This page of the website is to encourage people to share their Testimony.
We’ll start with mine!
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This is ‘My Personal Testimony’ regarding how I became a Follower of Jesus Christ. As the theory goes, if I tell my story, it just might strike a chord with you and influence you to experience life as a follower of Jesus Christ. I do not know if My Story is all that unique, but it is My Story:
My Personal Testimony:
Baptized As An Infant
As an infant, I was baptized into the Roman Catholic faith and attended Catholic grade school and two years of Catholic High School in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. Back then, in grade school, the entire student body went to Mass each day and I took Holy Communion almost every day, fasting until after Mass, as were the requirements back then. I usually brought a peanut butter or an egg sandwich to eat after Mass, except on First Fridays, when donuts and hot chocolate would be served to everyone before classes got started. All of us looked forward to First Fridays – what a treat those donuts were!
A Serious Altar Boy
I took Catholicism and Mass very seriously. I learned enough Latin to be able to respond to the priests, while serving during Mass and other liturgical events, I enjoyed being an altar boy and took my duties very seriously. I considered being upon the altar during Mass an honor and something to be done to the best of my ability.
Seminary Summer Camp
My Uncle Jim was in the seminary about the time I was in seventh or eighth grade and he arranged for me to attend a summer camp at the seminary. It was the first time I had ever been away from home without my parents or siblings. It was a fun-filled week with other young boys of my own age. That camp was so impressive! I seriously thought about going to the seminary after graduating from grade school.
A Turning Point: High School
I did not go to the seminary because I did not want to leave my grade school friends. This was a good decision, as high school proved a turning point for me. I became much less interested in Catholicism and more interested in the things of the world.
Training And Education
As I look back on that time, I can recall that I had the training and education to know how I should have been behaving, but the things of the world were just too enticing. Besides, we humans have an almost unlimited ability to rationalize our behavior and I was no exception, even as a young high schooler.
35 Years Of Sinning
For the next 35 years, I was as worldly as I could possibly be, trying to earn more money, accumulate material things and climb ever higher on the corporate ladder. For those behaviors that I knew to be against God’s Commandments, I would soothe my conscience by comparing myself to someone else. You can always find someone who is behaving worse than you are – a comparison that would take me many years to learn is faulty from the ‘get-go’.
Church Attendance Down
As time went on, my church attendance became less frequent and I was thinking less about God and more about my pleasure and the gods I was truly worshipping: money, sex, house, car, prestige, etc. – the good life.
Divorced After 20 Years Of Marriage
About the time I turned 40 years of age, I hit the absolute low point of my life! My wife of twenty years and I were divorced. I was reeling and blaming everyone, including God, except the guy in the mirror. By this time I had completely stopped attending church and was pretty much just going through the motions of life; just trying to get by.
A Soul Mate
A couple of years later while attending my 25th high school reunion, I met the love of my life and we were married in 1993. I would like to tell you that my life went immediately from the deep valley to the highest mountain peak, but that would not be true; more of a long, gradual climb. For one thing, I became a stepfather to two teen-age boys; a task for which I was woefully unprepared. Somehow, through the Grace of God, the four of us made it through those early years. When both boys finished high school in Chicago, where we were living, my wife and I decided to move to Florida, where we would have the opportunity to see more of my two biological children.
Good Friday 1999: My Most Important Day
It was Good Friday, 1999, and I had turned 50 in February. Our marriage was surviving, but certainly not without problems. My wife heard of a Passion play at a local church and she asked me to attend with her. Over the past six years, we had attended several different churches in Chicago and Florida and while I knew I needed God in my life, I did not know what definite, concrete steps I needed to be taking.
Jesus Crucified
I knew the story of Jesus, or at least, thought I did. The story unfolded without surprise through Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on the donkey, the washing of the Apostles’ feet, The Last Supper, His arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane, and His trial before the High Priest and Pontius Pilate. While the church members were acting out their role in the Passion play, the church’s pastor was reading the biblical account of this historical event. When the Cross, with Jesus attached, was raised to a vertical position and the pastor said’Jesus was crucified for YOUR sins’ (while pointing to those in attendance) I became short of breath with my heart pounding and my stomach tied in knots.
My Sins Nailed Jesus To The Cross
You see, I had always been told and always thought that Jesus was killed because of ‘our’ sins and heaven was earned by being a decent person; by avoiding or confessing any ‘mortal’ sins. I had heard people talk about ‘a personal relationship with Jesus’, but did not really understand what that meant. That passion play, in that medium-sized church in that small Florida town was the very first time that it hit me! I came to the realization thatJesus was crucified for MY sins! That small change in pronoun brought about a major change in my life. I could no longer feel safe in the collective group, comparing myself to some person who I supposed to be a bigger sinner than myself. I am the sinner whose sins nailed Jesus to the cross!!
Accepted Jesus As My Lord And Savior
I answered the ‘altar call’ that night by going forward and committing my life to Jesus Christ. I am now a ‘Born Again Christian.’ I would also like to tell you that from that moment on, life has gone from one high point to another, always getting better; but that would not be true either. There are still problems, trials and tribulations, but they do not seem as difficult to live with or to manage with Jesus by my side. Sometime later I was baptized by immersion in that same Church.
Learning About Jesus: A Life-Long Adventure
From that Good Friday Passion Play until now, I have worked to get closer to God; to develop a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, to read the Bible and learn more about God’s Word. It is work that will never be completed – there is always more to learn from God and about God.
A Miracle Experienced
I am going to tell you a story my wife and I both witnessed. It was undeniably a miracle from God. We were in the process of relocating from Florida to Missouri. We had a small place close to the beach in Alabama, where we were staying for the New Year. It was January 1, 2012, and my wife had to get back to Missouri for her job. I was staying in Alabama to help us get moved from Florida to Missouri. I was taking her to the airport in Pensacola, Florida early on Sunday morning. I was driving my Silverado pick-up truck and while traveling, I had a seizure. I remember nothing of this event. My wife tells me I passed out while traveling along the road and she could not wrest control of the vehicle from me. She said a quick prayer and the truck coasted to a stop along the side of the road. No one was injured; no property damaged. The miracle was no damage nor injury to either of us nor any vehicles. She called 911; they responded and I went to the hospital. We still talk about it today as being a miracle and a tremendous gift from God. This was almost thirteen years after I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Personal Savior. We both witnessed a miracle that day!
Joy – Peace – Contentment
One result of placing my faith and trust in Jesus Christ is a sense of Peace, Joy and Contentment. It fills my life and was completely missing in my life prior to that Good Friday evening. When I leave this earth, I will spend Eternity with Jesus Christ. Would you please join me?
John 3: 15-21
“that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”
Meet The Truth 