I have been asked several times to include my own testimony but have not done so until now. I will try to keep it short!

 

"I was born and brought up in a Christian family, with both my father and grandfather being local preachers and my mother very active in various church activities over the years. I grew up through Sunday School, taking a Sunday School Class myself as a teenager before leaving home to do my nurse training. While there I regularly attended Queen's Hall Methodist Church in Derby, and would have called myself an active Christian. And so I progressed through life, marriage, three children, and then a divorce after suffering abuse within that marriage. All through this time God answered many prayers and provided for myself and the three children. I continued to be blessed many times over in the following thirteen years as a single parent. I remarried in April 1990, to another Christian. (though unfortunately he decided a few years ago that he could no longer believe in God)

 

We moved to Grimsby in 1979 after my mother's death. My husband works at Grimsby Institute, and my married daughter had recently moved to Grimsby to live. After several years worshiping at Weelsby Road I finally found my spiritual home at Scartho in 2000...and so I continued in my walk with God ….or so I thought!

 

Then in on Friday 24th August 2002 I had gone to a church member's house for coffee and I was challenged with the fact that although I called myself a Christian, had studied theology (have got the certificates to prove it) I didn't really know Jesus personally as my Saviour, I was not actually saved. Well, that stopped me in my tracks and certainly made me think and I had to agree that although I knew God very well and knew the historical Jesus too I was not a Born Again Christian at all. So after a short time of prayer together I went home.

 

Saturday passed as usual except that I spent an awful lot of time chatting to God and asking Him to make things clear. Sunday as I walked to church this song came into my head and it grew and grew as I walked along. It takes me 30 minutes to walk to Scartho Church, and I usually spend the time in prayer, this time I sang. The words carne from nowhere and were about God opening the door to my heart and me reaching out to hold his hand. Isobel, the Minister was taking the service that day and it was all about how and why we need Jesus in our lives... uhmm that made me think too. So I went home. Nothing dramatic happened and I was puzzled as to what I should do.

 

So I went to bed.... I had a strange dream that night, I dreamt that I was clinging tight on to the foot of a cross and blood was dripping on to the ground around me. I could not see the top of the cross, just the bottom that I was clinging tightly on to. Suddenly a hand reached down to me from the cross, a hand with a hole in, and a drop of blood landed on my head and suddenly covered me, enveloping  me in a-warm blanket of love. Then the fun started!! I got fizzy feet, the bubbles from my feet filled my whole body and I suddenly had these strange words coming from my mouth, I was praising God and singing.

 

I remember waking up and raising my arms high to the ceiling, singing and crying, then looking over to my husband expecting him to be looking at me in disbelief but he was fast asleep. Wow!

The clock said 2.30am 26th August 2002, I was totally reborn. I was saved by grace, washed in the blood of the lamb...hallelujah

 

I can now truthfully say that life has not been the same since, and how. I thought I was a Christian before but now recognise that I wasn't by any stretch of the imagination. It is often not easy, but then Jesus never said it would be. My faith has been tested through illness and other struggles, but He is always constant, always faithful.

 

Look how Paul struggled in Romans 7:9, 14 - 25

 

"Being born again takes a moment of faith, but becoming a Christian is a life long process."

 

There is a postscript to this....In March 2006 I resigned my membership of the Methodist Church over their agreement to allow an openly  practicing homosexual to become a lay preacher, which is 100% against the Word of God. Scartho Church disgareed with this policy but as all Methodist Churches are controlled by a  central office it made no difference whatsoever if we disgareed or not.

 

I am now worshipping in  the Baptist Church which does follow the Word of God...up to now. The government has other ideas and wishes to make it illegal for churches to discriminate against homosexual groups.