My Christian testimony is what many would call vanilla. I came to know Christ when I was eight years old. My family was something straight out of a 1950s sitcom–hardworking father, loving stay-at-home mother, two kids and a dog. We were deeply involved in the church that my parents grew up in, and I don’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t love Jesus or didn’t want to live according to His word.
It’s true that when junior high school hit I didn’t always make the best decisions. I tried out some different personas for short periods of time. But, for the most part, God has kept me on an extremely short leash. Anything I tried was immediately found out and punished. I felt humiliated by my sin, and was known during my growing up years as a “good girl.”
I went to college and didn’t experience any kind of trauma or drunken mistakes or shocking revelations. By God’s grace I made sweet Christian friends and we lived for the Lord as well as we knew how at the time. I married Chad, and he has helped lead me closer to Christ as the years have gone on.
I have no dramatic background story or miraculous turnaround to speak of. I don’t have one of those testimonies that make people say to one another, “You have GOT to hear what God has done in her life.” No, my story is simple and may not seem all that profound or even interesting at first glance.
But, the truth is that every single Christian testimony is dramatic and miraculous.
I may not remember a time when I didn’t love Jesus, but it is there in my history–a period when I was 100% dead in my sins, as dead as Lazarus in the grave. And then the Lord called out to me, and I heard His voice. How much more dramatic and miraculous can a story get? I was once dead, and now I am alive! I was bound for hell, and Jesus snatched me out of the clutches of eternal torment. May we never be guilty of seeing that kind of saving grace as ordinary or humdrum. It is the very power and love and goodness of God on display in a dramatic way, even when we forget it and we start to feel inferior to all of those with the fascinating and drama-filled testimonies.
God has worked a stunning miracle in my life. I don’t know why He has protected me from so many heartaches, but I’m grateful. If you also have an undramatic testimony, know this: there is nothing basic or boring about the life-transforming power of our Lord Jesus Christ. The angels throw a party every time someone comes to Christ, and the parties aren’t less enthusiastic for the freckle-faced eight year olds. Salvation is never small. It is big and dramatic and miraculous, every single time.
Let’s never forget what Jesus has done.
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
Ephesians 2:1-5
