I refined my 'testimony' - what I read right before I was baptized. It was challenging summarizing God's work in my life into a short little speech because I can't help but feel like the 'everyday' testimonies are just as important as how God has arranged the course of my life so far (which is what I mostly focused on in my baptism testimony).
~ Baptism Testimony ~
It is by God's grace and forgiveness that I'm standing here
today to share my testimony.
I have had a wonderful life.
I have an amazing family and friends who love, support, and believe in
me more than I could ever, ever ask for.
I am happy, I've worked hard, and have experienced success.
But as a freshman at Georgia Tech, I began to feel like
there was something more to life. I felt
so incredibly blessed, and I began searching for something or someone
responsible for all of these good things in my life.
I started going to church for the first time in my adult
life. I was fortunate to have wonderful
people in my life who invested in me and shared the Gospel with me. For 4
years, I took in a lot of information and sat through a lot of Sunday church services. I think at that point I begun to understand
and appreciate God’s power, but I still couldn’t say much about my relationship
with Him. I was doing well in school and
work, was respected by my peers, and having the time of my life. I very much
still felt in total control of my life.
When I got to UT for Grad School, my first semester did not
go as I had planned. I had
major doubts about whether I should stay in the program, and if I was even in
the right place to begin with. But, with
these doubts came that hope that maybe I’m here for a different reason than to
just study structural engineering? I
thought, maybe, perhaps, God has a plan for me.
Late in that semester, I met Natalie, very randomly, and she
began encouraging me to explore my faith and poured truth into my life. Seeing her love and passionate belief in God
and Jesus constantly stirred up that desire in my Heart to know God. I prayed that God would continue to reveal
himself to me. And, once the Well
started, I felt so at home and every Sunday, it seemed like Tory’s words were
just what I needed to hear to help me grow in my relationship with Christ.
And then Through
God’s amazing grace, I felt my perspective on a lot of things change: on
relationships, careers, what success in life, what having joy really
meant. I started to feel the Holy Sprit with me.
At different points, God spoke truths into my life that
stopped me in my tracks. Truths like ‘I
am not alone’ and ‘God is at the center of everything’. God and
the Holy Spirit also started speaking to me through my writing, where they
would inspire, comfort, and challenge me.
Through writing out my fears and hopes and prayers, I began to realize
more and more blessings in my life, how countless prayers had already been
answered, and what a blessing it is to Know God.
It was through God’s grace and mercy, that I began to
experience an overwhelming realization of the sacrifice Jesus made for us, for me.
Jesus, for far too long I have resisted accepting You as my
Savior. Through your grace and your
mercy, you have kept pursuing my heart and I have finally realized what a
blessing You are. You died so that an
ordinary, imperfect person like me could live, knowing our God, our
creator.
Jesus, I want you, I need you, and I give you all of
me. I feel like I have barely scratched
the surface of fully understanding your Grace, and I am so excited to be in
Your Presence and Know You More and More, everyday, for Forever.
~~~
I was so excited that my friends and my mom could be there to experience it :D
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