From: Jada
Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2006 10:51 AM
To: Alison
Subject: My testimony
I became a child of God at the tender age of 5. It was a Sunday evening. The pastor had preached a message about making sure we were ready for eternity, and I could not stop thinking about the fact that if I died that night, I knew I would never see my mom, dad, sister or brother again. I sat quietly through supper and afterwards asked my mom if I could talk to her alone. We went into my parents’ bedroom & I told my mom I needed to ask Jesus into my heart. She sat beside me as I prayed a simple prayer asking God to forgive me for my sin & to come into my heart.
Around the age of 12 or 13 I began to doubt whether or not I had really been saved, because I had such a rebellious heart at times. One night I could not go to sleep because these thoughts had overtaken me. Again I went to my mom and asked her to pray with me. I asked God to take my heart as His forever and to give me the courage to live my life for Him.
As the years passed I strayed from the Lord many times. I lived my life as I wanted to with little concern for what the Lord wanted. I let my own desires take precedence over what God had planned for me. This continued through high school & into college.
I met my husband after one year of college, at the age of 19, and two years later we were married. For the first few years of our marriage, we did not attend church regularly, and I slipped further and further away from the Lord. I was never happy because I knew that I was not living my life as I should be, but I didn’t want to acknowledge the Answer because that would mean I would have to make serious changes in my life & there were things I did not want to give up.
Four and a half years ago my family experienced a tragedy that rocked us each to our very core. I never imagined I would ever experience the agonizing heartache of losing a sibling, and I reeled from the shock and devastation of it. I had a hard time accepting that something so awful could actually be God’s will, a part of His plan for my life. I began to realize though that His Word is true and that He has a purpose for every single thing that happens to me, no matter how big or how small, how good or how bad.
I cannot pinpoint one exact moment when I decided to make those changes but my husband & I were having a conversation one evening about a lot of different things & the subject of church came up. I was thrilled to hear him say almost the exact words that I was prepared to say – that we needed to start going to church again. I was so excited that we were on the same page. God had been working hard on both of us to get us to the same place at the same time.
We began attending Hampton Park Baptist Church, and after just one service there, we knew that we belonged there. God touched our hearts & we knew we were ‘home’. We have been faithfully attending HP for the past couple of years & in our time there, I have grown more spiritually than I ever had previously. The preaching is Christ-centered, God-honoring truth & every week I can’t wait to see what the Lord has in store for my soul through the words of Pastor Conley.
My prayer is that God would continue to keep me close to Him and keep me faithfully studying His Word each & every day, always striving to know Him more.
“Faith is a living, daring confidence in God's grace, so sure and certain that a man could stake his life on it a thousand times.” - Martin Luther
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
2 Tim. 4:7
I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
John 15:5
Jada Perry
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