My Testimony. Part 1

 ^{My brothers and sisters, would you turn with me to 2 Corinthians, Chapter 5, beginning at verse 11.}

¹¹ Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade others. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience. ¹² We are not trying to commend ourselves to you again, but are giving you an opportunity to take pride in us, so that you can answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart. ¹³ If we are “out of our mind,” as some say, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. ¹⁴ For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. ¹⁵ And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

¹⁶ So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. ¹⁷ Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! ¹⁸ All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: ¹⁹ that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. ²⁰ We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. ²¹ God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.                        (2 Corinthians 5: 11 – 21)

May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart, be pleasing and acceptable in Your sight, LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer. Amen.

Before I begin telling you my testimony, I want to make one thing absolutely clear:

I am not an expert in anything, except this one thing: I am an expert in how Jesus Christ has changed me these past fifty years. That is all I am going to talk about today.

Most of you know that I was married to a wonderful man for nearly fifty years, before his untimely death in November of 2020. We were married in 1971, when he was 19 and I was 18. He had already joined the Navy, and that fact led us to Spain in 1972. We had been separated for a year due to Allen’s being posted in Adak, Alaska – an unaccompanied posting.

The year that we were apart was quite traumatic for me. I sunk into a deep depression, and only survived by keeping myself super-busy. I attended my second year of college, and I got a job at a department store. When Allen was posted to Rota, Spain, I was elated, because it meant that he and I could be together.

Well, so I thought, anyway. Although the military did not pay for my trip to Spain, I paid for my own trip and arrived in Spain the day after Allen did – quite a feat (for another time). I only wish to explain that the day I arrived at Madrid Airport was a terrible beginning for my life in that country. I could only speak about four or five words of Spanish, and I also had the misfortune of being stuck at that airport for a very long time. I was hungry. (I didn’t know where to eat, and anyone who looked “official” did not seem to understand my English.) I was frightened. I had no way to contact Allen to let him know where I was. At one point, wandering around the airport, I stumbled upon the chapel – which was, of course, a Catholic chapel. Being Catholic myself, I went in, searching for a moment of peace.

But a terribly depressing thought gripped me: God may have been in America, but He certainly wasn’t in Spain! It was oppression from the enemy of our souls, but I didn’t know it at the time.

Let me explain a little of my faith journey up to that moment. I was born and raised in the Catholic Church and she educated me in the basic tenets of the Christian faith. This knowledge kept me from making serious mistakes once my mother died (when I was 12), and I became a latchkey kid at 14. But my faith in God was practically nonexistent. Oh, I went to Mass, and even went to Confession occasionally, but I was unsure where the God of my religion was. I loved the saints, and prayed the rosary (sometimes), but Jesus was a total mystery to me. When Allen and I started courting, each Sunday he attended his church first and then came to Mass with me. We talked a lot about Who Jesus was (or so I thought), but he didn’t share his own faith journey with me. I just thought it was cool that we were on the same page – we understood each other. And that led to marriage.

Part 2 will be posted tomorrow.