My Testimony of Christ

1 Cor. 15:51 “Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,”

I am being called to give a Testimony of Christ; MY testimony of Christ. This might very well turn into a week-long series so you’ve been warned. If you are reading me for the first time, I welcome you. Please don’t be discouraged by the word Christ, read on because you want to hear my story. 

Yesterday’s sermon was pretty good when Pastor called up a young woman to give her testimony of why she turned to Christ. That’s when truth slapped me upside the head. I hear so many people who give testimony of Christ, being raised with Christ all of their lives. Their parents and grandparents all had a hand in Christ and relayed Him to their children. This woman’s testimony was no different.

Amazing. People actually grew up with Christ in their lives? Surrounded by a loving family, their testimony is usually how they turned away, usually during the pubescent years and found Christ again.

Someone had told me recently that kids who are raised with Christ and turn away usually have a hard time returning to Him and accepting all that he has to offer. I have a tendency to disagree with that because if a child is raised with Christ and is turned away upon maturity, the soul search is just something that we need to do to find our grounding. 

I was not raised with Christ. My parents were not grounded in Christ nor were my grandparents a part of Christ. My family lineage is of alcohol right down to my great grandparents, all alcoholics, so it is no wonder I took my first drink at a younger than ‘normal’ age. Yeah, I would say eight and nine is younger than normal to take your first drink, puff your first cigarette, and smoke your first joint.

The pastor said something today. Pastor said, “You know how when you’re not of sober mind, you’ll say and do things that you normally wouldn’t do? People see you as a drunkard and no amount of bible spewing is going to have them seeing you differently.” He went on, “Well,” he said, “That’s what people see when you’re under the influence of God. They see Christ in you. You’ll say and do things you wouldn’t normally do!” 

He’s right. First, let me define Christian in MY eyes. For one, the term was not around in the Old Testament so when I hear people say that the men who wrote some book and call themselves Christians, I’ll assume have not read ‘the book’ in its entirety or even tried to understand what the message is that we’re supposed to receive.

Second of all, I was not raised in a Christian household. I didn’t have a mother and father that sat around reading Bible stories to their kids and I didn’t have a religious upbringing. I had what is deemed a politically correct term, dysfunctional family. I had a family who saw beer as a dinner meal, drugs as ‘cool thing’, whoopings when you were disobedient, and punishments were belted out, vocally and branded on your butt. 

My dad (God rest his soul) never dished out the beatings, he was too busy sitting on a bar stool exercising his elbow. I will not say anything bad about my mother and father because they did the best they could raising six kids and staying married for 60 years. That’s it, we were raised. We fended for ourselves and grew. Me? I chose to find God. You see, all six of us were sent to a Catholic school but not all of us sought out God. Many strayed but it wasn’t because we were raised on God and turned, we never accepted the teachings of the nuns and priests to begin with.

Was I a perfect kid? By no means whatsoever. The thing is, the people who know me now would not have ever recognized me back then with skinned knees, bruised legs, a cigarette hanging out of my mouth and beer hidden in a paper bag, you know so no one knew what I was drinking? I was bad in every sense of the word! I was a liar, cheater, stealer, and a scummy sleazeball! If you think the girls today dress slutty, that is me only ten times worse. Imagine a size zero fifteen-year-old, long blond flowing hair, wearing a see-through white halter-top and cheek bearing hot pants. Yup, that was me.

So how is it that people who see me now see a beautiful woman? They don’t see beauty physically, I don’t think, they see innocence, purity, God’s light shining through me. They see the changed me. They met the changed me and liked who I was as a person whereas the people back home in Baltimore never had a chance to even get to KNOW the changed me. They just thought I was the battered kid from back in the day and that is who I am now. Boy, are they ever so wrong. Change bit me hard and now I just have the scars to prove where I’ve been

So what changed me? I’ll tell you, God changed me. I stumbled upon Him as a beaten battered sinner and He took me in and raised me. If you go to a church, don’t assume the people there are these perfect people living sinless lives. They’re all standing in front of God as a sinner, we are all sinners, we turn to God for him to cleanse us; wash us of our sin and to heal us where no man is capable of healing. The term Christian is for Christ Followers. It is not a religion, it is not to be thrown around like a basketball dribbled and put in the hoop when the timing is right. Christianity is a state of mind, a spiritual cleansing making what was old new again.

I’ll have to finish this up in a later post. I told you it would take me a week. Hang in there folks. My sister told my mother this weekend in a disagreement that she [my sister] died when I was born. She was no longer a princess…..

Graduation

Prov. 8:10 Receive my instruction, and not silver; and knowledge rather than choice gold.

