TESTIFY!

I'm excited about the opportunity to post my testimony. Some lovely ladies at the Christian blog site proclaimed this Friday as "Testimony Day", so here goes.
First, you have to use your imagination. I may seem like a fairly cool, morally upright person now, who was possibly born having these characteristics from the beginning. After all, I came from a very "normal" family, with no major traumas, but decent intellect and artistic giftings that should equip me to be a successful person by this world's standards.
So how did I become the outrageous teen who rebelled against society, disappointing my parents at age 15 with my rantings on free love and bucking the system?! Oh, yeah, I forgot- that can be normal in one's teen years. So let's move on. Even at 17, living with my boyfriend and partying and denouncing the material world, I was still young. After all, by almost 18 years old, I got married and finally appeared to be "maturing".
For the next twenty years of my life, I worked primarily in the food industry, and partied less. Dabbled in a new religion: "The Church Of Divine Man". Man Was King! YOU controlled your universe, and with enough time spent imagining the realization of your desires, you too could have everything you wanted. OK, so how come I did all the mental excercises, and STILL wasn't a rock star?! I gave up on that religion.
So I kept working, became a mother of two, and partied even less. Moved into a New Age Era of east-meets-west philosophy. Did what I wanted, and came close to leaving my husband. Gave up on that idea for practical reasons, and sat tight. Hooked up with some other dreamer-musicians and sang really retarded songs like, oh my gosh, can you believe it: "Black Leather Monster". But I was hip, yeah. At one point, one of the kids who worked at our deli was bringing pot-filled brownies to the show we were all going to, and I thought that was cool. Uh, as long as he didn't get stoned at work. Yeah, I was righteous. Yeah.
It so amazes me, how incredibly real and powerful God is. Because up until September, 1995, I had tried just about every approach to change possible. And I never quite "changed" until then. I might occasionally lose one bad character trait due to the latest discipline, but some other strange defect would pop up.
Finally, that September, I had a powerful reason to consider God. A blast from my past, a haunting reminder of my strange and sordid youth, was coming back to bite me. I was going to have to mend relations with an old boyfriend who was coming to town, and I really felt I needed to pray for God to help me. But, it's kind of like when your server's not up and running: You know your stuff's not going to go through. So, despite my many years of self-sufficiency, I realized I really couldn't "do it all". I couldn't manufacture my own god to help me in challenging times. I needed the Holy Spirit. I needed to ask God for His Holy Spirit.
My "looney" Jesus Freak friend at our deli had been trying to explain this to me for years, but it had never clicked before. Well, it clicked the night I went home, started making supper, and stood by the stove saying, "God, PLeaSe give me Your Holy Spirit, so that I can pray to You and know You can answer!" From that moment on, I knew He was there. He put me through the "Quick Change" process, and I changed so radically that it was like night and day. All the preaching about Jesus hadn't gotten through before; I'd heard the stories, I knew Jesus died for us... but it was all in my head, not in my heart. The Holy Spirit went beyone head stuff. I got saved, by His grace.
I love thinking about this. God is So Good.
I could go on- tales about how my husband (my wonderful husband, as I came to realize) came to know Jesus in the next six months as well. It still amazes me. And it's such fun, to hear all our stories. God's gifts are good!