My Testimony

God began wooing me when I was about 25 years old. There is a history of drug and alcohol abuse in my family. The general chaos and destruction wrought by the effects of this led me to join a ”12 step” support group for families of addicts. In this group, I was confronted with admitting that there was a “power greater than myself.” While I was raised Catholic, admitting I was NOT God was more than a little difficult. I was finally able to confess that “there is a God and I am not It.” God continued to woo me and I eventually had a hunger to find a church that I could attend. By now I was in graduate school and a fellow student, Jim, began to witness to me and take me to his local church. While attending this church I began to date a woman in this church who was a friend of Jim’s. Jim was concerned about my dating her because he knew I was not a Christian. To appease Jim’s concern I agreed to attend the church’s membership class. By this time, I had been attending the church for nearly a year. In the first class, the instructor made a basic presentation of the Gospel. I can hardly describe how astonished I was. I had been through 12 years of Catholic Cathecism, I had attended a Bible-believing, evangelical church for several months, yet, the news that Jesus died for my sin was, somehow, a complete revelation to me. Jim then gave me an apologetic book called More than a Carpenter by Josh McDowell. This book dealt pretty well with most of my major “objections.” At the end of the book the reader is challenged to make a commitment to Christ. God was pulling me to Himself. Still, I began to make a qualified confession. I don’t remember what I had in mind but I basically I wanted to give Jesus my life for a while and see how He did. But, God spoke to me for the first time and said, basically, this is an all or nothing deal. So, I committed my life to Him. Confessed Him as Christ. I had been trying to read the Bible but not getting much out of it. After I made a commitment, the words on the page danced, they jumped off the page and into my heart. This was the beginning of a Divine romance that continues to deepen to this day and will, I know, last forever and only get better.

P.S.- The woman is long gone and, sadly, as far as I know not following the Lord