My Testimony

Part5This relationship is current and that time until now, I have been spiritually stable. The growth I made at that point was a sort of leap which is no round-trip. I cannot go backwards from where I left off. However there was one more less-important thing remaining which I felt compelled to act upon, and it was indeed received as a feeling of being compelled. Referring again to baptism in the New Testament, I knew from which teaching that I needed to be Baptized. I think my fear in doing so was caused by the dread of the steps I would take to commit. It was something that I had to do on my own, for myself, but was completely and pointedly public. Those are not a good combination of things when compiled also with my personality type. It is not my fear of public appearance, but the fact that I had to facilitate this for myself and for the good of myself that procrastinated taking action. As a result, I waited. I suppose I had the hope that somehow the opportunity would present itself to me. Either that was the case, or whenever the situation was brought up I would find a reason to avoid it. I prayed about it quite a bit and it was so silly that I made the effort to evade it, but it was another six years before I confronted myself with actually making the decision to be baptized. The opportunity was almost presented to me actually as we returned from an out-of-country mission’s trip. Many others had expressed the interest in being publicly proclaimed as Christ-followers and so my youth pastor organized a miniscule preparation class. I joined in and was baptized the following week in the local Palo Lake. I was not nervous at all, and I actually ended up being glad that it happened to be later rather than sooner that I made the representative action. I really enjoyed the process and it was actually meaningful and although it was comfortable, it was still very symbolic with a little bit of anxious mixed in.

Since then, I have had only one situation where I have felt betrayed by God. That experience made me even more spiritually sound and I know without doubt that there is nothing which could deviate me from the Holy Spirit for the rest of my immortal life. I live daily to worship my Heavenly father in every aspect of my life. I continue in my practice of falling completely in love with my maker. The area I struggle the most in, is being a disciple of Christ. We are called to be fisher’s of men, and I know that full well. I know that this is second to loving the Lord my God with all my heart.

My Testimony

Part4After that awakening week, I returned home with a fresh feeling and new outlook about me. However, this was not as comfortable with time. Eventually, this would turn into a burden. With my desire to know God more along with my habit slightly more adapted to do so, it became a routine before bed to do my devotions.  Several nights in, I was at a spiritual high and the presence of God seemed more and more real. A transfer was made between what used to be self-enforced by control, to a more intellectual and cognitive understanding. He revealed himself to me in a new and very extreme way and it was as if He was physically present as I had never felt before. It scared me and yet was the most reassuring feeling I have ever experienced. At this new level, I felt as though I needed to rededicate my life to the Lord and I could not be at peace until I did. I did so to myself, but I wanted someone to witness this. This isn’t unnatural that I felt this need as the gospel of John holds the history of Jesus baptizing people as a public form of their new life in Him. This was the conclusion of my foundation in Jesus Christ. I believed fully and realistically in Him, I had a desire to know Him more, and my desire and goal in life was to serve Him by being a witness of Him and sharing the story of my salvation with others. My daily “devotions” have since then developed into meetings and reading the Bible is a knowledge experience, prayer time a constant conversation with Jesus Christ.

Awareness: The arising of from a narrow mind

During the time where my urgency level for occupation is lowered, and my mind more relaxed than usual I am able to fix on the strands of perspective, judgment, and observation which I have been spieling onto a spool to later be purified and woven into my general cognition. I can conclude of myself that I am ever winding into at least a slightly bit more than usually exclusive yarn. Perhaps exclusive would be a false term, for we are each exclusive of one another. I believe hipster would be the socially understood term.

As my mom goes through her usual preparation for a trip with her extreme packing regime, I am ever reminded with each modeling of another shirt, jacket, and alternative pair of flats, how different I am from her and also how unlikely this ought to be. My mom is the typical mother and wife. She works part-time as the modern woman -particularly the modern woman in the role of a family- does, but her primary feat is maintaining the home. My father is given the utmost submission to authority by my mother. As her contribution, I like to think of the example where my mother may have to go to work several days a week, do the purchasing of resources necessary for the house-hold, clean, and ideally—cook in where it seems that after all of these things at the end of the day, my mother must have prepared a meal for my father. On nights that my father is working, there is an excuse for my mother and I to eat something out quickly, or scavenge among the house and fend for ourselves on a simpler basis. And when my father will be there, the very best and most is saved for him. It is this one detail that sticks out in my mind as the symbol of my parents’ lifestyle, and that of many others.

"We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color."Maya Angelou
 Having been born and raised in the Midwest, where there is class indeed, but in a safely subdued manner where most are comfortable and think acceptable of their relaxed middle-class lives, and to a family ideal to this definition, I would think myself to not deviate from this static life experience. Most dominant of the area, houses are colonial style in neutral color & decorated with department store repeats in likewise neutral colors, most every female owns a pair of suede boots in the winter (specific to the era of course) eluding to the fact that what is a fad is the most highly sought in almost every case, and males are typically expected to take obsessive interest in the university football team. (to be continued)

My Testimony

Part3As I became a little older and learned more- became more independent, I began to take more responsibility for my newly developing personal relationship with Christ. This was implemented through my experiences and learnedness at the Bible camps I would spend a week at each summer. I began going when I was in third grade. Before that, I had certainly been encouraged to read my Bible daily, pray, live my life for Christ which is the life of a Christian, respectively but I never really made time for doing that. At that age, most of my life was still fairly facilitated. When I didn’t have anything I needed to do, or was forced to do, I had to find in my own responsibility the self-motive and necessity for making time for the Lord. I can say that it was probably because I didn’t find auto-amending revenue in this utilization of time.

