Our Stories of Freedom

I am reading a book that accents the power of our own testimonies and how sharing the love of God through our own stories dates back to New Testament tradition. There is incredible power in sharing how we came to realize that God is a necessary and life giving part of our very foundation. We reveal how we have been changed by the power of the Holy Spirit.

I have been taken back to my own story of redemption and how the incredible realization of God’s love set me on a course that radically altered my life. I remember being led into the waters of baptism and rising again with a feeling of being set apart. I was chosen as one who would follow Christ. I was fourteen years old when I was baptized and I will never forget the clarity of purpose and peace that I felt as a teenager.

Unfortunately, I also heard a voice in my head that kept repeating itself saying, “What you have done is so bad that God will never forgive you for it.” That was the voice of an abusive past that proved successful in ruling my life for many years after my baptism. Here I was a child with a profound sense of freedom shadowed by another voice that was judgmental and horribly devastating at the same time. These conflicting messages of both redemption and condemnation spoke into my life for a very long time.

It would take many years before I could reclaim what God did for me in my baptism. It would also take many years before I could calm the voice that spoke harshly into my life. I am speaking about the false messages that seemed to expose me for an absolute fraud. Eventually God’s voice spoke over the chaos of the other voice and calmed the angry sea that seemed to find a home in my soul.

My testimony, as well as countless others, chronicles the journey that we take with God. It is a story of hopelessness which gave way to hope. Our tales are stories of love even when we felt unlovable. We are a collection of the incredible tapestry of the wonder workings of God. While we are not perfect, we have that which is perfect within us. We stand and proclaim that we reflect a change that we could never have done for ourselves. It is only through the workings of our God that we are made new. Today I give thanks for my own story, or testimony. I hope you do to.