How we got here...
Natalie's Testimony of God's Mercy and Grace
“Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what He has done for my soul.” -Psalm 66:16
As a very young child, I remember my older sister and I had a lot of questions about God and would spend our nights contemplating who He was before falling asleep. I look back on that and find it very interesting that, even at such a young age, He was working in our hearts. When my sister was 14 (and I was 12), the Lord saved her at a youth retreat and she came home a completely different person. I was amazed at her unshakeable trust in God’s sovereignty and her love and joy in Him that outpoured on others around her, and I felt my heart burning for that relationship with Christ for myself. I began begging God to save me at the age of 14 but I had no power to change. I continued to walk in sin and in desperation, began trying to fill the horrible, aching void in my heart with relationships with boys. At 17, I ran away from home to live with my high school boyfriend, which devastated my family. He quickly became abusive and I spent the next year in physical, mental and verbal abuse. There were several times that I was very close to committing suicide, but God kept me from it. When I was almost 19, I escaped that situation and shortly afterwards, returned to my family’s home and began restoring those broken relationships with them as best as I could.
I continued to pray for salvation, and in my despair, began my further spiral downward. I recognized that Jesus was the only way to be made right with God, but I knew I didn’t have Him nor could I obtain Him, and I knew I was on my way to Hell, but I was powerless to save myself and powerless to choose not to sin. I lost all hope and in my frustration and despair of not being saved, I threw myself into a dangerous and destructive lifestyle of partying, boys and alcohol just to drown out my reality as much as I possibly could. But in the quiet times when I was alone, I still had a horrible yearning to be saved and to be with Jesus.
The spring that I was 20, I went into a massive depression, due to my spiritual need, and didn’t get out of bed for almost three months. Then one day, my sister came to me and asked me once again to attend a church service with her. I didn’t feel comfortable going, but I agreed anyway, because I was desperate. I remember sitting in the pew on Sunday and feeling completely out of place and unworthy to be there. You see, I had this crazy and ungrounded idea that Christians were sinless, and I just felt black with sin, like I was making their building dirty with it. But Christ held me there and I began to go every week, as well as to small groups and to Biblical Counseling too. The pastor of this church, Providence, was preaching through Romans and I was receiving counseling through the books of Ephesians and Galatians as well. I once again began begging Christ to save me throughout the next six months and in that October, 2001, Christ saved me while I was at work, struggling to read my Bible. It was as if the veil was lifted, or the scales fell off, and all of a sudden, I could understand what Scripture said for the first time in my life! I ran through my workplace looking for my fiancée (and future husband) to tell him that I could finally understand God’s Word!
After that moment, I was no longer the same person. I could not only understand, but I had the power (by the Holy Spirit) to choose not to sin for the first time in my life. I no longer desired the same things- partying, drinking, complete selfishness, etc. but desired to be like Christ and know Him more and now I had the power to do so. It is truly amazing to be taken from such darkness into such marvelous light! I had found that the void of my heart was filled by Christ and it no longer ached and hurt anymore. I had and have a complete trust and assurance in Him and a love for others because of His love for me and by the power of His Spirit I can change and be sanctified more into His image and die to self. And most importantly, I will spend a glorious eternity with Him and can never be separated from Him.
Not long after my conversion, I was married, and right from the beginning, my husband and I have both desired to GO to places where there is great need for desperate, broken and dying people (just as we once were) to hear the Truth and if God so wills, find their rest and solace in Jesus Christ, the Savior.
“Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what He has done for my soul.” -Psalm 66:16
As a very young child, I remember my older sister and I had a lot of questions about God and would spend our nights contemplating who He was before falling asleep. I look back on that and find it very interesting that, even at such a young age, He was working in our hearts. When my sister was 14 (and I was 12), the Lord saved her at a youth retreat and she came home a completely different person. I was amazed at her unshakeable trust in God’s sovereignty and her love and joy in Him that outpoured on others around her, and I felt my heart burning for that relationship with Christ for myself. I began begging God to save me at the age of 14 but I had no power to change. I continued to walk in sin and in desperation, began trying to fill the horrible, aching void in my heart with relationships with boys. At 17, I ran away from home to live with my high school boyfriend, which devastated my family. He quickly became abusive and I spent the next year in physical, mental and verbal abuse. There were several times that I was very close to committing suicide, but God kept me from it. When I was almost 19, I escaped that situation and shortly afterwards, returned to my family’s home and began restoring those broken relationships with them as best as I could.
