I started a short class at my Church and we were asked to write out our testimony and share it with someone. So I figured what better place to share the works God has done in my life then with my fellow MB'ers. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />
My Testimony
Life before Jesus-I attended church as a young child and I don’t specifically recall there being a time that I didn’t know who Jesus was. He’s always been an influence in my life. Maybe not the focal point, but he’s always been there and had a bearing on me. While I may have known who Jesus was, actually knowing him and everything he stands for and has done is something totally different.
Throughout my life growing up I’ve gone through long periods of not attending church. I remember that as a child we went to church quite a bit, but I also remember there were long periods when we wouldn’t go. Looking back now I realize how I really didn’t know Jesus and I see the times where I fell into sin because I didn’t truly know him and what he stood for. There was a time when I was a Junior/Senior in High School when I got back into church for a while. I felt my relationship with God at that point was stronger then it had ever been before. Looking back now, I can say my relationship now is the strongest it has ever been.
During those periods in my life when I wasn’t right with God, I can see how I fell into the trap of not doing the right things. When I was younger I would get into fights, I would steal periodically and even experimented sexually with friends. My parent’s house was foreclosed when I was a Sr. in High School and the 5 of us were forced to move into a 2 bedroom apartment. Soon after graduation I had to move out of the apartment so my mom could continue to receive welfare because I was working. I later moved in with my uncle for a month and then moved in with my later to be wife. I had my car that I valued flooded by the rare El Nino storm in our apartment complex in California. I was really addicted to gambling and online gaming for quite some time.
Later during my High School years when I was hitting a good stretch of going to church, I met my later to be Wife. Being in a relationship can tend to draw you away from God. Needless to say, it ended up drawing me away from God for the next 9 years of my life. I went back to church with her a few times, but I was in no place to be able to share what I knew with her in a way she could understand. So for me, it was easier to just not go and instead focus on my marriage.
During the time I was happily married we accomplished a lot. We bought a house, had pretty good cars and a comfortable bank account. We went on vacations once in a while and were the model happy couple. We worked our ways into great jobs for a while but I was eventually laid off a week before Sept. 11th for 11 months. During that time, I was lost. I had no hope, desire, or ambition and was very depressed.
My wife received a job offer from her former boss she worked with in California to move to Atlanta and since I didn’t have anything working for me back home job wise we decided to move. Soon after we moved to Atlanta our marriage started falling apart. The once invincible marriage began to crack. She ended up traveling for periods of time which created a distancing between us. She found out she had an Ovarian Cyst and Endometriosis which created an infertility problem for us. During that difficult time we became distanced and things really headed down hill. Before I knew it, things were the worse they had ever been in our relationship. We had never had real problems and I found myself wondering why things were the way they were. I tried rectifying the situation to no avail.
I eventually found out my wife was having an affair with her Boss whom got us to move out to Atlanta. Immediately after finding out about the affair she moved out of our apartment and continued on with her affair. I asked for communication to be broken off for a month while I figured things out for myself. After that month, we started communicating again. I ended up having to tell the other man’s wife that her husband was having an affair. I tried doing everything I could do to reconcile our marriage to no avail. There were many difficult things I had to deal with during that time. She ended up moving back to California to pursue another job opportunity and I had the opportunity to go with her but I felt that God wanted me to stay in Atlanta. Since staying in Atlanta, I have found life to be much easier and happier.
How I came to know Jesus-I came to know Jesus as a young child. I don’t know exactly when it was that I asked Jesus to come into my life, but I do remember always having this sense of knowing right from wrong and trying to do the best I could. I would have to say during my High School years when I went back to church I had a much better relationship with him, but didn’t truly know him like I know him today.
I really came to know Jesus like I had never known him before once I found out my wife was having an affair. I woke up one day when we were staying with her parents and had known for some time that things weren’t right between us. I feel God told me to go to her parent’s computer and check her email account. When I did that, I found the evidence of what I knew was something wrong. I printed up the email and took it to her at the mall where she was shopping with her mom. I showed it to them and then went back to my in-laws, packed my bags and stayed at my Mom’s the rest of the trip. That day I went to a Christian Book store looking for a Steven Curtis Chapman CD – “It’s all about love”. During the times I went to church when I was younger I always enjoyed Christian Music. It always gave me such a good and reassuring feeling listening to it. I found the CD I was looking for and I also found a book called “Surviving an Affair”. It was only one of 2-3 books on the subject there and it was the only copy. I took that book back to my mom’s and started reading it fervently. I feel God gave me great revelation about what had happened and how it had happened. I felt a great peace and reassurance. He started working great wonders in my life from that point on that I could actually see and feel.
I immediately started going back to church the weekend I got back from the vacation we were on back home where I found out. The relationship I have with God now is the greatest relationship I have ever felt. I know he’s guiding my life, I know he’s working on making me a better person, I know I can go to him and ask him for help with anything. I know the difference between what I can do and what I should do.
The difference Jesus has made in my life-He has given me hope, inspiration, understanding, comfort, peace, joy, Love and the reassurance that one day when I leave this world I will be going to heaven.
Without Jesus, I could not have made it through the past 5+months and come out of it as I have. I would not have had the answers I was looking for to the questions I had. I would not have had the support of friends from church who have just been beyond amazing during these trying times. I would still be questioning myself and possibly back in California with an unhappy marriage that was not intended to survive this affair. I know God has shown me a great many things through this trial and I have learned so many things I would have not otherwise learned. My fault lies in not being right with God, not putting him first in my marriage and valuing the Love marriage provides more then the Love God has for us.
Plan of Salvation May God Bless you all! AMEN
<small>[ December 02, 2003, 04:39 PM: Message edited by: Eduard ]</small>
