Miriam's Testimony

I don't remember exactly when I accepted Jesus as my Saviour.  I was raised in a Christian home, and as my mom said the other day, I went to church regularly even before I was born.  We attended Sunday School and church every Sunday, the only exceptions being illness or blizzards where the church actually cancelled the service.  Even when camping my dad always did a devotional on Sunday morning.  We also did family devotions most evenings after supper while I was growing up.  I know there were times where I either "re-accepted" or re-dedicated my life when I was at camp or various other times, "just in case".  As a teenager I attended youth group and Bible study regularly.  A Teen Missions trip to Belize when I was sixteen-turning-seventeen was one of the first times I had a very concrete example of God working in my life.  I was interested in going, but I wanted to make sure that it was what God wanted me to do.  I fretted about it for a bit and then asked God that if it was his will for me to go, that the support funds I needed would come in.  If the funds didn't come in, I would take that as a "no".  Apparently it was his will, because the funds came in on time, so off I went.  We had daily devotions built into our day, and we were spending an entire summer just doing something that focused on God and serving Him, so this was a big time of growth for me.   

That summer after graduation, my parents moved to Germany as missionaries.  Having just graduated, I didn't want to go to a different country.  What would I do there?  I'm familiar with German, but not fluent.  Go to school?  Get a job?  Doing what?  I decided to stay in Canada, take a medical office assistant course, and start working to support myself.  For a while, I spent most of my time with Christian friends, and attended church any Sunday I wasn't working (I had a shift-work job).  After a while, however, I began spending more time with non-Christian friends, dating a non-Christian (whom I moved in with after two years, and to whom I am now married), and basically my Christian walk came to a stand-still.  In a couple of obvious ways, I was not living a Christian lifestyle, although I told myself I wasn't doing that badly.  All I was doing was living with somebody without being married, not attending church, and not growing in my relationship with God.  I decided that once we got married, everything would be kosher, and I could just carry on from there.  (Just slightly delusional, right?)  We got married in 2003 and had our first child in 2004, our second in 2006, and our third in 2009.  After our first child was born, I began taking him to a church locally, but we didn't go regularly.  After our second child was born, I made a few friends at that church (previously I hadn't really gotten to know anyone beyond nodding and saying good morning) and then I started making my way back to having a living, growing relationship with God, a church family in a truer sense of the word, and a group of Christian friends with whom to spend time and learn together.  I definitely can see, looking back, God's hand at work in the church he led me to and the friends I've made there.  I've been so thankful for them for these past four years.  I hadn't realized how starved I was for the company of other women who shared my beliefs, and were also coping with the complexities of being wives and mothers and women who choose not to work full-time outside the home in these modern times.  We've done several Bible studies together, and just as importantly, spend time together as Christian friends, sharing, talking, and learning from each other. 

I am now actively seeking to follow God's will for my life (or at least trying to remember to do so), spending time with Christian friends, attending church regularly, attending a women's Bible study as often as I can, and thanks to this blog I am now spending personal time with God almost daily as well.  I can't tell you how much I've learned and grown.  I greatly appreciate and admire the other women who participated last year, and I'm so excited to continue this year and to have new participants join our journey.

The biggest thing I learned from participating last year was the holiness of God.  He is not only our Father who loves us, but also our Judge.  He is not only merciful and forgiving, but holy and just.  He is not only worthy of all worship and praise and love, but also reverence and respect (not a strong enough word, but I think you know what I'm getting at).  Another thing I learned was how important it is to spend time with Him in order to have a living, growing relationship.  I've always known that, but it was an intellectual knowledge.  Not to say I'm going to be great at this all the time from now on, but I'm sure going to try.  The third thing that really became more clear to me over the past year was how this earth isn't really my home.  We're just here for a little while.  I've always known that, too, but it somehow became much more real to me lately.  What we do here and how we live here is important, but the focus should be more on the things that last; that are eternal.  It's so easy to get so focused on the day-to-day that we don't see the bigger picture anymore and we lose our sense of direction.

What I'd like to get from the blog this year is not only a way to be held accountable and keep daily devotions an important part of my life, but to continue learning more, knowing more, reading the things that others saw, or thought of, or felt while reading that same passage that I read.  Seeing how different parts of the Bible relate to each other and learning more about how the stories I've heard since I was a child relate to my life now.  I find it challenging at times to be the spiritual head of our household, as my husband has no interest in God or church for himself.  (Thankfully, he doesn't discourage or make disparaging remarks to or in front of the children, and he congratulates them on their Sunday school Christmas program or learning memory verses, but he doesn't actively participate.)  My hope is that by spending time with God, growing in my relationship with Him, and hopefully becoming a more Christ-like person, or a better example of what it is to be a Christian, that my children and maybe even my husband will see that and want to learn more about it for themselves.