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“Oh, the unspeakable greatness of that exchange,—the Sinless One is condemned, and he who is guilty goes free; the Blessing bears the curse, and the cursed is brought into blessing; the Life dies, and the dead live; the Glory is whelmed in darkness, and he who knew nothing but confusion of face is clothed with glory.”

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Location: Kingsland, Georgia, United States

A person God turned around many times.

Sunday, August 05, 2018

Zoe's wonderful conversion


“My uncle died. Well he was my great uncle actually and I was really close with him. And it was such a shock for me, because my uncle was in my prayers all the time. And I was praying [for him since] a child. I couldn’t really understand [his death] properly, but I still had no bitterness though against the Lord. And I still kept on praying for all the other family.

And then I just remembered then starting secondary school. And as I entered secondary school suddenly like things come in like the word of God says you know, things come in and they snatch the word away from you (Matthew 13:4,19).

We didn’t have [the] word. Still at this point I didn’t even know what the gospel was. But they were snatching away whatever bit of truth I had. Friends were coming in. And just being in the secondary school, just so many things [coming at you], so so many things [coming at you]. And the friends that I had as well, in the exactly same situation as me, never had any Christian upbringing. Nothing.

And then, it was like I almost became embarrassed before them to think that I’d even think of Jesus Christ, or that there is a God. And then obviously then, as you go through secondary school evolution comes in, and from the television, from secondary school, from all walks of life. You can’t get away from it. And suddenly it was almost like, ‘Yeah, of course there’s no God.’

I actually like, would… I remember a teacher at secondary school saying, ‘Who in here believes in God?’ And I remember looking around thinking nobody’s going to put their hand up. and I remember this one girl called Jennifer Clegg put her hand up and she must have been so brave. She put her hand up and I just thought, ‘Wow, you know, how silly, how silly you know.’ And then I remember him saying, ‘So I take it then that everybody else is an atheist’. And everybody was like so quick to put their hands up. Like it’s a big bragging thing, ‘Oh yes, of course, I’m an atheist!’

And basically, so that’s where I was through my secondary school. And then obviously then my life reflected that because ‘There isn’t a God, we aren’t accountable to anybody. What does it matter?’ I’m not saying that I was a horrible out and out person. But then at the same time, through my years growing up I wouldn’t even speak of the things that happened in those years. It would be a shame.

And then I met Kevin and we was very young. And our lives really together was just your normal relationship of the world really, you know. [The world says that] you don’t really have to get married. You know, you can still do what you really want to do, really. You know, you don’t have to make a commitment [to each other].

And we got engaged, and we were engaged for like ten years, you know. And then I got pregnant with Dylan, who’s my oldest son. And life really began to change. We had a baby on the way; we wasn’t (sic) married; and just I think [the reality of ] life really sank in that we have to…we were soon to be parents and have responsibility. And then we had a terrible time. And we actually…we split up. And then when we had Dylan…(crying). When I had Dylan we just, I think Dylan was about two, no, no, he would have been about six months old, and I remember just, uh—i don’t know—wanting to run away from life, and just wanting to get away from everything really, to be honest.

And then Kevin—one morning, I woke up, and he just wasn’t there. I was in this house [where she is speaking] at the time, because we moved in when I had Dylan. This was like six months down the line. He [Kevin] wasn’t there, and I thought, ‘Where’s he gone? Where’s he gone?’ And to be honest with you I thought, ‘He’s gone, he left. You know, he’s had enough, he left.’ And then he came back around about like dinner time-ish. And I said, ‘Where’ve you been? Where’ve you been?’

And he said, ‘I don’t know. I just woke up this morning and I felt the Lord.’ Well he didn’t say, ‘I felt the Lord.’ But he just said, ‘I felt like I had to go to church.’ And it was the local Anglican church. And I remember thinking, ‘Church? What’s he doing going to church for, this is crazy!’ You know, ‘Who goes to church nowadays?’ And then he started going there every Sunday and he was coming back and the Lord was just driving him to go to church.