Well this is it, two more days and my son graduates from high school. I remember five years ago when we moved to Nebraska and Steven said we should put him in school. I was so not up for putting him in school.

You see, I home-schooled Adam. I didn’t feel society had anything to offer him and putting him in school would only taint him. Boy was I wrong. When we mentioned sending him to school he got all excited. As I often do when I’m faced with a task or something, I pray. And pray I did. Adam and Steven were already on board with the whole school thing and now I needed some guidance.

Adam was seven when we moved to Texas and now at thirteen we were moving to Nebraska. I was shaping him and forming him for the world and now I had to let him go into the world and see how he’d respond. Would society accept him? Would they taunt and tease him? Would they take away from him all the work I did?

His first year of school was ninth grade and they saw that he was different; he was a ‘home schooled homeboy’. He had a lot of city upbringing in him and he was among the country folk who have a whole different way of living. Wouldn’t ya know it, it was the outcasts that accepted him first.

His first year was rough with all of the bully’s eyes on him. He was different, he stood out, he had different beliefs than they had. Sure this was a God loving place but you see, when kids are normally taught God and thrown into society at six, it is society who shapes and molds them. God shaped and molded Adam so he was different in that aspect. It was obvious that society had not shaped him.

I clashed with the rules of the system big time. When Adam got pushed I told him to push back but the system was different. When someone walked up and punched you in the face, you were told to go to the office and NOT hit back! I was raised in the city and if someone hit me, we hit back or get a worse beating the next time if we ‘tattled’. When I see the bully NOT get punished because, “we just want to get him out of the school.” But Adam got punished for hitting back? Yeah, something is wrong with the system!

And we wonder why these kids are getting bullied and going back to the school and killing many? I don’t wonder at all. I know they are angry at a system that sees these kids as their property, not individual human beings! When a school has a dress code and no one abides, there is no punishment for non-adherence. The girls are allowed to wear up the butt tight shorts, but bullies are allowed a free pass? Something is seriously wrong with the system.

By eleventh grade it was a little better, except now Adam had his own mind formed and was learning rights; the rights of the people. He’s not a stupid kid, he could see where the kids rights were stamped on at many levels and this angered him, so much so he wanted his future to be as an activist.

By this time he was seventeen and I felt he was old enough for violent video games. I had never allowed them but now at seventeen, he was obviously his own person able to make his own decisions on what he wanted. Video games didn’t shape him but they allowed him to get out some pent up anger.

Did I force him to get all A’s, no. Did I force him to become like everyone else and aim for college, no. Is this a mistake I made? I don’t feel it is. He is his own person and knows what he wants. He don’t want college and while everyone is telling him it is wrong not to go to college, he knows his rights and he knows that college would just force him into doing things he DON’T want to do.

Now it is graduation year. He is eighteen and knows how to be a human being in society. Sure it is going to be hard, who in this world has it easy? Are any of you in the career that your college choice has you doing? Did you go to college and now work at McDonald’s, farming, the job of your choice? So what was your point in college again? I know, I know, many chose astrophysicists, a teacher, a doctor and that is your line of work, but again, it was YOUR choice right? Or did mom and dad make you excel and you went to college and now are NOT working in your chosen field?

Life is hard. I wasn’t given a handbook saying this is the right and wrong way; I had to wing it just like millions of others. Was all my choices right? By no means. Are they wrong? Not at all. But God gave us the freedom of choice and living in a supposed free world where our rights are infringed upon daily, Adam has a choice and he CHOOSES not to go to college. Is it a mistake? I don’t know. But if it is, it is HIS mistake to make not mine.

I do know that sending him to school was the best choice I could make for him as a child and as graduation day approaches I can SEE the choice I made living in him. He wrote me a Mother’s Day card last week. He told me how he loved me and thanked me for allowing him choices; to choose God, to choose his future and to be able to choose anything he wants in life.

To me… that is what parenting is. To realize that the little human being that has been entrusted to you be allowed the freedom of choice. By allowing society to raise and shape them, graduation day will be the results of that product. Sometimes there will be good results and sometimes not so good results but as I see it, my choice has rewarded me with good results.

I thank God every day that He brought us to Nebraska. Adam was formed by God, shaped by poverty and molded by the land and his surroundings. When Adam receives his diploma, I will see God finishing up what He brought us here to do. My baby is no longer mine to do with what I want, he is now a product of God’s and my best advice to him will be, ‘Go with God.’ I don’t often hold pride in my hand, but on this day I will stand proud of the young man that Adam has become. After all, he is Adam Omega, my first and my last. 

Joel 3:14 Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision.