Tell us your story of how you came to the Lord ~ at Runboard.com

Healing Friends
THE PARK BENCH
Tell us your story of how you came to the Lord

Page: 1 2 3

horseshadowrider
Head Administrator
Global user

Registered: 03-2008
Location: Washington state
Posts: 1473

Reply | Quote

Tell us your story of how you came to the Lord

Dear brothers and sisters,

If you like, please share your testimony in this Forum. I don't have time tonight to do so (getting ready for my trip)...but will when I get back. I'd love to hear your story!

May God Bless you always
love, V.

---
Virginia
4 plc fracture of the C1, Tethered Cord, (acquired chiari and elongated brainstem resolved by Tethered Cord surgery); atlanto occipital dislocation and cranial settling all due to equestrian accident,
2004. CC Fusion upcoming.

4/29/2008, 9:14 pm

Send PM to horseshadowrider

ket85rn
Registered user
Global user

Registered: 04-2008
Posts: 638

Reply | Quote

Re: Tell us your story of how you came to the Lord

Been waiting to reply here until I had time to properly tell my story. I'll try...

For me there was no distinct moment like some people can recall. I was raised Roman Catholic and went to Catholic schools until the fourth grade. Then we moved from Long Island to upstate New York. I was always very active in the church. I sang with the choir. I was a lector, doing the liturgical scripture readings. I attended mass every weekend and received all the sacraments. Was married in the church in 1983.

In 1996, I became separated from my husband who was an alcoholic and very emotionally abusive. In 1998, my divorce finalized, I took a trip to South Carolina with my son and daughter for two weeks. We stayed with my dear aunts, my father's sisters. They are both wonderful Christians. My one aunt and uncle were missionaries in the Dominican Republic and Panama for years and years. They have seven children, all believers, some of whom have also gone into ministry or into the mission field. Spending that time with my extended family and seeing how Jesus was part of everything, and I mean everything, that they did, really caught my attention. After I got home, I actually opended my Bible! For me, it was like in many Catholic homes: you have a Bible, but it sits on a stand somewhere and you write in the weddings and deaths, etc... I started reading my Bible sporadically, and praying more. And not just the memorized, obligatory prayers, but really speaking to God.
When I met my current husband, one of the things that impressed me about him was that he read his Bible every night. When we decided to get married we wanted to marry in a church. At the time we were still attending my Catholic church every other week, and the other weeks a church a friend of his had taken him to a few times, a Christian Missionary Alliance Church. The more I attended this church, the more I realized I needed to accept Christ. At first it was a little strange, but as time went on I felt more and more uncomfortable with the rituals of Catholicism and Bob and I were married in the Alliance Church in 2000. I was baptized on Easter Sunday 2001 and it was the most amazing day of my life!
When I came up out of that water, I felt more joy than I had ever known.
So even though I believed in Christ my whole life and considered myself a Christian, I think it took the trauma of my life in the 80's and 90's to make me see my real need for Him and a truly personal relationship with Him.
My song lyrics,'Shadow and Light' in the poetry forum are really my testimony in short form.
Looking forward to hearing your stories.
Your sister in Christ, Karen T

Last edited by ket85rn, 5/11/2008, 12:05 pm

5/10/2008, 8:38 pm

Send PM to ket85rn

horseshadowrider
Head Administrator
Global user

Registered: 03-2008
Location: Washington state
Posts: 1473

Reply | Quote

Re: Tell us your story of how you came to the Lord

Karen, I loved reading your story, which you told so well. What a personal testament to how God had a plan for your life. Thanks so much for sharing.

For myself and my testimony, I was not raised in a Christian home. However, I did love going to a church. A dark-grey stone structure about five miles away from our tiny house in a northeastern swamp housed the Western Congregational Church. That dear, aged edifice was the backdrop for so much of my childhood memory...but my parents never went with me! My Dad dropped me off at the door and on the Sundays when he didn't take me, I'd walk.

I attended church there until my early teens, when other interests (horses and boys!) over-rode my yearning for things Spiritual.

Fast foward to the year I turned 28. Lots of scary trails had populated the intervening years, times when I was so far from the Lord, I'm sure I forgot how to spell His Name.