Kevin wasn’t converted at this point. But we were there [at the church]. Basically he then started to take me along because everybody was saying to him, ‘Oh bring your girlfriend and your son.’ You know, ‘Why are they not coming?’ So I started coming along with Kevin. And I remember going there to the Anglican church, and I just I remember thinking, ‘This is just like taking me back into the past.’ You know, all these memories coming back—of like being at school, in the church, and with me Grandma. And I remember I started singing songs and things. And, I don’t know, something within me started to light again, in a sense. I still didn’t know the truth. I still didn’t know the gospel. But there was something there. Some kind of… The Lord was doing some kind of work.

And I guess I was there for seven years. And then after that seven years, one day—I mean you’ve probably heard Kevin’s testimony, I don’t know, Kevin was in the garden. And I remember that day he came in the house and he couldn’t keep still. He’s walking around, you know, we didn’t know what being born again was that day. We didn’t know. But from that day onward Kevin just changed. He just completely changed. But then you see rather than let me, kind of, making everything ok [for me], it was then even harder a battle for me because I thought, ‘What’s going on? What’s going on?’ And then all Kevin could do was just be reading his Bible all the time. You know, he’d go to every meeting at the Anglican church. He wouldn’t miss one. And then he started writing magazine articles. He just had this passion for God.

But then I started to read the Bible. And rather than sort of like read it to find truth, I was reading it to find fault. And every time I found something in the Bible that really just aggravated me. Like, for instance, when Jesus says, you know, ‘to pluck out your eye’ and ‘to cut off your right hand.’ And I’d pick these text out and I’d be like, ‘Oh this is ridiculous. How can people do this? That’s just nonsense.’ Anything I could grab hold of I would, I’d start trying to almost tear Kevin’s faith down and almost tried to, and I just didn’t want the Bible.

And then, anyway I remember, as well, I started to kind of…  Kevin then went to Calvary Chapel church, which was a… and I met some lovely people there. But what I started to do was then, because the people were so nice and so lovely, I started to try to fit in, which is the worst thing anybody can ever do. Never try and fit in. If you know you’re not right with God, never try and fit in. It’s the worst thing you can do.

So then because I was trying to fit in, I was trying to convince meself [myself] that I actually knew the Lord. You know, I was trying to convince meself. So then because everybody was so lovely, so caring, and I would read my Bible—and I’d read it but I would not read it—I wouldn’t read it with an honest truth of trying to see what God wanted for my life. And I’d read it, without really believing as well, the promises of God, and what I was reading.

And another example, as well, I was just thinking of was when…I was ashamed as well, because I remember going to be with family and friends and things, and I’d always think [in a whisper], ‘Oh no, Kevin please don’t start talking about the Lord. Please not here. Don’t start talking about the Lord. Please not here.’ And I couldn’t relax for fear that Kevin might actually tell somebody, you know, about the Lord. And I remember even in the car, we would even have music on sometimes, and maybe we’d have like the window down, and I think other people could hear the Christian music being played. I wanted to like close the windows. ‘Wind the windows up!’ I really was just, um, yeah. It was almost as if I was embarrassed.

And then, from that I’ll kind of move on a bit as well. Kevin got asked if he could go pastor a church in Fleetwood. And we went there. And at this point, again, I just thought in knew the Lord. I felt like I had really grown and I gained so much knowledge. And I’d convinced myself that I was fine with the Lord, absolutely convinced myself that I was fine with the Lord.

Anyway, our time in Fleetwood was a lovely time. And again as soon as Kevin started to touch on the gospel, and one of his sermons about being born again, there was so many people that were so angry, because Kevin had preached you must be born again. And amazing thing was as well is that the actual sermon even angered me a bit. I remember going home thinking. and I said to Kevin [whispering], ‘You can’t preach like that. This is an Anglican church. You can’t preach like that, telling people they must be born again. Look at all the people you’ve offended. That’s the end now.’ I was no better than them, but at the time I still didn’t know that I was like them. I thought I knew God. and rather than support Kevin, all I did was pull Kevin down. I just pulled him down, and pulled him down. I was not a godly wife whatsoever. I was terrible.

