When I hear that somebody is going to "give his
testimony," the same mental picture always comes to my mind.
A hefty, rough-looking man with tattoos all over his limbs stands
up before a large crowd of clean-cut, church-going type people
and begins to disclose all his past sins. He tells about the many
times he passed out after drinking a case or two of beer,
explains the basics of doing cocaine, and tells of the illicit
sexual encounters he has had. At the very end, he states that he
met Jesus and now he doesn't live that way anymore.
I think that image doesn't touch the core of what a testimony is.
For me, the focus shouldn't just be the outward actions because
what was behind my actions was the need to fill deep hunger and
desires. My testimony is coming to the realization that the
outward actions haven't touched the deep place, only God can
satisfy and fill me. All the other methods have left me lacking
and striving, but as the Word says in Psalm 37:4, "He will
give [me] the desires of my heart."
Not only did I seek to find things to fill me but I was seeking
what were suppose to be the right desires to have. In other
words, how was I going to gain worth, significance, and
affirmation? What would make me feel complete? What was the right
way of getting all of these things? Was I suppose to even worry
about significance and affirmation?
Somehow I decided that worth, significance and affirmation would
come from "doing God's will" and walking God's way and
denying all of my own desires you know, the die-to-self concept.
What that meant for me is that I would have to do everything that
God says and have to follow all of God's "rules" or He
would burn me up with fire or kill me. . . like the stories I
read in the Old Testament. I did everything out of fear of His
strong judgments. But I had a problem with how my heart felt
about the whole thing. I just wanted to hear stuff like, "I
love you. . . I am proud of you. . . You are doing okay,"
instead of always being afraid of the consequences of doing
wrong. Trying to get worth out of doing things because of the
fear of what would happen if I didn't, left my heart really
empty. It seemed like I couldn't have the things my heart desired
and still walk in God's ways, they were contradictory. The fear
was stronger and I tried to shut my heart down. Everything else
in my life was focused around what God said I was suppose to do.
My reasoning is that if I would just "do my work as unto the
Lord" I wouldn't have to get approval or affirmation from
anyone else. Of course, I didn't believe that on the inside. I
desperately wanted to do enough of the right stuff to have
somebody give me approval or affirmation and when I didn't feel
like I got it I thought that I needed to do more. . . I must not
be doing enough. I was stuck in a cycle. While I tried to do
more, I also had to work hard at stuffing down all of the
emotions I felt. It seemed as though they were adversaries of my
pursuit to walk in God's ways. They made me feel desperate,
angry, weak, and all those things that seemed to go against my
definition of righteous living. I could not let them surface. I
went to any length to keep my emotions controlled. I would even
abuse myself in hopes of putting them back in their place. Since
all of those emotions and feelings had no other place to go, my
thought life increased. Of course, this only led to more fantasy
which eventually also led to fleshly indulgence. I kept this
aspect of my life a deep secret and tried to do more good things
to cover up all of the grossness.
Somehow I managed to maintain this draining life-style until
close to the end of my college years. Finally, all of the rage
bubbled forth. Out of that anger, I outwardly rebelled against
God. I was angry that I had worked so hard to please Him with no
success. It felt like I was dead on the inside. I did not have
enough strength to keep on walking righteously. The anger and
rage increased so much that I was having a hard time keeping it
in. So whenever I got an invitation to go to a bar and to drink
as a release for the anger and rage, I decided "why
not" and I threw the rules out the door. . . I was mad. . .
The rules were empty. I got an new adrenaline rush from all the
new rebellious things that I was doing. I felt ALIVE for once in
my life. In the middle of all this self-discovery, I found
someone who began to pour out affirmation on me. And I began to
feel like maybe she could meet that deep desire. She touched
areas in my heart that God had never touched. I felt loved,
important, and significant. It was not long before we ended up in
a lesbian relationship. Deep inside, I knew that it was wrong.
But I didn't care. She seemed more real than all those
commandments I had been trying to follow. So I completely turned
my back on God and put all of my hopes and dreams in her. And
when I had completely drained the relationship, it ended. I
thought that I had just lost my whole life. I felt so crushed and
totally hopeless that I even tried to bargain with Satan to get
her back.
Fortunately, God didn't allow that to happen. After some time of
just trying to deny that I had ever been involved in a lesbian
relationship, I had to start coming to grips with what I had
done. I was pretty sure I couldn't go back to God. I had
committed the unpardonable sin and I knew that He couldn't
forgive it. After all, He burned up Sodom and Gomorrah. But I
really didn't feel like I had any other choice. It was God or
die. I was a little too scared of what would happen if I
committed suicide so I decided that I would take a huge risk and
try to ask God for forgiveness. One night, I sat down in the
middle of the floor and just started telling God all of the
things that I had done and asked Him to forgive me. I can't
explain it, but somehow I knew that He was listening. Maybe I
really could come back to God. Of course, that one event didn't
change how I had viewed God for most of my life. I spent months
questioning, arguing, and finding Scriptures in the Bible that
would support reasons why I couldn't be forgiven.
