He said to write down your testimony and share it to people.
Three paragraphs:
1. Life before Christ.
2. How you came to Christ.
3. How life has changed after you came to Christ.
He said, "People don't have time...keep it small!"
We were challenged as a congregation to try and tell our story to at least five people. This is the best way I could think of to do it. I'll try to keep it small...maybe not three paragraphs small...but "Lauren" small :).
I grew up in a Christian household and I went to Church every Sunday morning, evening, and Wednesday night. We went to VBS (vacation Bible school) every summer and I went to a K-12 private Christian school. I think just about everybody I knew was probably a Christian as well. I accepted Christ as my savior at VBS when I was 2 years old...as you can imagine though, I didn't have a big life change at that point. I still disobeyed and hit my sister and I think I even stole a magazine from a hardware store. I didn't fully understand what being a Christian meant other than I didn't have to go to hell when I died now.
I didn't really start living for Christ until the end of my senior year of high school. I attended an amazing Bible study with some of my fellow classmates the summer after graduation. I'd never felt so close to God! I was truly happy. I realized that instead of going to the college I'd originally planned on going to, God was calling me to go to a Bible college in another state. It was hard for me to have the courage to go off by myself but I wanted to do Gods will so I followed His call. I was very excited because I thought Bible college would be exactly like my amazing high school friends Bible study all day every day! I quickly found out that wouldn't be the case. I now understood why the world hated Christians. They weren't all accepting and nice. It was a social/emotional/spiritual beat down every single day. I hadn't felt like such a despised outcast since junior high. I didn't fit the mold of what they were saying a Christian was 'supposed to look like'. At the end of the year, I decided if they were what a Christian was supposed to be, I no longer wanted to be one.
Skipping ahead a few difficult years (that included marriage and moving), I was more miserable than I'd been in my whole life. One day I realized that everything was falling apart: My health was bad, my job was unpleasant, our finances couldn't have been worse, and the cherry on top of the day was my best friend didn't want me anymore. Broken to nothing, I turned to my cousin Jessica for help. She told me I needed God. That was the starting point of rededicating my life to Christ. I reached up to God and He pulled me out of the dark and lonely pit that I was in and showed me that with Him, all things are possible and that I didn't have to be alone and broken anymore.
After that pivotal point in my life, there have been good times and bad times, but I always know that the only thing I can look to for true peace and happiness is Christ. I have purpose, peace, and joy. I have strength that can only come from God alone. He has helped me be more than a conqueror and doesn't despise me when I mess up. He never abandons me and is always quick to open His loving arms when I call on Him. He's helped me through addiction, marriage trouble, anger, insecurity, infertility, and loss. He's guided me through endless situations, big and small, and sometimes I don't even realize it till after the fact! A life surrendered to Christ is the only life worth living for me. Period.
Now: here's the part I'm really excited about...
What's your story?
I mean it. I want to know. For the rest of this month I want to post other peoples stories of salvation. Write/type it out and send it to me and I'll post it as a special blog post. How many people could we reach for Christ???
Even if there is just one person out there who can identify with your story and be pointed to God...isn't it worth it???
