I will speak of thy testimonies also before kings, and will not be ashamed. — Psalm 119:46
A few years ago, my family and I moved to a new state. I had been offered a new job and it required us to move about 2 hours away from our home. We didn’t have family in the new area and really didn’t know anyone other than our wonderful real estate agent. As I started the new job, I was asked a question in a unique way that I had not been asked before.
So many times I had been asked to say my past work experience, what caused me to look for a new job, or many other things. Instead, this time I was asked to “tell my story.” They wanted to know who I really was. They didn’t want me to try and sell myself as what I could be. Instead, they wanted me to tell them who I truly was.
We meet so many people in life that we casually interact with. We may find that we share common hobbies or interests, but they may never truly hear our story. They may never know what drives us in life to be what we are. Yet, we are given the instruction that we should try to share our story.
Scripture is filled with examples of how God wants us to tell our story. This verse in Psalm is a reminder that we should tell our story no matter who we are in front of. People around us should hear that we are Christian and that God has made a change in our lives. They need to hear our story!
God has been so good to each of us. We have been forgiven of our sins and redeemed to eternal life. He has given each of us a story to tell. Today, make it a point to tell someone your story, no matter who they are. The world is filled with people that need to hear how wonderful and amazing our God really is.
Jared Dyson
I was always spiritually minded, since childhood, but family trauma (my mother committed suicide and I found her body, after school, when I was 15), caused me, at 16, to run away from home. Nothing bad happened to me, I met good people, albeit oddballs from society themselves. I always had a feeling that God was taking care of me, and I could not shake that. I reconciled with my Father a few years later, as best I could, he had remarried in his grief to a woman I held not warmth for, and she, treated me as a despised weirdo. Through those years I had done all the things, experimented with drugs, drank a lot, had a promiscuous period that was condoned at the time (the 70's were pure debauchery and hedonistic, the "me" generation). I began to get my feet on the ground, worked hard, sometimes 60-70 hours a week, learned to live simply, and continued to read Christian mystics.It was as if my soul had a magnet attached that drew me to the Creator. I changed my personal habits, and began to have a "practice", daily prayer, meditation, I would light a candle, etc. When my father got sick with cancer, I dropped what I was doing, and went to care for him, and stayed with him for 4 months. He died hard, it was esophagul cancer and he bled out, he was in his home and we were receiving Hospice support, but in the end, they were not there, it was me and my sister and a close friend who held him as he died. After that, I was changed, I began to go to church, but it did not feel right, it was empty, what I was seeking was not there. Then, and this is what changed me and convinced me beyond doubt, I was doing my meditation practice, I lit the candle, I burned the incense, I had a statue of Mary and a little cross, and a vase with whatever flower, I dont remember the flower..as I practiced my breathing and sought to quiet my mind, I went into a place in my head that was a precipice, on the edge, and nothing but total void that was so thick I could feel it, I felt a little fear, and then realized, in my mind, I needed to "jump off" that precipice and free fall into the void I was seeing, to just give up and drop. As I said, I felt fear, but decided to just let go. Bothers and Sisters, I will try to describe what happened. I had the sensation of floating, not gravity, not that falling you feel when you are dreaming. And then I felt swaddled by such a profound sensate feeling of love, it was almost like being in a womb, surrounded, no need for anything, and then, I SAW HIM, from the right side of my mind, there was Christ, all was Christ, and He looked into my eyes, my mind, with a look of Love that was so tender and palpable, it brought tears, not imaginary tears, it filled me, I could have stayed in that forever, no need to breathe, it was real, I saw Christ and felt Christ and realized I was living in Christ, and that he loved me, loved me so profoundly the word love does not even describe it. I experienced God. It changed me and gave me true Faith, not to hope for Faith or to pray for Faith, it gave me Faith. I was 36 years old. In Him and through Him and with Him I have my being, nothing else really matters except to be worthy in His sight.
...wonderful testimony...
...may God continue to shelter you in his loving arms....