Christian Testimonies...Share your stories

[Big C]

A brief testomony of mine can be read on the "outreach" boards under "bangers, addicts, and ex-cons". I would like to encourage all christians because serving CHRIST takes much more strength and perserverence than any occupation in this world! We all have a testomony because until you reconize yourself as a sinner,,,you can never truly come to CHRIST! Blessings to everyone out there!!!

 

[HoT-MetaL]

Hey everyone.

I was brought up as a Hindu by my Dad, and a Christian by my Mum.
By the age of about 7 or 8 there was a real battle for my soul, as my mum prayed and prayed and prayed. I think I was more of a hindu than a christian by this time.

But God came through, and I started to go to Chuch.

The thing I always remember about Hindu ceremonies was the eyes - the eyes of the people there. They were dead. Even as a young child God had given me a discernment. The guy doing the 'puja' (its hindu worship, I dont know how to spell it) just had no life in his eyes. I remember looking around and just seeing black in their eyes. Immediatly I saw that this was death.

At the age of 15 I told my Dad that I was a christian, that I would love and respect him as a father, but I was going to church. For about 3 to 4 months he never spoke to me, never acknowledged me, nothing. Even through my birthday and christmas he never said a word to me.

In this same year I went to Soul Survivor. During the 10 000 people worship God gave me a vision. He showed me a desert. The sky was red, like blood, and it seemed almost scorched. Out of the sky came two hands. I recognised one had was that of the Devils, and one hand was that of God. On the Devils hand there were a few people lined up to step on, and a few people in his hand. On Gods hand there was a whole line of people, it went off into the horizon, coiled like a roller-coaster ride queque. Gods hand was full of people. God then said to me, "Neil, one day you will be a part of this." I heard it to say that God is going to use me to save thousands.

So this was really the spark that lit the fire. After this I KNEW that God wanted me on a Leadership Training Course, 3 weeks of intensive work. I was still at school, so it was VERY difficult for me. But God came through, and I passed the course.

At the age of 15 I was put into church leadership. I lead a youth cell that God grew four fold.
At the age of 16 I preached to my church for the first time.
At the age of 17 I was invited on my first mission to Kenya.

I have no relationship with my Dad, we speak (except on Sundays when I go to church, or when I go away for a church weekend, or when he see's me reaading my bible) but theres no father-son relationship.

When I pray I see God as Daddy. HE is my Daddy. On the cross Jesus cried out ABBA Father... For me its the same, I have no relationship with my Dad here on Earth, but I have a relationship with my Dad up in heaven.

God Bless, and thank you for reading this, Metal.

 

[kerux]

My story begins when I was 10 years of age; my family was attending a small church in rural Harristown, IL. The name of the church was Union Baptist Chapel, and the pastor was a man named Dan O'Keefe. Pastor O’Keefe and I went to one of the fast food restaurants in Decatur, IL to talk about what it meant to accept Jesus Christ as my personal savior. Through this conversation, I decided that I wanted to know for sure that I had this eternal life he was talking about. About two to three weeks later I went forward and accepted Jesus as my savior and was baptized. This was very exciting for me, because this meant that now I had eternal life. Little did I know that within the next two years, I would begin a downward spiral away from God.

When I was about 12 or 13 years old, a friend of mine suggested that I smoke a marijuana joint with him. At first I was afraid, but after a little convincing I agreed. This whole experience was definitely weird, but I liked it enough to make a habit of smoking pot. Around this same time, this friend and another friend had discovered a book that spelled out for the most part how to become a satan worshipper. This sounded kind of cool to us, so we decided that we would meet in one guy’s basement after school, and initiate ourselves. After the first day of these so-called initiations, the kid’s mom found the stuff in the basement. She then proceeded to call the other guys mom, who in turn called my mom. We ended up over at the second guys house with all our parents, as well as two pastors. That night we all got chewed out for about 4 hours straight, this put a fast end to the satan worship idea.

I first felt called into the ministry by God when I was 17 years old. Instead of doing what God wanted, however, I took off the other way.

