Faith Mini Story: Chapter I

Chapter I:
My Testimony: God saving me even though my back that was turned.



I am the Lord; that is my name! I will not give my glory to anyone else. I will not share my praise with carved idols. (Isaiah 42:8)



When I first read through this verse I paused to read it again, this time thinking that it related to my personal testimony quite well. Then God spoke to me and made me chuckle because he said "See I did rescue you, for I had enough, I needed my son back, I needed you safe". Then I took a short moment to give him thanks, and I continued to read. With the verse still in mind I felt like I should explore the meaning of the verse in relation to my testimony.
What an excellent open verse for my testimony! I once was worshiping many gods including still having the belief in the Lord and one day during a meditation a spirit of the Lord came to me and wept for my salvation. Which scared the crap out of me and truly set up a block in front of my current idol worshiping that I was involved in. I did not know at first what the meaning of this exceptionally moving encounter meant or even who or what was trying to communicate with me. What I did know was enough that let me know something was wrong with what I was currently involved with.
If I were to give my testimony in full I would have to mention that I did not grow up in a Christian home but thanks to a good friend of mine that witnessed to me in Kindergarten I found Christ's love at a very young age. At that age any child who goes to church has a simple view of God and what it means to know God but thanks to Rebecca's great family she felt like it was her job to witness to people and spread the good news of God. So she invited me to church and told me that her mother could drive to pick me up on the way. Our mothers met and my mother agreed to let me go and so I went to that church every Sunday until I was about in 6th grade. At the time that I was in the 2nd grade I remember an alter call one Sunday were I went to the alter and kneeled, praying for my family and praying that God keep me as one of his own until I die. After much praying and weeping I was joined by one of the members of the Sunday school staff and she asked if I were ok and I stated that I were, she stayed with me and later helped me up. That was the first time that I really felt Gods love, but as family problems grew thicker and the divorce of my parents was more apparent by their remarriage I felt some what less wanted every where including at my church so I stopped going.
The only place I did fell wanted was with my step mother who eventually introduced me into the wicked art of tarot card reading in which a new passion was born. I took on a new found passion for finding meaning and found comfort in my new self taught belief system. A system were I believed that there were multiple gods and that they could all work together in some twisted dimension of the universe we lived in. After collecting many false idols that were supposed to help me throughout the journey of my life I started to visit a witchcraft shop were I spent many hours exercising my devil sent gift of the art of tarot reading.
It was at that shop where my "joy ride" with the devil would end and God would send His spirit to me within a meditation to save me so that once again someday I could find Him again. That would not take place until my family moved Washington to start a new chapter of our lives.
When my family moved up to Washington for the next few months I would never unpack the box which had contained all the "valuables" that were once considered tools to aid me through life on a path of "self fulfillment". I never quite understood exactly why I never touched that box way up at the corner of the self in my closet. I know now that it was the seed of God that was inside of my not wanting me to get caught up in all of my old ways.
On New Years of 2001 I was invited to attend a church gathering were there was going to be the normal "fun and games". After introducing myself to tons of people everyone started to gather together for the strike of 12 o'clock. A gentleman named Josh Rodlen gave his testimony and told the crowd what it meant to him to be a follower of Christ and how it brought him much joy and peace. Then he stated how every year we try to make new years resolutions, most of which we never keep. But would it not be cool if we could make a promise with ourselves that we could keep, and wouldn't it be cool if that promise was kept with God deep within our hearts. Again that seed of God deep within me started my brain thinking and I knew that I wanted to rededicate my life to God. And I felt whole again....
Maybe a year or so later at one of our small group meetings I had discussed with the group about how I still had a box (the one on the self) that contained some witchcraft items in it. I told them about how I wanted to get rid of it in the right way so that no one else could find any of the items that were in it. I told them I really wanted to burn it, so we decided that I would bring it to the next meeting and we would destroy it with fire and we did! It was not easy to get the box there though, because as I was filling the box with more stuff that I did not want in my life my brothers decided to go through the box and salvage some things for themselves. Which upset me tremendously and I fought with them to get back as much as I could which I was not totally successful at. But I did get rid of as much as I was capable of getting back. The box contained many idolatistic things that I felt I needed to destroy to become closer to God and through the some what sacrificial offering I felt peace and a true comfort deep whiten my heart.