And then I remember actually going to the bathroom at Fleetwood, and I remember getting down on the floor, and I even said to the Lord,  and it was the first time really that I’d kind of like, come to God. Like knowing I had nowhere else to go, I had to come because it really was desperate times for us in these times. And I remember getting on the bathroom floor, and just saying, ‘Lord, where? What’s happening? What’s going on? We’re here in this church and I think the people just want us to go. Where are we going? What are we supposed to do?’ And the scripture even came to me, where the Lord Jesus said, ‘The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay His head.’ And I just think [of] the mercy of God because He could even speak to me then. When I was miles away from it, you know, the grace of God, the mercy of God. And I just got up off the floor and it was like an answer, and I just knew from that point we weren’t staying. You know we didn’t even have to wait for what the people had to say. It was like the Lord had told us we were going, you know.

So anyway, this was in 2009, Christmas 2009 we came back. And then after we came back, then because I had set all my hopes up on Kevin kind of having this church, and we was gonna have this lively man’s house to live in, you know, and a lovely church and I had all this fairy-tale nonsense in me head really. And the Lord, it’s like He just swept the rug from under me feet, all me hopes and all me dreams, they’re just gone. So we came back to this house, and I just fell into complete depression, complete and utter depression because I didn’t know where I was anymore. I didn’t know what we were supposed to be doing anymore. My life was just… I was just depressed, constantly depressed all the time, you know, moping around. And then I was even ready a book by Marty-Lloyd Jones called, ‘Spiritual Depression’. And it actually helped. So I started to seek God a bit more earnestly.

Well then, it was 2009 it’ll be. And it was the ninth of March, and it was a Monday morning. And I sat in that corner where Evelyn sat now in the Bible study. And I just, I was just really, really down. And the night before I was reading in Romans and I wasn’t reading Romans chapter 10. Actually I was reading Romans chapter 11, where basically Paul talks about the vine and if we being grafted in, how much more should we live for Christ.

But that had, like it wasn’t doing anything. My mind was kind of all over the place. And then my eyes jumped to Romans chapter 10:13. And I’ve heard it said it’s like sometimes when you’re reading the Bible it’s like you have 3-D glasses on, and the Scripture just jumps out at you. This is what happened. I just saw the scripture that said, ‘For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, shall be saved.’ And that night I went to bed crying over that scripture.

I said, ‘Lord Your word says, “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”’ I said, ‘Lord, I don’t know if You’re true. I don’t know if You’re real. But Your word says this.’ I said, ‘Lord, You’ve got to save me!’ And that night I was like this, just crying, and burdened and the weight, I can’t describe to you this weight I had on me.

And then, like I said, I sat where Evelyn sits now. The following morning, I just said, ‘God, I cannot go on like this. I asked You last night. Your word says, “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved,” [rapping her hand in frustration and sorrow to the Lord.] I feel no different.’ So I got up from there and I went into the kitchen, and I just poured out my heart to God. Absolutely everything. Any kind of anger I had towards people, family, friends, Kevin even, [God even?]. Just everything just came out. Absolutely everything that was on my heart just came out to God. It was just everything, just all the times me feel sorry for meself, everything came out. And then, as I was just pouring out everything to God, suddenly it was like…I can’t describe it. It was like the Lord just sort of like… I don’t know. It was like when you’re pulling off a jumper, [a shirt] and it’s inside out, the Lord did that to me. And He showed me meself, and for the first time in my life the things I saw, that the Lord revealed to me that morning was absolutely disgusting. I had never seen such a vile person, and I just broke down. Because I was just such a vile person, and the Lord had truly shown me my sin.