At 19 I began to share an apartment with a couple buddies of mine. This period was a non-stop party. We were drinking morning, noon, and night. I was working the 11-7 shift at a home for developmentally disabled adults at the time, and was going to work half drunk most nights.

After this, I began to share an apartment with just one of the friends. Even though it was a different apartment, the lifestyle was pretty much the same.

The beginning of July 1991 was another time for me to fall on my face. I was hanging out with the wrong crowd and subsequently got wrapped up into some trouble. One guy and myself were cruising the strip when we pulled into a parking lot to talk to some friends of his; before I knew it about 6 police cars surrounded us. He had a duffle bag in the floorboard of the car, which had a sawed-off shotgun in it. Since I was driving I was charged with a misdemeanor of illegal possession of a weapon. Something that will follow me around for life.

In July of 1991, I began to date my wife. We dated for a year and a-half and were married on December 7, 1992. We had a 6-month-old daughter at the time we were married.

Things never did go very good for us; we were consistently getting evicted from places, as I would not keep a job. Finally, in 1994, I decided to go to Job Corps, which lasted only about 3 months. When I came home, my wife got pregnant with our second child, this one a boy. Things were still not going good because of my job habits.

We had another child in 1999, another girl. Things were going good when the job I had as a security guard working 55-60 hours a week went away. We then got behind in our rent, thus being evicted from yet another place. We were then in a major decision, there was a homeless shelter that we could have went and stayed at, yet the kids would have been on the women’s side of the shelter with my wife only and not with both of us. We decided that it would be best for my wife and 3 children to stay at her mother’s house.

In the beginning of the year 2001, things were finally starting to look better. I had a job where I was happy, our kids were growing like weeds and we were getting somewhere. We then decided to move back to Decatur and I would drive back and forth to work. Little did we know that the van we had would break down and stop running all together. Thus, once again, things began to look very bad for us. We got behind in rent for what felt like the millionth time in our marriage.

Finally in 2001 I began to pursue what God had wanted me to do when I was 17. I enrolled in Bible College. I felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders when I decided to recommit my life to God, and allow Him to help me through my problems.

 

[keeki]

I don't think anyone can, or should "pick apart" a personal testimony. Jesus has different ways of calling people as well.

I'll keep mine simple: My parents were Presbyterian, sort of. They also attended Congregational & Baptist churches at times. But I was never taught I had to have a personal relationship with Jesus, or that I needed to be born again. To me, Jesus was a baby in a manger at Christmas time. Santa Claus was the "deity" that my family seemed to "exalt."
My parents divorced when I was pretty young and church stopped then. I was told I was protestant and there were some big family issues when one of my cousins married a Catholic. So I didn't get too much teaching at all on what it really means to be a Christian, except prejudice, including prejudice against blacks.
As a teenager I got into drinking and drugs as many do. I spent a few years in an atheistic private school. In my later teens I became interested in the occult, mainly through the words of certain rock musicians. It was subtle at first, then me and a few friends got pretty deeply involved. I was also an amatuer songwriter, and I wrote some heavily demonic heavy metal materiel. (I shared that part of my testemony on the testimonies forum already)
In my early 20's I'd been searching for power and control through a variety of occult beliefs and practices, as well as psychadelic drugs. I began to have suicidal thoughts at one point.
But for a couple of years, maybe 3, God had been sending witnesses my way. I hated hearing their talk about Jesus. Then in 1985 I asked a question into the air (literally) if there was any other way besides the way I'd been going (or death) and if anyone was out there, please show me. A silent voice (like the "still small voice" that spoke to Elijah) said, "There is another way. I am Jesus, you can turn to me."
I immediately confessed my sins and asked Jesus to save me.
I woke up the next morning and felt I'd changed. I tore down my occult postors, got rid of my satanic books, jewelry & paraphanalia. Within 3 weeks I gave up liqour, drugs and cigarettes. It wasn't until 6 weeks later I started attending church. this is how I KNOW that it was God, and God alone that made the changes, and i experienced 2 Corinthians 5:17 ~ I became a new creature, old things were passed away and all things became new. That was 19 years ago.

wowee....that's so amazing...thank you for sharing!