We were living in a log cabin we'd built up in the mountains of Idaho, existing (just fine, thank you) without running water and electricity. Well, as they say, we DID have running water, we just had to run down the hill to the creek to get it!

There were several other families dispersed throughout those woods, none of whom knew each other previous to moving there. Some might have been running from the law, some were retired from lives of hard work and poverty. None of us had anything except the ingenuity to survive with very little cash on ten cheaply-priced acres.

One of our neighbors began leaving books in our mailbox and since entertainment was hard to come by, I read voraciously anything that contained words. One book I'll always remember because it changed my life. The title: Born Again by Chuck Colson. I remember thinking, "Well, it's one of those religious books, but it IS about Watergate and I have always wished I knew more about what happened back then."

As I digested the author's words and references to Bible verses, I'd look up the Scriptures myself in a translation of the Bible called "The Way," written to minister to young people and given to me by someone I've since forgotten. Colson's words seemed to really make sense and jive with the Holy book. I came to realise that even though I had spent all of those childhood years singing in the choir and attending Sunday School and Vacation Bible School in that Congregational church back home, I really had no idea who Jesus was or why He died on the Cross.

"Born Again" was a book that helped me to understand all of that and also set me on the road to reading and understanding the Bible myself. And in no time, I readily accepted that I needed to make a conscious decision FOR Jesus.

Perhaps I've always had a sense of the dramatic, but I recall thinking, "Well, I will go out on the ridge on a bright, Fall morning and I'll pray and give myself to the Lord then. It'll be a beautiful thing I'll always remember and tell my children about!"

Alas, there were always reasons not to take the time to go out to that ridge. Life got in the way. As my good friend likes to say, "There's always a reason du jour."

The only thing I can remember about this particular day 30 years ago is that my husband and I were arguing over something that really was upsetting to me. I've forgotten what it was, but I am sure I was right! With hurt feelings, I stomped up the hill to the little log barn we'd built and where a horse I had in to train was stalled.

Sandy was a sorrel mare and I started to brush her coppery-colored coat but soon, found myself sobbing into her silky mane, "Lord Jesus, I give you my life. I've tried to run it so far and I've only screwed it up. You can have it. I believe you are God in the flesh and that you died for my sins. I guess that qualifies you to take better care of my life than I've been able to. Please forgive me!"

It is not embellishment or exaggeration to say that my life changed that day. I can remember now many things that day by day, I learned or saw changes. I have simply never been the same and none of it, not one iota has been due to any effort on my part. Jesus came into my heart and my life and never left. I've been through just as many trials since then, if not more than before I knew Him, but it's just been much better to have Him holding my hand through it all, and to understand the holy plan of God, that we all might saved and be with Him in Heaven.

Thank you for hanging in here and reading all of this. I am blessed, humbly so, to be able to stand here today and share the Good News that life eternal, starting here and now, is freely given and available to everyone just as it was to me in that dark, damp horse stall three decades ago.

PS...about 12 years later, I was blessed to kneel with my Dad on his living room floor and lead him in prayer to receive that same Jesus into His heart and life. What a blessing to know that I will see him one day "on the other side."

Ain't God good!

Now, who's next?

5/12/2008, 1:23 am

Send PM to horseshadowrider

ket85rn
Registered user
Global user

Registered: 04-2008
Posts: 638

Reply | Quote

Re: Tell us your story of how you came to the Lord

Love your story, Virginia. It's amazing how God keeps knocking on our door until we finally answer, isn't it? You were drawn to that church and didn't even know why. He's calling even when we aren't listening.
Thanks for sharing.
Karen

5/12/2008, 2:02 pm

Send PM to ket85rn

GaleB
Moderator
Global user

Registered: 03-2008
Location: South Carolina
Posts: 1225

Reply | Quote

Re: Tell us your story of how you came to the Lord

Your stories have so touched me. I am at a loss for words right now, I hear this in my heart.

I'd love to share it ___

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3maVT-mOyTY&feature=related

In Love with my God...

Gale

---

For Joleen , Karen and David

5/12/2008, 5:11 pm

Send PM to GaleB

ket85rn
Registered user
Global user

Registered: 04-2008
Posts: 638

Reply | Quote

Re: Tell us your story of how you came to the Lord

I do too, Gale. That song is my cell phone ringtone! I love Chris Tomlin.

