BLOGGY TOUR OF TESTIMONIES

(I was reading blogs yesterday and I found this lady Lauren over at Peach's blog and she is having a Bloggy Tour of Testimonies so I signed up on her blog for this too. Once you've read mine, go over to Created For His Glory and read Lauren's and then sign up too if you'd like to be a part of this.)

This is by no means my final testimony. I believe it will change more and more as the years go by - but this is where I am now. You see, I don't want to have a testimony only of what God did for me in the past and how He saved me, there is no futur in the past - I want a testimony after being saved too, of how He has used me and what He has continued to do for me. So this is what my testimony looks like for now, I will definitely be adding more to it one day...

I have known the Lord from a very young age. I can remember feeling His presence and love in my life from as young as 4 years old. I can remember experiencing heartache and pain on learning about His crucifixion and how incredible it was. I remember waking up at night because of a strange feeling and presence that would be inside me, around me and fill my bedroom, and although it would scare me a little, it was not the kind of fear that would make me flee to my mother’s bed.
(A while ago, I realized that, that feeling and that presence I experienced as a little girl was the Holy Spirit.)

I can remember sometimes at primary school, if I had no-one to play with I would play with Jesus, and chat to Him, and if I heard someone saying bad things or swearing or if I saw someone doing something wrong, I would simply quietly repeat the prayer that Jesus repeated on the cross to God “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”
I remember in grade 2 a girl in my class asked me if I would teach her to pray – and I knew then that Jesus had a plan and a purpose for my life.

Sadly when I got to high-school, I lost some of that innocence and childlike faith and I strayed far away from my precious Jesus, and when I finished high-school I continued to stray. I made all my own decisions and in so doing made so many mistakes and my life went in a direction that was not in God’s plan for me.

Oh He never left me; it was me who left Him. I could always hear Him calling me and whispering to my heart, but I chose to ignore it. I chose to go another way, thinking I knew all there was to know and that I could do it without Him. It was my decision to smoke, my decision to drink – though none of them I did illegally, cos I was not underage when I did those things, not that that justified it in Gods eyes, but that was what I told myself. It was my decision to have sex before marriage and cause myself so much confusion and pain. I never uttered one swear word until I got to high-school. Then I started to cuss and swear – I never used Jesus’ name and though that also is not justification in Gods eyes, it was what I told myself.

It was during matric year in high-school and after matric that I started drinking and smoking, and because of this – I never got good marks on my final exams. All the time I could hear God calling my name, tugging on my heart and calling me home. But I continued to behave in a way that would be accepted by society and by my friends and I did things that I was so ashamed of and thought God would never be able to forgive, and so I shut out His voice completely from my life.

Then one day, after I was married, I realized that I could no longer hear or feel God in my life – though He had always been there, it was me who had turned away from Him and I felt a huge yearning and loss right in the middle of my heart. Oh how it hurt to know that I had lost my dearest friend, my Father, the only one who had always been there for me. How my heart broke when I realized that I had turned my back on the only one who loves me unconditionally. I had strayed so far from Him that I could no longer even hear his gentle whispers.

And I decided it was time to turn back to Jesus, so I began to hack back through all the thorny sins that had entangled themselves around my heart and I cut away at each one and once I had the forgiveness of Jesus and His hand finally caught mine through my struggling and pushing and reaching, my heart finally found rest. He pulled me to His chest and held me so close; He whispered to me and asked me if I knew how much He loved me. He removed all the sin that taken root in my heart and He told me I was His child, forgiven and washed clean by His blood and that He was so so happy that I had returned to Him at last.

Since that day I have again experienced the wonderful presence of Jesus in my life, and I will live my life in a way that is pleasing only to my savior, my Precious Jesus. I want to be a servant and I take comfort in knowing that He loves me unconditionally and never EVER recalls nor remembers past and forgiven sins. My Jesus loves me and He is always with me and my life will be empty and meaningless without Him. I am living for Him, for Jesus, and I cannot wait for the day that I get to see His beautiful face and hear His voice when He says “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”