I was going to early morning prayer, and my prayer life went downhill. However, on my sixteenth birthday, at the beginning of grade 11, I was given a verse by my pastor which blessed me and gave me a vision and goal for my life.
That verse is Colossians 1:10, which says, “…Walk in a manner of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.” Although it was given to me, I drew closer to my friends. This meant that more and more, I was living a sinful life with two personalities.
With my parents, I was a good Christian girl, but with my friends, I was living in order to please them. Some of the things I did with my friends included drinking, coming home very late, and dishonouring my parents by always lying to them about where I was and what time I would come home. When I was close friends with these girls, I was never fully happy and content like I used to be.
Satan also tried to get a hold of my life by tempting me to want to kill myself. I attempted to crash my car into a wall, but the Holy Spirit stopped me before I went through with it. I stopped the car, put it in park, and just wept for half an hour.
During the summer after my senior year of high school, I began to realize that my friends were not right for me. God began to convict me and I realized that my life for the past three years was not glorifying God. I decided to end my friendship with these girls, and I asked God for forgiveness.
I also confessed to my parents and told them everything, EVERY detail. It was a very hard thing for me to do, but I felt that it had to be done. After I confessed to my parents, I felt a huge burden lifted off of my shoulders. As I reflected, I began to ask myself, “Why did I meet these friends? How did I mess up this badly?”
I began to become really curious and I wanted to know why God had allowed this to happen. I realize that He wanted me to become stronger, wiser and to depend more on Him.
Although this experience was hard, I thank God that He gave me a second chance and kept me safe although I was living a sinful life. I want to end my testimony by telling you that God forgives you no matter what you have done. 1 John 1:7-9 says, “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.”
Also, Psalm 103:11-12 says, “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His steadfast love toward those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our transgressions from us.” When God forgives our sins, He moves them so far away from us that we can live new lives free from the chains of sin that pull us away from Christ.
Today, I am getting baptized because of my commitment to Jesus Christ as my personal Saviour and because He has commanded all Christians to be immersed in water in order to be identified with Him.
My old self is dying and being buried with Christ and my new self is being resurrected out of the water just like Jesus was resurrected from the dead. And so, God is faithful to forgive us if we confess our sins, and I am so thankful for that.
Narine
