

I had trouble on every side. Trouble at school, trouble at home, trouble with friends, trouble with guys.

Where are you, God? How can I reach you? You’re so distant, and I can’t see you. How will I ever get out of this mess? I hate my life. Please, help me!

“Let my prayer come before You; incline Your ear to my cry. For my soul is full of troubles, and my life draws near the grave.” ~Psalm 88:2-3

One day, I was desperate. I was skipping school (which I did frequently those days), and I just wanted all the internal turmoil and misery to end.

I reached for the Bible my mom had given me. I opened it and began to read, through tears. And a miracle happened. It was as if a dear, loving Friend had written me a letter. It was personal and full of love. God was real. He heard my prayer and was speaking gently and lovingly to my heart.

All those Bible stories I had grown up hearing, they actually meant something! They were deep and powerful. They all pointed straight to a beautiful, loving Savior. To a Heavenly Father who loved me deeply, and knew me even before I was born.

“My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.” ~Psalm 139:15-16

My life had meaning and purpose.

“‘For I know the thoughts that I think toward you,’ says the Lord, ‘thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.'” ~Jeremiah 29:11

I repented of all the sin that had enveloped my life for years. The lying, stealing, cheating, hating, partying, cussing, and so much more. I repented of every single wrong thing I had ever done (that I could remember), in detail. I asked God to forgive me for it all. And then I started making phone calls and writing letters, asking those I had wronged to forgive me, too. It was very hard, but I felt so unburdened and so free afterward!

“I acknowledged my sin to You, and my iniquity I have not hidden. I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,’ and You forgave the iniquity of my sin.” ~Psalm 32:5

But I’m getting ahead of my story. That day when I was skipping school and picked up the Bible in desperation, my whole life changed. I was sixteen years old.

When my mom came home from work, I told her what had happened, and she cried and hugged me. She was so happy! You see, through all of those years, she had been praying for me. When she could tell that I was really going through some dark waters, she increased the level of intercession.

One day, a man my mom didn’t know walked up to her at church. He said, “I don’t know what this means, but I feel the Lord wants me to tell you that He has heard your prayer, and He has answered it.”

Mom said she knew immediately that this was in reference to her fervent prayers for me, and she began thanking God for what He was going to do in my life. And shortly after, I truly gave my heart and life to Him.

Gone were the fears, the depression, the self-loathing. I had real joy for the first time in my life!

I destroyed all the old music tapes I had collected through the years. I stopped partying, stopped smoking, stopped drinking, stopped reading romance novels and fashion magazines. We got rid of our TV.

No one told me that I had to do any of those things (not even Mom). I just felt like I wanted a fresh start, and I didn’t want those things in my life anymore.

I left my high school and began home educating myself. I read through the Bible in a few months, completed my high school studies, took college courses, got a full-time job at a medical clinic, and then enrolled in a Bible school.

Twenty years old, in Paris on a mission trip
 
Years later, I was re-baptized, just because I wanted a redo now that I really knew the significance of what I was doing.

With some friends in Paris (I’m on the far left.)
 
And my parents? They got back together after eleven years of separation, and they are still together today. I’m so thankful for their love, support, and prayers!

In London at a YWAM station
 
God is good. My twenty-three years of following Jesus haven’t been easy. In fact, some things have been harder since I became a Christian.

But even during deep suffering or sorrow, Jesus is the reason for the hope I have during difficult times. He’s my reason for living.

Soli Deo Gloria! To God alone be the glory!

“I love the Lord, because He has heard my voice and my supplications. Because He has inclined His ear to me, therefore I will call upon Him as long as I live.” ~Psalm 116:1-2

“For You have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from falling. I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living.” ~Psalm 116:8-9

“I will praise You, for You have answered me, and have become my salvation.” ~Psalm 118:21

26 Comments

  1. I was just going through my inbox deleting some emails and unsubscribing from others. I came across the email sent when this was originally posted. What awesome testimonies (both yours and your parents). Thank you for sharing. I'm keeping that email.

    Reply

  2. Praise God! I love reading believer's testimonies and I thank God for your post today. It is good to be connected to each other this way. Thank you so much for sharing. How we come to Christ, and then continue growing in him is always such an uplifting read. Praise Jesus for you and your mom's diligent prayers.

    Reply

  4. Thanks for sharing your testimony Joy!! Sharing our testimonies helps us remember what we've been saved from and how far the Lord has taken us. Thank-you also for pointing out your mother's prayers. That really encourages me to pray more for my own children and to remember that God is at work even when it may not look like it. May God's Name be glorified and souls be drawn to Him through the work of the Lord in your life! Love you!

    Reply

    1. Thanks for reading it and for your sweet words, Kristin! As I was writing it I was very encouraged to recall just how much I'd been saved from. So many times I could have died, and yet my life was spared. Love and miss you!

      Reply

  5. Very interesting testimony. It's easy to turn over a new leaf as an older married person whose partying days are over anyway! But it was a very brave thing for you to repent and start a new life when you were a partying teenager. You must have been very strong.

    Reply

  8. Thank you for your testimony Joy. I love how God answered the prayers of your mother. I have a son who was raised as a Christian but now as an adult says he no longer believes. My heart was broken to hear him say that. I pray every day for him, and your story has encouraged me so much. Thank you so much for sharing. 🙂

    Reply

    1. My heart goes out to you and your son. As a mother myself now, I can imagine how my waywardness must have caused deep grief and pain to my mom. Keep praying for your son! God definitely hears the prayers of a mother for her child. I just said a prayer for you and for him. ♥

      Reply

  9. What a fantastic testimony! My own is similar but dark years were longer and my parents didn't know God. It is so wonderful to see how opens up people and draws them to Himself. One thing that i really liked in your testimony was how the bible was instrumental in your rededication. The Bible is what opened my heart initially as well.

    Reply

  10. Thank you for sharing this. It's sometimes easy to think of Christian bloggers as always being "good" people who have always had it "all together." I'm sure this testimony will bless many who come to realize we are all sinners who need Jesus and His saving power.

    Reply

  12. Thank you for taking the time to write out your journey. God's grace shows clearly in so many points of your story. It is true that all the world has to offer leaves one feeling quite empty. What a testimony also to the power of His Word. Even the desire to read the Bible that day was a gift from God. Praise God for being so rich in mercy! ~Jennifer H.

    Reply

    1. Thank you so much! I know what you mean about hearing testimonies–it always strengthens my faith to read about God's grace in the life of a fellow believer. Thanks again for commenting! ♥

      Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Or, you can subscribe without commenting.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.