Karen T

5/12/2008, 7:53 pm

Send PM to ket85rn

dtyree
Registered user
Global user

Registered: 04-2008
Posts: 234

Reply | Quote

Re: Tell us your story of how you came to the Lord

My father was United Church of Christ and my mother a Southern Baptist. They do not mix. So they began attending a Presbyterian Church in the town in which we lived. The church slowly became my home away from home. My father worked long hours, and I rarely saw him. My mother always had tea parties, beauty appointments, and a lot of things away from home, so I never saw her. I became involved in the church junior choir.

My parents would not take me to rehearsals so had to take the city bus. The walk was 15 blocks to the bus stop and then there was a bus exchange to get to church. And the best part, it only cost a quarter, one way. The choir became my family and looked forward to the rehearsals and performances each week.

My next door neighbor got me involved in boy scouts at the same church. We had the largest scout troop in the area and did so much. Weekend camping trips, weekly meetings which my neighbor’s dad took us to, and had another extended family here. So I grew up in the church and knew it in and out. I loved the people here and treated them as if they were my family. It was a loving environment which I did not have at home even though we were upper middle class.

My father suffered a debilitating heart attack when I was 13. This changed everything. I watched as furniture was repossessed and as my father became more and more unable to work. My mother was a woman used to being cared for and she was not going to lift a finger. We moved from one inexpensive spot to another. My grades suffered and all dreams of attending medical school were now in the toilet.

We got to the point where we were living in the country and growing our own vegetables for food for the coming year. It was so bad, we had no food at all. A friend of ours in the service, brought to us WW11 food rations. We lived off this for 2 weeks. We got used to eating ham out of a can 30 years old. A truly new experience.

During all of this, my mother entered the Pentecostal church, which is a far cry from being raised Presbyterian. This was a whole new world for me. And I found the Pentecostal ways too difficult to accept as my way to approach God. I began to turn from Him.

After high school I supported the family until my father’s social security went through. There was now steady income and I began to go my own way. I entered cooking school in Williamsburg, VA and enjoyed it immensely. I learned so much there although we had a maid early in life who taught me much about cooking, and thank her to this day for that relationship.

But there was something missing. I missed the music I enjoyed during school, so enrolled in a community college nearby. The drive was 45 minutes one way, so a lot of time for thinking. I graduated and went on to a 4 year college to receive my music degree It was a time for me to move away from home.

I met my wife in school and settled down. Went through a succession of jobs until hooking up with the Presbytery of the James, a governing body with the Presbyterian church structure. We were responsible for 117 churches and 230 pastors. This was different. We would have weekly meetings which were opened with prayer. We had time for personal sharing and support between other staff. Totally different from the secular world I had just left.

All this time I was also choir director at a local Presbyterian church. The church membership was about 170 but we had a chancel choir, two handbell choirs, a choir for youngsters, youth choir, a handbell ensemble and I did piano duets with another person. It was very musically soothing.

The chair of the worship committee and I had our way payed by the church to attend the summer Presbyterian camp in Montreat, NC. About 2,500 musicians and pastors from across the country attended every year. And this year was presentation of the current Presbyterian hymnal in use.

Joan Salmon-Campbell was worship leader and the event began with an en masse worship service, all 2,500 in one space. The organ was huge, he began the prelude, there were banners on stage, we began singing the first hymn which was absolutely glorious, “God is Here”. It came time for the second hymn, the organist picked up on themes from the first hymn, added themes from the second and then did his introduction, again glorious, and the singing of so many church musicians was overwhelming. The message was a strong one. Joan, a stout Afro-American, sang during her message, had all of us on our feet, waving our hands, or dancing in the aisles, and all of this within the guidelines of the new Presbyterian doctrines that had just come out. It was structured and it was free. It was something fresh and new, something I had never experienced. I did not have a class after worship and now know why. The committee chair and I would make our way down to the lake and try to absorb all that we had just experienced. A worship that was full of love, full of new experiences, full of the Holy Spirit.

When I came back to work, we began our staff meeting. The boss looked at me and said aloud “You have just had a mountain top experience, right?” “Yes I did” I replied. Folks at church noticed that I was different. There was a change. And before the retreat, I had gone through the paces, accomplished what I needed to get the job done. Now it was different. I knew where I was to be in my approach to God. I now knew how I could worship Him with all that I had. It now showed in all that I did, and I thank God for letting me see.