I continued to pray for salvation, and in my despair, began my further spiral downward. I recognized that Jesus was the only way to be made right with God, but I knew I didn’t have Him nor could I obtain Him, and I knew I was on my way to Hell, but I was powerless to save myself and powerless to choose not to sin. I lost all hope and in my frustration and despair of not being saved, I threw myself into a dangerous and destructive lifestyle of partying, boys and alcohol just to drown out my reality as much as I possibly could. But in the quiet times when I was alone, I still had a horrible yearning to be saved and to be with Jesus.
The spring that I was 20, I went into a massive depression, due to my spiritual need, and didn’t get out of bed for almost three months. Then one day, my sister came to me and asked me once again to attend a church service with her. I didn’t feel comfortable going, but I agreed anyway, because I was desperate. I remember sitting in the pew on Sunday and feeling completely out of place and unworthy to be there. You see, I had this crazy and ungrounded idea that Christians were sinless, and I just felt black with sin, like I was making their building dirty with it. But Christ held me there and I began to go every week, as well as to small groups and to Biblical Counseling too. The pastor of this church, Providence, was preaching through Romans and I was receiving counseling through the books of Ephesians and Galatians as well. I once again began begging Christ to save me throughout the next six months and in that October, 2001, Christ saved me while I was at work, struggling to read my Bible. It was as if the veil was lifted, or the scales fell off, and all of a sudden, I could understand what Scripture said for the first time in my life! I ran through my workplace looking for my fiancée (and future husband) to tell him that I could finally understand God’s Word!
After that moment, I was no longer the same person. I could not only understand, but I had the power (by the Holy Spirit) to choose not to sin for the first time in my life. I no longer desired the same things- partying, drinking, complete selfishness, etc. but desired to be like Christ and know Him more and now I had the power to do so. It is truly amazing to be taken from such darkness into such marvelous light! I had found that the void of my heart was filled by Christ and it no longer ached and hurt anymore. I had and have a complete trust and assurance in Him and a love for others because of His love for me and by the power of His Spirit I can change and be sanctified more into His image and die to self. And most importantly, I will spend a glorious eternity with Him and can never be separated from Him.
Not long after my conversion, I was married, and right from the beginning, my husband and I have both desired to GO to places where there is great need for desperate, broken and dying people (just as we once were) to hear the Truth and if God so wills, find their rest and solace in Jesus Christ, the Savior.
Michael's Testimony of God's Mercy and Grace
“Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what He has done for my soul.” -Psalm 66:16
Over 17 years ago, the Lord brought me out of darkness into His marvelous light. He did this for a reason. He has been unfolding my life since then, guiding me with His relentless love, blessing me along the way with a family. He has included me into His family, redeemed and ingathered from every tribe and tongue and nation and people group. He has given me a precious wife and 4 priceless sons. He has taken one who formerly hated Him, despised His church, walked in rage and rebellion against Him, and has made me His child. He gave hope to a hopeless man. He gave a reason to live to one who longed to end his own life through suicide. He gave a wife and children to one who formerly hated all women and families. He breathed life into a walking dead man. He gave me eyes to see. He gave me ears to hear the voice of my Shepherd. He gave me a new heart and His Holy Spirit within me.
Even now, after all of these years, the thought of this overwhelms me. The tears are flowing and there is this lump within my throat making it hard to swallow. He could have left me alone. He could have allowed me to continue in my own ways destined to slip into the pit of eternal destruction. He could have allowed me to fade away into the darkness of despair and death. But He had a plan. He interceded, interrupted my chaos, for the sake of His own glory and joy and love and mercy. I don’t fully understand it all. I may never understand it all. But I am His and He is mine.
I spent most of my days in darkness, blinded by my own ignorance and driven by my own flesh’s desires. Born in iniquity; Abandoned early by my earthly father. And yet, looking back on those years now, this side of grace, I can see His presence there through it all. “Goodness and Mercy have been following me all the days of my life”, as David once said. I can see His Providential hand in my life, even before my birth, in the stories that my mother tells of her early years, the death of her mother, the care the Lord provided for us in a woman who would become our Aunt. Amazing how He has always been there watching over me and caring for me, my Natalie, and my sons.