And all of the sudden, it was like, I can’t describe it really. It was almost like a vision. Like of the cross and it’s almost like I saw the Lord Jesus on the cross. It was like, for the first time in my life, I saw I was a sinner. And I saw that the Lord Jesus Christ actually died for me, for my sins, for the very first time in my life. And it absolutely broke me. It broke me, and I just I just came to the Lord. I was like, ‘Lord forgive me. How dare I say this about these people? How dare I say that about my husband, how dare I say…’ and then after that, it was like…you know. When the Lord was [being baptized] it says and the Spirit of God descended like a dove. And that’s all I can describe it. And it was like the Spirit of God…It was like this peace, an absolute peace. And all this burden that I was carrying around with me from life, it just… it was like, lifted. It was gone. It was like John Bunyan, in “Pilgrim’s Progress, and he’s got this big backpack on His back, and suddenly he just drops the backpack off. It was like that. It was like, I was free. And for the first time in my life was it was like. I was absolutely ecstatic. It was wonderful. And I was just like bounding, it was like the Sun had suddenly just come up and it was shining through the window in the kitchen. And it was like, ‘Wow, I’m free. He’s forgiven me. The Lord Jesus has forgiven me.’ And I just came bounding out the kitchen jumping about and everything and I ran up the stairs. And as I got to the top of the stairs, I was like thinking, [whispering] ‘I can’t tell Kevin that the Lord save me, can I? He thinks that I’m already saved.’ But I just couldn’t. I had to go bounding in the bedroom and Kevin was reading his Bible.

And I’m like, ‘Kevin, the Lord saved me. The Lord saved me. The Lord saved me.’ And Kevin’s like completely speechless. And he didn’t know what to say because I was just full of it. And he couldn’t stop me. And I was rambling on. It was just so exciting. And then I just started smiling. And he was laughing and the children came in, and…oh! And I came back downstairs, and I don’t know. The rest of that day was just amazing for me. It was absolutely amazing. And it was just wonderful. And I remember me mum come that same day. I told her what had happened. And she was trying to explain it all away, you know. ‘Well, you just poured out your heart, you know. You feel better really. You know, you had a good cry. But everybody feels better [when they’ve had a good cry].’

And I was like, ‘Oh no!’ I was like, ‘Mommy you just don’t understand it.’ And I remember she was going, and I went to give her a hug. But this feeling I got as I went to give her a hug…. It was like…like a weight when I went to give her a hug. It was weight. And it was the Lord telling me, ‘Your mum doesn’t know Me. Your mum doesn’t know Me. And you know where she’s going now.’ And it was like a grief. And I just wish that that weight sometimes would come back, you know, for the lost. Because I feel sometimes I feel like I do the Lord a disfavor. Because I feel like I don’t do enough, you know. I should be, sometimes I feel like I should be going to family, and sitting down with family. You know, one by one, and maybe that’s what the Lord’s telling me to do even now.

Yeah, so that was the day that I came to the Lord. And I do remember though the week after that, I actually sort of started to lose that like kind of being up here with the Lord, you know. Because I neglected me reading the Bible. Because I was living on a high. It was almost like, ‘I don’t need the word now.’ But then I remember that the song… I went to a funeral that week. It was my uncle’s. And it was the song like, ‘Do not be afraid for I have redeemed thee. I have called you by your name. You are Mine.’ And I didn’t have a clue that was Isaiah [the book from the Bible]. And it was only when a friend told me that it was Isaiah. And I read that scripture. And I just hold on to that now. ‘I have redeemed you. I have called you by your name. You’re Mine.’ That’s my, you know, my scripture now, forever. And the other one is, of course, as well, ‘That whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved’ [tapping the podium for emphasis].

And I just wanted to make sure that you know anybody here as well who may feel they don’t know [God], again just read the word of God, believe what it ways, and ask what it tells you to. You know, anybody. And, but, that’s my testimony anyways.

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