Last edited by dtyree, 5/12/2008, 10:48 pm

---
Bark less, and wag more often.

5/12/2008, 10:40 pm

Send PM to dtyree

horseshadowrider
Head Administrator
Global user

Registered: 03-2008
Location: Washington state
Posts: 1473

Reply | Quote

Re: Tell us your story of how you came to the Lord

What a rich blessing upon my heart to read your story, David! I miss that kind of free worship, though I have experienced much of it for many years.

Sadly the last church I attended just did not have that mt. top experience in the worship service and it was so sad, they missed so much.

A gifted music director leads the congregation tenderly, helping them to open their hearts to the Love of God until the final crescendo is reached where Spirits meld into One and nothing else is recognized or felt but that Oneness with Godly Love. I miss that David...and I'm not surprised to read that you have been involved with this type of worship.

I believe through music and singing, well, it is one of the ways to truly touch the heart of our Lord and how I have always appreciated a music director who understood that, as well as a congregation of believers who would free up and allow it all to happen. It's absolutely incredible when it does. Seductive almost, in a Godly way that is pure, heartbeat for heartbeat, we become Spirit.

Thanks for reminding me of what true worship can be, DAvid. Oh, I was going to write something here, if you don't mind. ON the flight to TCI, I sat next to a very nice Mormon man. We began to talk about polygamy because of the Texas deal.

And he asked me what I thought heaven would be like, concerning my husband and I. I am a bit acquainted with Mormon doctrine, and I knew that they believe they will be married in heaven too. But when I read Revelations, I see people who are Spirit who are in that intangible space of worship, constantly, lovingly, spirits blending all together, I don't see necessarily what I knew this man was trying to depict to me.I tried to explain this to him, but we both agreed to accept our differences.

I believe we are shown through John's revelation the beauty and majesty of worship and praise which lifts us above all else, out of earthly bodies and connects us and infuses us with God the Father, our Savior.

you can tell I truly was keyed into what you wrote about DAvid, thanks for taking me there with you.

Virginia

5/13/2008, 12:33 am

Send PM to horseshadowrider

dtyree
Registered user
Global user

Registered: 04-2008
Posts: 234

Reply | Quote

Re: Tell us your story of how you came to the Lord

I might add that I have been in several churches since that conference and have not experienced what I did there. The conference was, I believe, a once in a lifetime experience. And I believe it was, for me, a way for God to speak to me, to let me know how I could approach God, and this was on a personal level. My life has never been the same since.

There is a hymn that says "When we all get to heaven, what a wonderful day that will be, when we all see Jesus, we'll sing and shout the victory".

When that day comes, I believe it will be like no other. We get to see the other saints that preceeded us, such a reunion. We will be able to sit at the feet of Jesus, God, with the Holy Spirit around us, and everything will be revealed to us. All of the earthly questions will be answered, everything will be known to us, we will finally have an answer to all of the "whys" in life. Our spiritual bodies have no pain, there are no walkers, wheelchairs, no meds. And we spend eternity enjoying the presence of God.

---
Bark less, and wag more often.

5/13/2008, 6:51 am

Send PM to dtyree

ket85rn
Registered user
Global user

Registered: 04-2008
Posts: 638

Reply | Quote

Re: Tell us your story of how you came to the Lord

I look forward to that day, too, David.

Your story is wonderful. It's amazing what a worship experience like that can do for you. I had a similar thing happen to me during a conference at the Willow Creek Community Church near Chicago a few years ago. It was an amazing weekend. We heard wonderful speakers like John Ortberg (author of If You Want to Walk On Water, You Have to Get Out of THe Boat, etc...) and Lee Strobel (The Case for Christ, etc...) But it was the music and worship times that really reached down to the heart of my soul...Thanks for giving me a moment of fond recollection...
Karen T

5/13/2008, 1:05 pm

Send PM to ket85rn

Add a reply

Page: 1 2 3

Powered by AkBBS 0.9.5b - Link to us - Blogs - Hall of Honour - Chat
Click here to get your own free message board

You are not logged in (login) Board's time is: 9/6/2008, 8:03 pm