He is Sovereign and even after these 17 years I am still learning to trust Him. I see in my own heart so much that is wrong and weak and sinful, yet He continues to hold me by His right hand and walks with me at a pace that I can handle. Sometimes I try to run ahead of Him; sometimes I drag my feet. But He is always faithful. He is always there. The old song says it well, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” This thought comforts me and at the same time stirs sorrow deep within me. I think about those, who like me, were raised in darkness, without a father there to teach me things a boy should learn from his daddy: how to ride a bike, fly a kite, go fishing, love his wife, lead his children,work, care for a dog. A father who should have taught me about the Lord with his words and by his example.
I look at my own family, now, through joyful tears, and I can’t breathe because I am so overwhelmed by God’s goodness toward me. What mercy He has shown the children of fallen men!
What about the young men in places without Christ? What about the children who, dwelling in darkness, seek to solve the pains of their souls with sex, drugs, alcohol, and ultimately suicide? What about the broken families and the broken men who have lost all hope in how they can fix it? What about those who have been without hope for so long, that in the callousness of their own hearts, they have stopped ‘feeling” anything? That was me. That is the baggage I carry. It is mine. It is my story of Him to use for the goodness of helping others.
But, I am learning by the grace of God, and through the help of my wife, to see my baggage, my past, as a glorious gift from the Lord that I can now use to help those who are still suffering and bound in darkness. He has created us for a purpose. He took me through life the way He did for a reason. He has made me an example to those who WILL be saved (1 Tim 1)….an example of His mercy.
“Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what He has done for my soul.” -Psalm 66:16
Over 17 years ago, the Lord brought me out of darkness into His marvelous light. He did this for a reason. He has been unfolding my life since then, guiding me with His relentless love, blessing me along the way with a family. He has included me into His family, redeemed and ingathered from every tribe and tongue and nation and people group. He has given me a precious wife and 4 priceless sons. He has taken one who formerly hated Him, despised His church, walked in rage and rebellion against Him, and has made me His child. He gave hope to a hopeless man. He gave a reason to live to one who longed to end his own life through suicide. He gave a wife and children to one who formerly hated all women and families. He breathed life into a walking dead man. He gave me eyes to see. He gave me ears to hear the voice of my Shepherd. He gave me a new heart and His Holy Spirit within me.
Even now, after all of these years, the thought of this overwhelms me. The tears are flowing and there is this lump within my throat making it hard to swallow. He could have left me alone. He could have allowed me to continue in my own ways destined to slip into the pit of eternal destruction. He could have allowed me to fade away into the darkness of despair and death. But He had a plan. He interceded, interrupted my chaos, for the sake of His own glory and joy and love and mercy. I don’t fully understand it all. I may never understand it all. But I am His and He is mine.
I spent most of my days in darkness, blinded by my own ignorance and driven by my own flesh’s desires. Born in iniquity; Abandoned early by my earthly father. And yet, looking back on those years now, this side of grace, I can see His presence there through it all. “Goodness and Mercy have been following me all the days of my life”, as David once said. I can see His Providential hand in my life, even before my birth, in the stories that my mother tells of her early years, the death of her mother, the care the Lord provided for us in a woman who would become our Aunt. Amazing how He has always been there watching over me and caring for me, my Natalie, and my sons.
He is Sovereign and even after these 17 years I am still learning to trust Him. I see in my own heart so much that is wrong and weak and sinful, yet He continues to hold me by His right hand and walks with me at a pace that I can handle. Sometimes I try to run ahead of Him; sometimes I drag my feet. But He is always faithful. He is always there. The old song says it well, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” This thought comforts me and at the same time stirs sorrow deep within me. I think about those, who like me, were raised in darkness, without a father there to teach me things a boy should learn from his daddy: how to ride a bike, fly a kite, go fishing, love his wife, lead his children,work, care for a dog. A father who should have taught me about the Lord with his words and by his example.
I look at my own family, now, through joyful tears, and I can’t breathe because I am so overwhelmed by God’s goodness toward me. What mercy He has shown the children of fallen men!
What about the young men in places without Christ? What about the children who, dwelling in darkness, seek to solve the pains of their souls with sex, drugs, alcohol, and ultimately suicide? What about the broken families and the broken men who have lost all hope in how they can fix it? What about those who have been without hope for so long, that in the callousness of their own hearts, they have stopped ‘feeling” anything? That was me. That is the baggage I carry. It is mine. It is my story of Him to use for the goodness of helping others.
But, I am learning by the grace of God, and through the help of my wife, to see my baggage, my past, as a glorious gift from the Lord that I can now use to help those who are still suffering and bound in darkness. He has created us for a purpose. He took me through life the way He did for a reason. He has made me an example to those who WILL be saved (1 Tim 1)….an example of His mercy.