My Personal Testimony of Salvation

I was baptized as an infant in the Episcopal church then raised in it until age 10 by my mother while my father was off practicing satanism and trying to be a warlock. At age 10 my parents both turned Holy Roller born again charismatic. At age 17 I fired my parents’ “god” and thought that it was all there was to be offered. I went on with my life, a closet believer who only prayed when things got bad and never told a soul until now. To the outside world, I said I was an atheist then an agnostic. Then after 40 years, something changed.

In 2015, I realized that one thing had happened to me that I could not deny that proved to me when I was a mere 7 year old child, that God not only exists, but that He loves us. In an extreme moment of being sexually assaulted by a family member (the result of which was a tailbone broken to pieces), and suddenly there was a man next to me, his face was so full of light I could barely see his features. He told me not to be afraid. He told me to climb up into the crown of my head to get away from the violence being done to me. I tried it, and when I lifted my head in wonder to thank him because it had worked, he was gone. After recalling this is when I realized that I could no longer run around claiming I was either an atheist (those folks hate too much!) or an agnostic (which was blown apart by my remembering that sacred moment at 7 years old), I was stumped as to what to do with my belief in God.

I thought of all the churches my parents drug me and my brother through in our teenage years, and the Episcopalian churches before that in my childhood, and I could not think of one of them I would be comfortable in. There was one, that at least taught me the basics about Jesus and the Gospel and a few scattered famous stories in the Bible. I called that church and spoke to the priest there. But I just couldn’t open myself up, so I got off the phone quickly.

Then it hit me: I know what I’ll do! I am going to pick up that Bible and I am going to read the whole thing myself and find out what is REALLY in it, not what everyone and their uncle wants to TELL me is in it. And so I started my travels.

It might help at this point to say WHY I had not opened my Bible in 40 some years. See, most of us believe that what a “leader” in a “church” says must be what is in the Bible about God. But that is not true.

What drove me AWAY from God (or so I thought) as a teenager was the complete lack of Bible teaching in the “charismatic” movement I experienced in the 70’s. At age 17, when I fired my parents’ idea of “god”, I did so as he was really a sadistic devil the way they had portrayed him. And I’m glad I did. Because they did not worship God Almighty, the I AM THAT I AM at all. And their priests and pastors had stolen Jesus’ name to cover all manner of evil, which did not help my parents to turn from their ways.

That’s why I was in therapy for 35 years. I wasn’t supposed to make it. I almost didn’t several times, but God stepped in and stopped it every time. I finally gave up and realized I was stuck with living and waiting to die on God’s terms not mine. That was over 20 years ago now.

I’m only sorry that my family was so misled and therefore unrepentant and of course, as a result, full of sin, that I was dragged into such a worldly fleshly pretend “church”. Then they added to their sin using God to justify every type of child abuse nameable: physical, mental, emotional, sexual and to really cap it all off: Spiritual.

So — I became discouraged about “god” and thought that I had lost my salvation by walking away 40 years ago. My disgust and fear of that “weird stuff” made it that much harder to open my Bible up and read it alone. It took frustration and anger over all the lies I had been told to finally do that. It may be the only decision I made in anger that actually turned out to be not only good, but salvation itself.

My return to the true and only God is in the Scripture, and my months (ongoing) of weeping repentance and huge relief knowing more the character of God was a journey I took alone. Of course, I can’t blame the whole 40 years on my parents’ — I was out there “sinning it up” as well. So I have much repentance to go through, but it’s nice it comes in bits and pieces. If I had to do all of it all at once, I’m not sure I could get up off the ground again. I’m so very grateful, even though I am nothing and have nothing to offer God, I’m so grateful to know Him again in those pages, undisturbed by rotten “teaching”.

I still read every day, as that is how I hear God and understand Him and what His Will is a little bit more every day. All I ever wanted was the Truth with a capital T. And now, thank God Almighty, I do, in my hands in the Holy Bible.

Matthew 5:6 NKJV says “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.” The good Lord Himself could testify I’ve been like a starving person for His Word, and like a man dying of thirst in a desert who has found a source of water. I eat and drink from His Holy Word (the Holy Bible) several hours a day. And on hard days, most of the day, sometimes even through the night, as it comforts me like a child with a blanket.

I have a reading disability, and audio Bibles have been a Godsend for me. I encourage anyone who has a hard time reading with their eyes for any reason to consider trying audio.

The Word of the Lord strengthens me and puts my feet on the right path every day. I praise Him and glorify Him for the wondrous changes He has wrought in me! These changes have freaked out some members of my family – that is how great the change is! Thankfully, I have been able to successfully reassure my concerned family members that:

1) no, I haven’t lost my mind and

2) no, I have not and will not ever return to charismania or it’s offshoots now so mainstream in America as to often be called “Churchianity”.

I thank my Wondrous, Glorious, Merciful, Just, and Mighty God in Heaven, the Only LIVING GOD, for His immeasurable gift of Salvation, Sanctification through His Word, and regeneration of my heart and mind. Praise God the Father, His Son Jesus Christ my Savior and the Holy Spirit, my ever present helper!