My Testimony: The Night I Met God
I was born in the Bible Belt and raised as a Christian. I learned the words and traditions and customs that went along with the Christian religion. I also learned religious pride and self-righteousness. As I began approaching young adulthood, I was developing into a Pharisee. It is by the grace of God that I was stopped.
A little over ten years ago, I was on a popular blogging platform. There was a celebrity that had passed away recently and one of my mutuals was posting negative things about her, happy that she was dead. This mutual of mine was also a Christian, so I decided to blatantly vague post at them knowing that my posts would show up on their feed. I did this because I felt like I was a better Christian than them by comparison, based on the things they were saying about this deceased celebrity.
I started posting Bible scripture about being angry with people and hating others. As an added sting, I purposefully sought direct quotes from the Lord Jesus Christ. This also happened to be the first time I had voluntarily looked for and read the scriptures seriously. God took notice of what I was doing and where my heart was when I was doing it.
As I kept going, I started to feel something. A presence.
The presence was coming from within me, and I had no idea what it was or what was going on. I had no frame of reference for it. It was unlike anything I had felt before in my life. Later I would come to find out that this presence was the Holy Spirit, and in that moment I was being convicted by Him.
I sat in front of my computer and started to reflect on what I was doing. And it was then and there that the Lord revealed Himself to me. I was given the knowledge and understanding of Jesus Christ as the Son of God. Everything that I had learned about Jesus dying on the cross for our sins finally made sense. It all clicked, and I truly realized that I was a sinner.
I continued to sit there, enjoying the presence of God’s Spirit and processing the reality of Christ that I was just awakened to. Then I felt things fall from my eyes, like contact lenses. I have never worn contact lenses. I was feeling the spiritual scales fall and I was being made to see.
Eventually I came to the conclusion that I needed to pray. So I got up from my computer and went into my bedroom and closed the door behind me. I said to the Lord, “I think I should pray but I don’t know how.” And then I received a vision; it was of me as a little girl kneeling before my bed with head bowed, eyes closed, and hands together in prayer. I had only done that one time ever and that was what I was seeing, like a flashback.
Growing up in church, I had heard the pastor at the end of many services talk about saying the sinner’s prayer and asking the Lord into my heart. It was what I knew and all that I had to work with at that point so that’s what I went with. I got on my knees and internally spoke to God, telling Him that I acknowledged that I was a sinner in need of a Savior and asked Him into my heart and to forgive me of my sins. Then I got up, brushed my teeth, and went to bed.
I thought that was the end of my very emotional encounter with the Lord, but it was not. As I laid in bed, the presence I had felt inwardly began to move. I felt it move from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet. The presence washed over me. I wept as I became born again.
It’s been over a decade since that night, and I’ve gone through a few things during that time. I am grateful that God was gracious enough to seal me with His Holy Spirit before I got out into the world and made the choices that I’ve made.
I spent the past decade being a backsliding, lukewarm, prodigal child of God. I got into drugs, sex, and alcohol. I’ve lived lifestyles that are contrary to what God wills for His children.
I have been delivered, Christ has set me free.
All praise, honor, and glory to the Lord God Almighty.
He is coming again soon.
