Thursday, July 24, 2008

My Testimony - Part Three

I will always be grateful to my brother. I remember his concern for me during my hardest times because he, like everyone, was at a loss with how to help me. It was my brother who introduced me to the truth. And it was my brother who sacrificed to get me to Colonsay so I could sit in on a bible study.

I logged his initial conversation with my dad in my brain and on one particularly bad day in the late summer of 1981, I asked my mom if I could call my brother. After all, I knew my brother had THE ANSWER. I knew it because God put it in my heart to know it.

It just so happened that they were having a bible study that night and, if I remember correctly, my brother was working the graveyard shift. I don't recall our exact conversation, but obviously he knew that I was again in distress because he offered to come and pick me up - a three hour drive one way - in order for me to sit in on this bible study. He then had to work that night with having had very little, if any, sleep. That's what I call a sacrifice. My brother was only 19 years old at the time and looking back on it now, that was a lot to ask.

I sat in on my first bible study. I remember asking a ton of questions, but to be quite honest, if I was told that the bible said that I must eat green cheese three times a week to be saved I would have done it gladly. That's how hungry I was. And after all, God told me this was what I was looking for.

My brother told me that he was thinking of getting baptized, so I asked him to please tell me when he was because I wanted to be there. I went back home after that bible study with a firm resolve in my heart that I was going to this church at any cost. How it would happen seemed impossible, for while my dad was interested in the church and had an open mind, my mom did not. She was adamantly opposed to it. And I knew that she was the barrier that could keep me from going.

I remember praying every night that God would work out a way for me to go to that church in Saskatoon. And while I had some bad days during the summer, they only got worse when school started in the fall. School - an escape for me at one time - was an escape no longer. Bullies and meanspirited people went there and I had to face them every day. I began the ninth grade in fear and trembling, praying every day to be able to go to that church in Saskatoon. I made the volleyball team and played hard, but definitely not with the same gusto as previous, for I was just biding my time. I knew that eventually I would be going to that church in Saskatoon. Sports had ceased to be the centre of my life and had become just a time-filler.

And so it was in October of 1981, that my brother made that phone call. The one where he told us that he was getting baptized on the next Sunday night. I told my dad that I wanted to go. Fortunately my dad did, too.

And unknown to my dad, I packed an extra set of clothing to take to church. I had determined in my heart that I was getting baptized, too.

And I did - but that's for Part Four.

1 comment:

GT said...

but to be quite honest, if I was told that the bible said that I must eat green cheese three times a week to be saved I would have done it gladly. That's how hungry I was. And after all, God told me this was what I was looking for.

This is almost spooky....your testimony sounds so close to mine. I literally felt this same way and have told people **if they had told me to wear only purple and stand on my head I would of done it**.I was in love. Praise the Lord. He knows how to woo us doesnt He?