Anything but Ordinary

  Yesterday, one of my closest friends shared her testimony on her blog. If you'd like, you can read it here. As I read, I was heartbroken by the fact that we've been friends since middle school and I never once considered how differently we'd grown up. I grew up in a family where my grandparents, parents, and siblings all attended the same church every Sunday and Wednesday night. Where I accepted Christ as a child and was baptized. I can remember being a kid and my parents having other couples over for Bible studies, or sitting in my grandparents living room watching my Pawpaw study intently in King James Version Bible.

  As I sat reading her story, it hit me that I had been so caught up in being a "good" Christian, that I hadn't paid much attention to those around me, that I had just been lukewarm. And then, I reread it. The words stood out to me, like they should have been bold, italicized, underlined. She wrote, "because my testimony is short and simple". I was not reading something short and simple, I was reading something inspiring. Growing up in a Christian household, I felt as though I was the one who had a "short and simple" testimony. I never really struggled with my relationship with God until I had graduated high school. Even then, I have never experienced even half of what my sweet, enduring friend has gone through in her twenty-one years.

  Later on in the day, I was reading in a wonderful book called Glimpses of Grace by Gloria Furman. Side note: It's about treasuring the Gospel in our everyday, mundane life. Gloria uses examples from experiences with her husband and kids to really hit home the points she is making, which I love. She is a wonderful writer, and I highly recommend this quick read. Anyways, I came across this amazing little passage in the book about testimonies. Y'all, sometimes I am in awe of how the Holy Spirit uses things to show us about God and His glory. Our "short and simple" testimonies that we just think are no big deal, are actually a HUGE deal. Colossians 1:13-14 puts it like this: 

"For he has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."

  In other words, there was a spiritual battle going on for your soul. A battle of which Christ has been victorious because He defeated death and you chose to follow him. I like how Gloria Furman describes it too.

"The Holy Spirit of God peeled the scales from your spiritually blind eyes, awakened your soul to the bright light of the gospel in the face of Jesus Christ, and breathed life into your lifeless soul."

  This simply amazes me. I cannot ever say it enough, especially when it's put that way. Not one of us has the same story of how they come to know Christ. No matter how simple our stories maybe, if we're 5 or 105 when we accept Christ, our testimonies are anything but ordinary. He works in all of our lives in different ways, molding us to become more like Him and to fulfill God's will for us. Nonetheless, when we come to know Him, the scales are peeled off, just like that described of Paul in Acts (if you haven't already look up Acts 9:18). Paul went on to do some amazing things to spread the Word, and we are called to do the same!