Monday 3 February 2014

Testimony, Testimony, I'll Never Be The Same!

I recently heard an excellent sermon on the power of testimony. And then, not long afterwards, I was reading something and it made me realise, the Bible is basically a big book of testimonies about God and all that He has done for His people. And it changes people and leads them to Him. People ask if God is still relevant today. There are still testimonies about God happening all the time, all over the world, so we should be telling people them so they can change people and lead them to God! Here's mine...

The last month or so have been kinda hard for me! I don't feel like I've been myself, or even fully know who know who that is anymore. I've started drinking tea, and doing crazy stuff like tidying my room, at midnight, on Christmas Eve, and going for longs walks or a run. One minute I've been a bit hyper and weird and the next I've been grumpy and horrible to people or crying. (If you've been a victim of that, I'm sorry! I love y'all really and if I do it again, just throw chocolate at me and run away!)

I heard, before I started here at LST, that Bible College can make you go through a phase of "oh no! All this is crazy! I don't know who God is anymore"! And someone also said that doing counselling can make you go through a phase of "oh no! All this is crazy! I don't know who I am anymore"! I think I'm at that bit of the counselling course. The theology part, however, has made me want to get to know God better, which is good because at the moment I really need Him.

It's only the start of the forth week of this term and, looking back, I feel like there have been more lows than highs over the last three weeks, mainly to do with other stuff. Looking back I can also see that God has been with me the whole time and carried me through it all.

Yesterday I was having a rubbish day and felt kinda depressed for most of it. In the evening I just went to my room and cried. I feel like God is trying to deal with stuff in my life that I've tried to ignore for over fifteen years. (Please don't ask me about it. My counselling process group will find out when I tell my story, they can ask.) It's gonna be hard and scary and I just wanted to run away and not do this term. There's one person who, sometimes I feel like they know me better than I know myself, but they're up in Birmingham, so basically, it was just me.

I don't really remember praying while I was crying, I may have done. But then I found a book. I only read about two pages and didn't feel like reading much more but what I did read helped. It made me realise that I wasn't the only one to ever go through this.

This morning I woke up and did a Bible study. At church last week I picked up a copy of some notes and was going to start them on the 1st. However, being me, I lost it. Fortunately, it was online so the last couple of days I used that. Last night though, I found the notes. So I used them this morning. And that's when God showed me that He cares. He was there with me last night, through the tears and fear and depression and all that crap stuff.

Turns out, the Bible reading notes I picked up weren't the usual 'this is what you should be reading on this date' kind. It was an introduction to those notes. Day 1? "Get up, Get over it and Move on. 'You will forget the shame of your youth' Isaiah 54:4". It was exactly what I needed! And some Bible references in it took me back to times when God has spoken to me in the past. Like I said, I don't really remember if I prayed last night but this morning God showed me that He was there and that He loves and cares for me and that He's got me safe and knows what He is doing.
I still got stuff to work through, but His grace has found me just as I am, empty handed but alive in His hands! =)

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