My testimony of faith

Before I dive into everything I am excited to share about my faith in this blog, I think it is important to share how I came to believe in the things I do.

I became a Christian 12 years ago. It happened shortly before I had a very serious back surgery and I had been in chronic, life altering pain for over a year. Prior to that I had some exposure to God and church, but mostly I would say I was agnostic. I did not subscribe to any religion.  I believed there was a "God" which to me was a "higher source" or "power" that I mostly misunderstood and knew nothing about. I also believed in mostly metaphysical or New Age ideas including that we create our own reality through projecting positive thoughts and feelings out to the universe. I did not believe in concepts like sin, heaven, hell or Satan. I also believed in reincarnation and believed I had lived several prior lives. I never read the Bible, knew nothing about Jesus nor did I care to. Then, suddenly in my early thirties I suddenly found myself surrounded by Christians. At work, in my neighborhood and just about every where I turned it seemed I was in the presence of what I then referred to as "one of those annoying Christians"

I was always annoyed when anyone tried to talk to me about their Christian faith. I was invited to church many times and had several people witness to me....but I was just simply NOT interested. I felt confident in the fact that I was in control of my destiny and I had absolutely no need for religion. Looking back I realize that is how I saw anything having to do with God or Jesus. I saw it as a religion.....and THAT was a turn off. Both my husband's parents and my parents had experienced bad experiences with going to church. My husband and I both looked at the idea of church and religion as something that we were just not interested in.

Then around the time my children were 2 and 7 something in me changed. I can't explain it really other then to say that I felt like something was just MISSING from my life. God continued to send Christians into my life and suddenly these people did not seem as annoying anymore. In fact one of my co-workers Carol and another friend and neighbor Carrie, were Christians and they just seemed so happy and so fulfilled. It wasn't that I wasn't happy and fulfilled myself...to the outside world I had everything. A loving husband, two beautiful children, a beautiful home to live in, an exciting career....but still I felt this VOID. So when I was invited to church with both of these friends I decided to give it a try. My husband  agreed to come along so we went to two different churches and even joined a small couples group. Suddenly my mind became very interested in what I was learning about. I was still very skeptical, but I was willing to keep an open mind and learn. At this time Kevin suggested that we try going to the Catholic Church as that was his background. I agreed we should try it. So for a year we went to Sunday masses and went through a series of classes on Catholicism called RCIA. Part of me loved the Catholic church...but another part of me was bored there. I found the Sunday masses boring, and mostly after a year there I was more confused then ever. I didn't know who to pray to...God? Jesus? Mary? I learned how to pray the rosary and went to confession. All of it seemed very ritualistic and confusing to me. However I thought, well if this is what I need to do to get to fill my spiritual void...then so be it. I thought to myself...the more I go to mass, the more I pray the rosary...the more the void will be filled. We had the kids baptized in the Catholic church, my daughter and I received our first communion and I was confirmed. I remember coming home from church with our certificates that afternoon and STILL feeling a void, I still felt like something was missing.  After a few more months of attending the Catholic church Kevin and I realized it was not for us and we stopped going.

After that I spent a couple of years just drifting along continuing to feel like I was in a spiritual void. I just pushed the whole idea of God and Jesus aside and threw myself into my career in Pharmaceutical Sales and parenting my children.Then one day in 2001 my life changed in an instant. One evening after work I was busy doing house work and came around the corner from the hall in our home upstairs. I had a laundry basket in my arms that was piled very high with laundry. I was in a hurry and wasn't paying close enough attention to the fact that I was about to step onto the first step of the staircase. I lost my footing and before I knew it I had lost my balance and was sliding down the stairs on my rear end. I fell down very quickly and my tail bone was bumping along each stair as I went. I was powerless to stop the fall and ended up landing very abruptly onto the tile below. I landed with a thump on my tail bone first and then my body twisted and my lower back made a very distinctive cracking noise I will never forget. I had fallen down a very steep flight of stars in an instant and I found myself seriously hurt and crumbled on the tile below.

That day was the last day of my Pharmaceutical Career. I had herniated a disk in my lumbar spine (L5-S1), seriously bruised my tailbone and dislocated my left sacroiliac joint. My very busy and active life as a working Mom was no more. I lived with non stop excruciating pain for months on end. I was on large amounts of narcotics to just take the edge off of the pain. I endured several cortisone injections in my low back, tail bone and sacroiliac joint. I tried physical therapy. Nothing worked and in fact I just kept getting worse and worse. A typical day for me was to do nothing more than lie in bed or the couch and only get up to use the rest room. I was unable to sit as the pain was so unbearable every time I tried. I ended up falling into a deep clinical depression. My Mother n Law was an incredible support to us and helped our family during this difficult time. She cooked meals, she took me to all of my Dr apts., she cleaned and did laundry. She helped the kids with their homework. Honestly if it would not have been for her help I don't know what we would have done.

