MY PERSONAL TESTIMONY

As some of you know, I was brought up by a loving devout mother that instilled in me the need to have God in my life.  My mother’s dad was a minister, and one of her brothers retired from the ministry in 2011.  With that background, I had a pretty good idea of what God expected of me at an early age.

I accepted Christ as my Savior when I was a child; but, though I knew He was there and wanted Him there if I needed Him, I kept Him on the sidelines of my life.  I tried to do what was right because I wanted to please Him, but somehow I never realized what I was doing by keeping Him on the fringes of my life.

When my first marriage began to fall apart, I thought I was doing everything I could to hold it together.  When he told me he wanted a divorce, I told myself there was nothing else I could have done to save the marriage.  The divorce forced me to seek the only strength I knew that was strong enough to get me through, and I finally drew closer to God.

It wasn’t until a few years later that the Lord impressed upon me that I had played a part in the breakup because I had not kept Him front and center where He could work through me to save the marriage.

He led me to I Peter 3:1 which says, “Likewise, ye wives, be in  subjection to your own husbands; that if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives.”

He let me know loud and clear that by reacting to the situation with anger and hostility, instead of love, that I was wrong.  He showed me that by struggling through on my own, by not asking for His help, I was as guilty as my husband.  I should have asked for His help in saving the marriage, not for a way out.

I can look back now and see where His hand directed events to pull me through a particularly rough patch and each instance where He clearly gave me what I needed to help at that time.

I can also see that what appears to be bad circumstances, have in actuality turned out to be a blessing because, as He promised, He has worked it all to good.  My faith has grown enormously.  My inner strength, my patience, and my sense of self-worth have multiplied many times over.

He has answered many prayers in a way that still leaves me in awe.  And all because I finally acknowledged that I could not live my life without Him being first in that life.  And because He loves me enough to be there when I need Him.

I soon found that, because of my growing faith and my closer walk with Him, He was using me more and more in areas where I could not be used before.  My faith was not usable before the way it is now, and He has blessed me with the responsibility of praying for others, of letting me feel another’s need for prayer in an unmistakable way that would not have been possible before.

For one of those stories read my three part article on how God used NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon to change my prayer life. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

He impressed upon me the need for me to spend my time more constructively, to seek out ways to serve Him by helping others.  I wasted so much of my life by not keeping Him first, by not dedicating my life to His will, and now I feel an urgency to be about His business.

I know that we all wish that life could be easier, with fewer problems, but we were not promised an easy life.  In fact, Jesus warned that as Christians, our lives would be far from easy.

He said we will be persecuted for our beliefs, held in contempt by the secular world, and even put to death in the end times.  But then He promised to be with us through it all.

We that have chosen to turn our lives over to Him and follow Him, can take great comfort in the fact that we have such strength to draw on, and can find a peace, through Him, that passes all understanding.

I have finally found that peace.  Even with all the problems and seemingly insurmountable hardships that fill my life, I can turn to Him and draw on His promise to give me His peace.

In fact, it is because of those trials that I have finally realized just how much I do need Him.  And I can praise Him and thank Him for that every day of my life.

My Hope Is You by Third Day

© Drusilla Mott and https://drusillamott.wordpress.com, 2012