It was right around this time that I came in contact with First
Stone. I started attending the support group where the leaders
would talk about things like having legitimate needs but our
problem is that we have met them illegitimately. I guess that was
the first time that I thought that maybe the deep insatiable
hunger for acceptance, affirmation, and love was something that
was suppose to be met. In addition, they also taught about the
Father's love. This also seemed much different than the God that
I knew. This Father-God wanted and pursued an intimate and
personal relationship with me.
I also began to meet with a counselor from First Stone. After a
month of me showing her all the Scriptures that proved that I
couldn't be forgiven. She began to have me read Scriptures about
God's mercy and grace. It was like I ran up against a wall. All
of these things I was hearing went against what I thought I knew.
Was it really true that God WANTED me to bring everything about
me to Him? He WANTED me to bring all of my junk? I thought that I
was suppose to clean up before I went to Him. Slowly, but surely,
my image of God began to change. I began to see that God IS love.
Everything that He does is an expression of who He is--LOVE. And
God doesn't care about every way that I've messed up. What He
really wants is for me to know Him more---not just know a lot of
things about Him. As this became more of a reality to me, many of
my addictive habits began to lose their power.
I still had a major problem, however. I couldn't seem to bring my
heart and my emotions into the picture. I wanted to obey God with
more zeal than ever before. I understood that I really could not
do this on my own. Without really knowing God in a relationship,
I couldn't know how to do His will. I knew the importance of
taking all of my junk to Him because that was the only way that I
could change. But I still could not understand how all of those
deep desires and pains inside of me could exist and me still
believe in God's Word. They still seemed to be so contradictory.
So, although I let God have more of my heart than ever before, I
still reserved one section. I was just so scared that if the
walls around that part came down that I would fall again. I might
not get back into a lesbian relationship, but I would become
co-dependent again. I would drive away all of my new godly
friendships. I would suck the life from them just as I had done
previously. Besides, surely they really didn't like or really
want to be around me? Maybe they were just being nice to me
because they felt sorry for me. Also, I just knew that God
wouldn't give me any really cool stuff to do for Him because I
was not strong enough to get rid of those haunting desires. I
still felt unimportant. I still felt like I was just a
second-class citizen in God's kingdom.
I guess God didn't want to let me stay the way I was. He's pretty
faithful. He began to bring situation after situation into my
life that poked at all of those deep places in my heart that I
had sealed off. The more God poked the more I realized that my
heart was extremely needy. I needed to feel important. I needed
to feel like somebody was proud of me. I needed to just be
connected to people. I needed to be comforted. I needed to be
close. I needed to be loved. I needed to fit in. The more I
acknowledged these things that I needed, the more they seemed to
grow. It hurt so bad to have all of these needs without me having
a way to meeting them. I couldn't fill them up. I knew that all
of the things I had tried before didn't take care of it. They
might momentarily make me feel better or they might help try to
cover up the problem, but they didn't fill it.
I attended a Night of Praise (worship leader -Dennis Jernigan)
with my heart feeling empty and needful. As we worshipped Jesus,
the songs drove deeper my need for Jesus just to hold me and love
me. I longed to hear Him tell me how proud He was of me and how I
was important to Him. I longed for Him to just console me and
make my heart stop hurting so much. It felt like I had come to a
crossroads. How could I believe in the songs that we were singing
about Jesus being my Shepherd and my Comforter? If He was really
Lord of All and reigning over everything, couldn't He come and
fix my heart? And if He loved me, why didn't He answer my cry?
Then from deep in my heart, you know, that place that I had
sealed off. . . that place where I didn't know how God could be
apart, from that place, I just knew that all of those things
about Jesus had to be true. There was no other answer. And it
didn't matter if I went to my grave, believing this and never
seeing it. It was true and I was going to stake my whole life on
it even if all of those needs that hurt so bad killed me. . . It
surprised me. I was believing in truth not from my intellect but
from my heart. And I was believing not only when everything was
fine and dandy, but when I felt like I had no strength to stand
on anything. God had just penetrated the deep place that I
thought He would never occupy. Actually, the truth is that He had
planted that a long time ago. And all of the pain and hurt and
the surfacing of these emotions seemed to be purifying that seed
planted so long ago. And I finally began to see that I actually
was developing one deep desires of my heart. I wanted a passion
so deep for God that I would be willing to give anything for it.
I'm not talking about that mushy kind of passion that the TV
portrays. You know, the stuff where people call each other
"honey" and "lovebug." I'm talking about a
love so deeply embedded in my heart that I would be willing to
give anything, even my life, for it. I never thought that I could
have that desire for God. I didn't think that I could combine all
the aspects of feeling alive along with walking in God's ways.
But I am finding that actually the two go hand in hand,
"like peas and carrots," as Forest Gump would say. And
that's all I have to say about that.
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