Are You Ready? An Abridged Personal Testimony

Most of my life has been characterized by emotional abuse. The Lord led me to trust in Him in March 1970. It was a fear of death that He used to motivate me to seek Him. A girl in my high school graduating class was killed in an automobile accident when I was 19. The Lord used this to show me I could die at any time, and I knew I wasn't ready, though baptized and confirmed. My search ended when I put my faith in Him.

This was the time of the "Jesus freaks." After being filled with the Holy Spirit for the first time, I began to grow, and never stopped.

The lord began putting in my heart to be a missionary even before I was saved, and blessed me to be part of a student trip to Congo in 1969. Missionary service became a reality in the 80's. During that time the Lord did major "heart surgery" enabled me to lay down alot of baggage.

One piece of baggage that is relevant to the "punch line" was forgiveness. The Lord showed me that I had the root of bitterness, and through the very loving and accepting African people, broke down many barriers in my life. He showed me that it was not enough to SAY I forgave someone. I had to cancel their debts, just as He had canceled mine (Colossians 2:14 and Matthew 18:23-35). I had been making my friends pay me back for the emotional debts incurred by many earlier in life, and I had to cancel all that. Jesus had already paid for those sins, and it wasn't fair for me to try to collect payment again.

So I canceled all that, and released my friends from the burden. This transaction miraculously released me from possessiveness and protectiveness, their root cause being bitterness.

After returning home from Africa, I went through a prolonged and very painful wilderness time, corresponding to the children of Israel in the wilderness in Numbers. Through it, the Lord kept working on me and teaching me to trust Him through various trials, stripping away many things that people hold dear. But it was also a time of great blessing, growing, and learning.

In 2007, He brought another friend into my life (the other friends being the Africans), and ushered in a time of blessing similar to the blessings of African friends.

In 2010, the Lord showed me that when I was a small child, I noticed that the person in the family who got the most attention was the one who suffered the most. I decided I wanted to get the most attention. So I set out to be the sufferer, and it worked for me, i.e. I got what I wanted at the time. But it set me up for the emotional abuse I got throughout my life. When I realized that, I said, "I did do that, didn't I? Well, if I decided to be a victim, right now I'm deciding I'm not going to be one any more." Through this means, the Lord broke the cycle of abuse. I still have to work on undoing the habits of abuse, and guarding against going back to those habits.

This new friend was and is a brother to me. His father died last year, and at the funeral, I learned just how much my friend is like his father. His father had blessed many, in spite of his dysfunctional upbringing. The line of people at his viewing extended out the door for two and a half hours. After that, my friend shared, and I wrote down how his father had blessed him as a child, which blessings, he, in turn, passed on to me.

Then I saw that through this friend, the Lord gave back to me all the blessings I surrendered to Him when I canceled those emotional and spiritual debts back in Africa. Isn't the Lord good?

Most recently I have been re-reading a book on the persecuted church. Through this reading, the Lord showed me that through all the trials, lessons, and blessing of my life, He has been preparing me for persecution.