 I also had 3 neighbors that came over and brought meals. Two of these neighbors were Christians and one was Mormon.  One of the Christian neighbors brought her Bible over to my house and would sit and read scripture to me. She prayed for me and shared the gospel of Jesus Christ with me. This was the first time in my life that I learned the whole story, the true gospel of Jesus. The other Christian neighbor left a book for me by Stormy O'Martian called "The power of a praying women" Those neighbors and that single book is what finally began to fill the spiritual void inside. Several more months went by with me being almost completely bed ridden. I filled those long days lying there in pain reading. I read over 40 books on Christianity and purchased my first Bible and started completing Bible study work books. In addition to the books I read on Christianity I also researched other religions. I spent my first two years of college as a Journalism major and I was a reporter for the school newspaper. I knew the importance of research to find the truth. I had nothing but time on my hands as I was literally bed ridden for a year. So I poured all of my time into researching and looking for my spiritual truth. I knew the void in my life had to be filled and I was desperate for something, anything to fill that void. After extensively researching Mormonism, further research into Catholicism, and really examining the New Age movement... as well as examining several other religions; what I found was 100% proof without a single doubt that Jesus was the true son of God and that the Bible was a 100% accurate, infallible, living and breathing word of God. I came to believe that God created the universe and the earth and that he created me. I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior and invited the holy spirit into my life. Once and for all...the void was gone. I was saved. There is more to my story but I will stop here and save the rest for another post. I WILL say that I am 100% sure that my fall down the stairs was not an accident. I believe that God stopped me in my tracks to get my attention. He knew my nature, which was to push Him and the spiritual hole inside aside. He knew that if He put me in bed for a year with nothing to do but read, research and pray; that He would finally get my atttention. I'm happy to say that twelve years later my back is much better and I am absolutely glad that God pursued me, even to the point of causing a health crisis to get my attention.

I know to some of you what I have just described may seem way "out there" or very strange and confusing. I know that, because I was once in that position. I looked at anyone that would tell me they were "saved"  or were a Christian as very odd and none of it ever made sense to me.  So that is why, I feel God has asked me to write this blog. To hopefully help anyone who is in the same position I was the first thirty odd years of my life. Feeling a void. Feeling confused about ideas like God or Jesus. If you are that person, if you ask yourself what would happen to you if you died today...where would you go, would you just perish? Would you be reincarnated into another person? Would you go to heaven...to hell? If you do not have the answers to these questions or if you are not 100% sure that what you believe in is  true....then I ask you to become a reader of this blog.  This blog is also for fellow believers. I plan on sharing many exciting topics that are relevant to today's Christian.

Maybe you will live to the ripe old age of eighty, ninety or even higher. Actuary tables say that these days your chances are fairly good. By most standards that would be a pretty long life span. But have you ever thought of that length of time against the backdrop of eternity? Try plotting those eighty years on a chart next to eternity and you'll soon realize that your entire earthly life in represented by a tiny dot that's barely visible next to what follows it. What if all your days here are mostly just preparation for the life that comes next--the REAL one? How would knowing that now affect your priorities and daily decisions?

Many people today spend all their time and energy on their bodies, which are only containers of our real self, the soul, which, according to Jesus and the writers of the Bible, will persist long after our bodies have turned to dust. When you think of it that way, it's easy to see that the soul has immeasurable value. A person's soul, my soul, your soul, according to Jesus, is incomparably more valuable than the entire world of possessions, pleasures, power and prestige.

In fact, Jesus...known for his ability to speak directly to the heart of the matter--asked in Mark 8:36-37; "And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul?"

Maybe you aren't so sure about matters of the soul at this point in your life. Perhaps the whole realm of the spiritual seems unreal or unimportant to you, or like something you'd rather not think about until later...like when you get closer to that seemingly distant age of eighty or ninety.

May I encourage you to think again, and at least to say, "Maybe"? Admit to yourself that if these things are true, then Jesus' point about the importance of the soul is valid-big time! Do you doubt that? Then at least be consistent enough as a skeptic to also doubt even your own doubts, and keep reading. As you come back each week and read this blog, keep saying to yourself, "Maybe God IS real"; "Maybe the Bible IS God's message to us", "Maybe Jesus truly WAS the Son of God", "Maybe I NEED what Jesus offers me", "Maybe God is speaking to ME." I'm hoping that you will be open minded enough to genuinely consider the possibilty that these things could be true.

In the upcoming posts I will write in this blog I will cover many of the following topics and many more:

Is there a God?

Can the Bible be trusted?

Are we accountable to God?

Who was Jesus and what was his purpose?

Is divine forgiveness available?

What do I need to do?

I'm assuming that these are some of the questions that most perplex those who think seriously about spritual matters, their own lives, and the future. I'd like to end this post with one last comment. If you have had a bad experience at a church or with a person who claimed to be a Christian but certainly did not act like one....please do not let those experiences keep you from God.  I realize now that PEOPLE (yes even Christians) will fail you. However GOD NEVER FAILS.

Thank you for reading my testimony and for pondering the topics I have covered today. I'm so excited to share with you in what I know will be a very exciting journey. The journey of living a spirit filled life.