A Christian Testimony of Salvation and Backsliding
This marks the beginning of a series of articles to continue populating our blog with not only end times articles, but teachings, answers to common Christian questions and this one, which we’re about to start. Along with our Monday end times articles, we’ll be posting each Thursday, adding a new personal testimony article each week, so that we can introduce ourselves as a family to our new and future readers. Through these personal articles, we hope to show you the kind of things God did in our lives, which made us the people we are today.
These messages are filled with good times like words from God, physical healing and a nine-year promise being fulfilled to give us children. Bad times like disappointments, attacks, betrayal, and church splits. And, horrific times like four years of serious illness, pain, and surgeries. But throughout, we’ll show you through the genius, miraculous and overriding ways of God, how he allowed a very ordinary family to experience his great love, direction and of course, amazing encounters of Him.
Most of these articles contain adult content, not suitable for the younger reader, so if you’re under the legal age of your home country, please ask permission from a parent or guardian before reading these messages. Thank you and bless you.
I gave my heart to the Lord at the age of nine years old with quite a spectacular conversion experience. My body shook through the Lord’s prayer and the sense of cleansing from his spirit was amazing. All was good, with a great awareness of God to begin with. But then, High School started and unlike primary school, this High School deal was awesome. Very quickly I became popular as the joker and smoker, enjoying mucking around with anyone. However also very quickly, I began to feel some real temptations toward the girls and alcohol.
During those four years, that life was really beginning to take hold with skipping school and chasing girls. It must have been getting worse, the memory of going in for one of my final exams drunk on 40 proof vodka, is still very clear. In some ways though, I knew Jesus was the way, so I tried a hybrid life of going to the church youth each Sunday night, but carrying on drinking and mucking around with my mates. However, the church at that time was 200 meters away from our main high street which housed the pubs and clubs.
Gradually, I began to peel away from the Friday night youth, answering the clear call from the high street introducing me to the pubs & clubs scene. I was about 15 but big for my age and that popularity I enjoyed, translated across into the nightlife. Within the space of a few months, me and my mates were fully comfortable with the pint at the local pub during the week and the nightclubs on the weekend. I absolutely adored it. The music, the drink and the biggest pull of all, all those beautiful women.
As the years rolled on, so did the partying and womanizing and before long, me and my other mates had our reputation sealed as we set out to conquer the dating scene. Still, to this day, I don’t know how many women I’d been with before Sharon, but I think that in itself showed just how much of a problem I had and how unhappy I really was. However, I slept with girls my age, older women, some much older women and attached women. We’d have contests to see how many girls we could score with and things like bets, to see if we could work our way around a whole group.
Most people thought that I was a really nice guy which made me popular, and it was that popularity that fuelled my sense of happiness. I liked the fact that everyone came to my house to drink and listen to music. I liked it that I had a big group of mates, most of whom I could trust implicitly. But I was becoming more and more unhappy, to the point where I was becoming sick of that life and I really needed to get my head straight. So, this was when I started college, looking for a proper relationship and the place, where I met my future wife to be. This would begin my deepest times of unhappiness, leading to encountering that God once again, that I’d turned my back on all those years ago.
A Christian Testimony of Salvation and Backsliding ********** A Christian Testimony of Salvation and Backsliding ********* A Christian Testimony of Salvation and Backsliding ********* A Christian Testimony of Salvation and Backsliding ********** A Christian Testimony of Salvation and Backsliding **********