Audrey's Testimony

I think it would be cool to post our testimony's here for anyone who gets a minute and feels comfortable doing so. Here's mine (please give me any helpful feedback for tomorrow)

My name is Audrey Watts and I want to share with you today what Jesus Christ means to me. If I had to choose two words that describe what the Lord has been to me they would be mercy and peace. I became a Christian just before the sixth grade and at that time I got to know Him and love Him passionately. I’m sad to say that as I got older and began getting in to my teenage years I began to waiver in my dedication to Him because of caring more about fitting in with friends and doing things that looked exciting and fun even though He had taught me those were things He did not want me to do.

By the time I was 20 years old I had been half heartedly trying to have a relationship with Jesus Christ and on the other hand trying to get away with living how I wanted to for many years and I was very unhappy. In fact, one reason I know that I was a Christian was because I never felt contentment in those years. I always carried around guilt and worry and restlessness and I tried hard to never look very closely inside myself. I got tired of never feeling peace and calm in my heart.

I had hit rock bottom and I was disgusted enough that I decided to make a complete turnaround. That is the mercy that the Lord has shown me. He has never left me alone, never allowed me to have peace when I was disobeying Him, and when I turned to Him wanting to start over fresh, He was merciful and accepted me back into His arms. I had finally realized that I had to completely surrender to Him in every single part of me and I was finally sick enough of myself to do so.

There are no words to describe the relief and the peace and the love that I felt at that moment. I’ve never forgotten it and it is what drives me to this day to be inside of God’s will for me. I’m not saying it wasn’t painful, I had a lot to confess and I had moved far from Him, but it was worth it. It was worth any sacrifice I gave of doing what I wanted to do. I crave that peace and I can’t be content ever again without it. I knew that I had a lot of bad habits to change and I knew that I couldn’t do it alone. So I had to surround myself with Christians – Christians who really lived as God asks us to live and weren’t half hearted about it. Christians who had an authentic relationship with Him - ones that I could see were really in love with Him and knew Him as their friend and who were open and honest about their faults. I surrounded myself with them in all areas of my life so that it would be difficult to continue my bad habits. I knew I wasn’t strong enough to do it alone and this was my way of putting myself in His hands when I was too weak to change anything about myself in my own strength.

That has been ten years ago now and I still feel that the two key words that describe living my life with the Lord are mercy and peace. I have had to ask Him to forgive me many, many times since then and what is always the hardest for me is when I have to ask Him to forgive me for so many of the same things over and over. It makes me feel so ashamed and frustrated…and yet as embarrassing as it is to keep having to be forgiven for the same things, I do it anyway because the risk of being separated from Him again is much worse than that shame. Now I not only crave the peace He gives…Now I know what it is like to have a personal, intimate relationship with Him and that is so powerful and I’ve fallen so deeply in love with Him that I can’t imagine being separated from Him. Being separated from Him would be worse than losing any person in my life. And every time I have to ask Him to forgive me, He restores me right away to that close relationship with Him because He is in love with me too. That is why He made us and that is the reason for everything He does. THAT is the secret to Christianity, not religion, Christianity. Those who have come face to face with the real Jesus Christ and given their self to him know how amazing – sometimes magical – it can be. There is nothing on earth to match knowing Him. Not that it is always incredible or supernatural – I still have to live in a fallen world with hurt and pain and loss. But I don’t ever have to be afraid. I don’t ever have to lose my peace. Because no matter what happens, I know how the story ends. And whenever I feel like I don’t belong here or I feel that there must be more than this – now it makes sense because once I gave myself to Christ, I became an alien here with Heaven as my real home.

My favorite scripture, from Psalms 103

⁸ The LORD is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in love.

⁹ He will not always accuse,
nor will he harbor his anger forever;

¹⁰ he does not treat us as our sins deserve
or repay us according to our iniquities.

¹¹ For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;

¹² as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

¹³ As a father has compassion on his children,
so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him;

¹⁴ for he knows how we are formed,
he remembers that we are dust.