One year at camp however, I was made aware of the most important discovery and understanding that could ever be in mortal life. From what had once been thought of as a duty to talk with and learn about whom I knew to be the majestic Maker of the world, was now a newfound interest and longing to spend which time in relation with. In an environment where every aspect of the day was focused on Christ-like living; all of my peers and I being kind to one another knowing we were all aware of the way we ought to act, having cut out time for chapel and one-on-one time with the Lord so that we were completely immersed, I was challenged in my faith, and began to fall in love with the idea of Him. After a short amount of time with this new state of mind and practice, there was one night in the latter half of the week where we had a campfire and went for a midnight walk out in the open where we could see the stars. I got this feeling of new awareness and I saw the stars as I had never before. It actually felt as though I was looking at another planet rather than the sky being a plastic cover around Earth with little lights jammed in from the back and the rest all a fake set-up. It gave me just enough of a perception of great depth and distance that God became aware to me in the most real form that I had ever experienced. Something changed in me or was revealed to me which made Him seem truly real. 

My Testimony

Part2My family was all home on that particular evening and I remember that my dad told me that we would pray after dinner. Before the meal, he prayed and thanked God that I had the desire to commit my life to Him. With the Lord’s blessing, my father guided me in a prayer. Even as my father talked to me and asked me questions, I was consciously not really listening to the words I was saying or meaning them. I knew that God knew this too, I was aware of this but to me I thought that perhaps all I needed was to go through the motions of the prayer. Afterwards, I went to the sandbox and played nicely with my sister. I wanted to feel like there had been a major shift like I had hoped before which was part of my desire to pray in the first place. It seemed there ought to be an enlightened feeling which would be my new life median. I wasn’t sure if I felt that or not and wondered if it was sort of an immediate aftershock sort of thing. My respected inspiration and influential motivator in becoming a so-called child of God who was my sister, now seemed different in my eyes. Previously we would get on the others nerves and spend our lengths of time living and playing together in disagreement just as children do: selfish. Suddenly we got along very well and our play was pleasant with respect and light-heartedness.

The next morning, I believe I had forgotten all about my transformational prayer from the previous day. I woke up and although I don’t remember the events within that vicinity of time specifically, I know that I did not go through a period of my life in any difference from the time in my childish life before I accepted Christ in my life to after. Of course I continued to grow in my wisdom with my consistency of involvement within my church family and with my own adaption of personally building a relationship with Christ. 

My Testimony

Part 1I remember lying in bed listening to a familiar rerun of a children’s ministry broadcast which was on the only local Christian radio station. I was in my clean, line-dried, white night-gown, which had been worn by my older sister laying next to me, and probably the one before her, as well as our eldest. When I was five years old, it was among the most familiar of many things to me on a nightly basis and as much so as going to church was each Sunday. Being so highly involved with the Church family, I knew from a young age what it meant to be a sinner and that I was one. I also knew that in order to go to heaven, I needed to accept Christ as my savior. As far back as I can remember, I can recall things which I now know as unusual like praying thanks before every meal and not partaking in many activities or cultural consistencies of the world. Because my family is large and more mature than I, I had this idea that I was an exception to having any need to personally invite the Lord into my life. I guess to my young mind, I felt that a definite prayer would not be necessary to become a Christ follower because I already prayed to God. I figured that since I was already a Christian (because I prayed, I believed in Jesus already which is how we are saved from our sin and become Christians) serving the Lord, it must have been that once I had said the “official” prayer, that it must be a state which you enter into afterword. My siblings and my parents were all so knowledgeable and seemed to live the life of Jesus without what I thought was really any difficulty or temptation; it must have been that this specific prayer would do that for me and that it could not be discovered otherwise.

That night that I was laying there, I got up the nerve to ask my sister if it was really true like I had been told  -and was being so once again at the urge of the broadcast- that I would not go to heaven if I didn’t ask Jesus to dwell in my heart (I say “got up the nerve” because although we were all very used to going to Church together and my family’s well being was completely formed to Christ, my sister and I were not used to conversing about God. She told me that was true, but once I asked her and realized when she said that she had already done that, that I needed to as well because I was the youngest so I knew all of the rest of my family would have already done this and of course the thought of being left alone was dreadfully unacceptable. Once this had occurred, I could not keep living my life on the other side. Not long after this particular night in the summer that I was five years old, I told my dad that I wanted to pray and ask Jesus into my life.

Responsibility Osmosis (continued)

So then I wonder why it is so difficult to motivate ourselves to do the things we must- we do not rely on one another much more often to fulfill our needs, assist us for ease, and share responsibility since it would be a joy for the other to do so. The pressure we place on ourselves in our own expectations of achievement in the simpler “duties” of life could be lightened completely with the counter action of helping and receiving help because our own load would be lightened and we would be on better, more confident and satisfied terms.

I think it’s a very simple concept. It doesn’t come as a surprise that our culture does not follow this way of focused community. Particularly in the Northern part of the United States where we are one for ourselves. We are a hard-working middle class. We watch our own backs and although we may trust we seem to believe hard work and effort are most important to say for our individuality. Different even in the south where living is more family oriented and together supported

Humanity’s integrity could not be modified to this order. It would require unified cooperation which effort I do not think would be considered important to the point of disruption as it contends too greatly among social barriers. It’s something to think about. Something which could potentially improve optimism in our lives but the motivation for which to be made possible would have to be discovered within us individually. Because of its quality, it could work in a cause and effect way which may just spread to make things a little better. We are after all created with the desire to love and do so through this action.