My Testimony: A Story "To Be Continued..."

     On the surface, my story is black and white. My testimony of salvation began when I was five years old, and I barely remember my life before it happened. I can't tell you the specific date fourteen years ago that I surrendered my soul to Christ, but I do know that I had seen some older kids at my church get baptized and it made me curious. I only remember fragments of the night, like feeling God tug on my heart while I was taking a shower and praying with my mom and my twin sister in bed. One might even argue that it isn't my own story at all since my sister and I were saved together with our mom helping us form the prayers from our tiny hearts. I didn't have all the answers, and I still don't, but I knew I was a sinner. I knew I was dirty and that only Jesus could take that away. That night I was saved, but it's only the beginning of the story, the tiny spark that resulted in a testimony of God’s strength in weakness.

     Talking about sharing my testimony has always made me feel a bit uncomfortable. I used to think it was because I didn’t want to mess up and miscommunicate something important, and while that is still a slight issue, I know now that the main reason is because there's always been a part of me that doesn't want to come to shed light on my own vulnerability. Some of my earliest memories are feelings of uncontrollable weakness. When I was a child, I had extreme sensitivities to loud noises and certain textures, and this caused years of pain and embarrassment. I wanted desperately to feel like a normal kid, and I felt a sense of shame that made me do things to hide my problems, like telling my elementary school teachers every year that I got hurt on the bouncy castles at PTA night because I didn't have the words to describe my sensory overload outbursts and didn't want people to think I was acting like a baby. I didn't know it then, but looking back, I know that I felt broken, like there was something wrong with me and the other kids were somehow better than I was because they didn't have the same problem that I did. Eventually God brought music into my life, and being able to feel and control sound for myself greatly diminished my sensory issues to the point that no one could even tell I ever had them. I finally felt normal and I knew that I had God to thank, but my sin nature coupled with my independent streak caused me to build up walls around myself and around my heart. I told myself and everyone else that nothing bothered me and that I didn't need anyone’s help. I felt invincible, and even though I thought I was still surrendering to God every day, I was only holding Him at arm’s length. I had promised myself that I would do everything in my power to never have to feel vulnerable again, but I was forgetting that vulnerability was the very reason I needed salvation in the first place. I was saved, but I was still surrendering in shame instead of basking in the joy of my Savior.

   2 Corinthians 12:9 says, “But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you and my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly in my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” In my struggle to suppress my weaknesses, I was forgetting that God’s plans are made perfect in weakness. God never chooses the strongest people to show His power because then those who saw what happened would think that the power came from man. Instead he uses the opposite of what is expected; Saul the persecutor became Paul the defender of the faith, and Moses the stutterer became the voice of his people. God is using me, the little girl who felt confusion and anguish in noise, to make a joyful noise for Him. Not only that, but He has also given me a mind that can sort through the roaring chaos inside to find the words to communicate in writing what my spoken words fail to convey. I know that it's a part of His plan for me as the girl who tried to be invincible to show others that ultimate joy is found in embracing a weakness that is wrapped in the stronghold of the Father’s arms. 

   I cannot tell you the ending of my testimony, because it hasn’t happened yet. A testimony of salvation is something witnessed that can be shared as evidence for God’s grace, and every day of my life is another part of the showering of love that God has given me to share with others. Until I get to heaven, my testimony will continue to grow and change, but I pray that it will be everything it needs to be so that others will come to Christ and form testimonies of their own. Every part of my life so far fits together perfectly to demonstrate to me what God has in store for eternity, and in the good and the bad I will strive to seek His presence and feel His plans in motion. For now, by the grace of God, this story is “to be continued,” and I hope to let Him use my weaknesses in making something beautiful and eternal unfold.