My Salvation

Today, I thought that I would share with you my salvation testimony. When I was younger, from birth, my grandmother and my dad would take me to church. They were Catholic. Though they never told me how to be saved, they told me who God was and who Jesus was, etc.

I remember whenever my dad would take me, he would always do the same rituals, which I did not understand why… I asked him one day and he said, “That’s just what you do”… well, that wasn’t good enough for me, but I thought it was fun at the time.

When we would enter the sanctuary part, we would turn to either the right or the left and there would be a bronze bowl attached to the wall, which held water, supposedly holy water. With this, he would take his two fingers (index and middle), dip it into the water, then proceed to move in a cross formation from his head to his chest, then from shoulder to shoulder.

Once this was done, we would walk down the isle to whatever pew he wanted to sit in. At this point, he would kneel down to the side of the pew before entering… he would kneel on one knee and perform the cross maneuvers which ended with him kissing his index finger knuckle. Once this was completed, he would proceed to his desired seat.

I remember the pews had those knee rest cushions that you drop down when you are going to kneel and pray, he would do this almost immediately after sitting. While he prayed, I would look around at all of the statues and stained glass as well as the gothic style lanterns, which hung from the ceiling.

My favorite part was lighting the prayer candles. I guess I just liked candles. Well, over time, my dad left the Catholic church for true Christianity… A Christianity without praying to idols. His last experience with the Catholic church was when they began to tell the congregation that they had to kiss the statue of Mary’s feet so that she would grant their prayers. How absurd he thought. So, he left.

When I was 10, I had already become quite familiar with God and Jesus… other than the part about ‘getting’ saved. For some reason, no one ever told me about that part. So, one day a Pastor came by our home and my mom let him in. He sat on the couch and proceeded to tell my mom about salvation.

Well, I just got soooo excited that I didn’t want to wait. I kept interrupting him, trying to get him to let me be saved, but he kept on telling me to wait for my mom. He believed that my mom should be saved first so that she would be my elder in the Body of Christ. This was a Baptist Pastor.

Gratefully, my mom accepted Christ and so did I – finally! So, the next thing on the list was our baptism. We were baptized shortly thereafter, which I was very excited about too.

I began to memorize some verses from Sunday School and some songs/hymns. I loved going to church. I would invite every one of my friends; this seemed to impress the Pastor… I just loved church.

After some time, we ended up having to move out of state… this also ended us going to church. I found out later from my mom that there was a new black family who had come to our church and the members snubbed them… well, this did not sit well with my mom, so she became somewhat jaded towards church.

So, when I was about 13, my brother became involved in the Word of Faith movement with Benny Hinn, etc. and it was at this time that I learned more about the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit… not knowing how deceptive this movement was or would be, but none the less, I learned some things.

My brother taught me about the “name it and claim it” gospel, which I tried and it worked. Well, for some things anyway…

Then one day, to be exact… it was the day of the Oklahoma bombing… I had stayed home from school (I was in college at the time) and I watched it nonstop on television. I was horrified and thought it was so hard to believe. With that, I heard a pastor on television talking about the plagues in Egypt in the Bible with Moses, so I thought to myself… “I don’t know what plagues there were, in what order they happened, etc.” I thought, “How do I know if this guy is even telling the truth?”

So, I decided that I couldn’t believe or serve a God that I knew nothing about and the only way to find out what pleases Him or really ticks Him off, was to read His Word. That day was the first day that I began reading through the Bible from cover to cover. When I had finished, almost a year later, I was a completely different person.

During that time was when my dad had passed away, which is a story for another day.

I threw out all of my old CD’s and anything that wasn’t pleasing to God. I changed my friends and my focus. It was amazing! I had a very close friend who was like a brother to me at the time and he didn’t know what was going on with me. I knew that if I told him everything then he would think I was crazy… he couldn’t handle the truth in its entirety all upfront, so I asked God that when my friend was ready, to have him ask me questions that he was ready to hear the answers to and I would tell him.

So, that is what I did. Over a period of a couple of months he would ask some questions and all I would do is answer them, as to the point as possible and then I would stop talking about it. He later said that he was shocked that I didn’t just force it down his throat like others have. Anyway, after a couple of months, he decided to accept Christ as his Lord and Savoir and he was baptized. To this day, he has been through a lot but he is still true to the Word and standing firm in his faith.

That year taught me a lot about being patient and trusting in God for comfort and strength. I learned how to understand what was actually right and wrong because the world does not teach that… the world waters down what is wrong and attacks what is right.

That was the beginning of my journey. I have had many ups and downs through the years and I will probably have many more for as long as I am here, but my hope is that I will continue to grow closer to the Lord through His Word and be the witness He has called me to be.

If you would like to know more about salvation, please visit: The Gift of Salvation

Alison Krauss “Down In The River To Pray (Live) – Video

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