King James Bible
King James Version (KJV)
Testimony: Dear Heart
Kimberly's testimony "Dear Heart" on 5/30/2016, 2:56pm...
( For those that feel they are merely enduring their lives, hoping someday that things will get better, may this personal testimony glorify the name of Jesus Christ, my Lord. )
Dear Heart,
You know the reason you have had a strong passion for this genealogy research. Your past was full of moments where you felt disconnected to your loved ones. You started out in hopes of finding out more about who you are and why you are here. It has been a long journey for you, but well worth the treasures that have been found. The greatest unexpected treasure was finding Jesus Christ, who healed your brokeness and gave you peace and answers to so many questions that you had wrestled with for so many years.
When you were a child, you could not find a way to protect yourself . You could not find the magic to make things stop happening to you. You were afraid to tell someone a truth that could make you lose your family. Your feelings of fear and shame were overwhelming. You were exhausted trying to control so many things. You wanted to give up on living. Everything you had tried to do, only took you deeper into the darkness. You were broken, but you had hope in what you could be, if you could only find the right answers.
A tug of war went on inside of you. You made plans to escape the trouble and heartache in your life.There were times when you thought you had all the answers. You wanted love to lead you to your destiny. You were searching for something to fulfill, sustain, and complete your life. You found jobs, education, hobbies, friendships, sex, money, clothes, a house, a car, games, etc. The thrill of living on the edge at times was exciting and it kept your imagination in high gear, but the end results left you cold, numb, empty, and oh so lonely inside.
You always hated to feel out of control and helpless. At one time, you had a bad view of who God was. You were once afraid of so many things. You were afraid to make a wrong choice. You didn't like to hear yourself cry, so you avoided all possible pain. Slowly but surely dear heart, you changed. When you looked in the mirror, you could see something in your eyes that was very hard to ignore. You couldn't stand to see who you had become. You barely recognized yourself.
After your marriage and children,you had hope for life . But the joy you found, could not heal the wounds of your heart. Your husband tried to help you. His love healed your wounds for a time, but something would yank them back open. Your past would not go away no matter how much you tried to remove yourself from family situations. It was controling your every move and you could not see how much it overshadowed the joy your marriage and children brought to your life.
Religion was a mystery. You didn't really understand who God or Jesus was. You didn't think he would accept you. You only talked to him a couple of times when you was a teenager. You felt weird. You thought maybe he was ignoring you, because things still kept happening to you anyway. You thought maybe he was punishing you somehow for doing all those bad things. You thought God's intentions was for you not to be born. You only survived your premature birth because of the intervention of doctors and loving care of the nurses. Oh how wrong you were.
Everything came at you all at once. A visit to the doctors office, for a remedy for your children's cough , suddenly sent you off to admissions to the local hospital for RSV virus. At the time, you were unaware of a Respiratory Syncytial Virus outbreak in your area. It sounded serious and you quickly felt a flood of fear and guilt rush over you. It didn't help that the hospital had a reputation around the neighborhood for losing patients. You didn't know what RSV virus was, and because you didn't know, you automatically got upset, fearing the worst.
Fear was your prison.You felt like a bad mother. You thought for sure God was going to hit you where it hurt and take your children from you. You paced the floor. You tried to read the Bible from the hospital dresser drawer. It didn't make anymore sense to you , than it did when you tried to read it when you were 13. You couldn't get past the fact that God banished Adam and Eve from the special garden for making one mistake.
You could see your home from the hospital window and you wanted so badly, to go back to the safe place. You started to think about heaven and how it seemed like the best safe place to be. You didn't want your children to die for the things you had done wrong over the years. If they were going to die, you wanted them to be able to go to heaven. They did have the time to do anything as bad as what you had done. Your daughter was 4 and your son was 6. Surely their goodness would earn them a place in heaven, but you had been worried that your mounting sins would somehow tip the scale.
You wasn't on your knees, but all the same, your heart was on its knees. You didn't say, Lord I'm a sinner, come into my life, but you did want God to know how sorry you were for the mistakes you had made. You backed up against the hospital door and told God you were sorry that you were not like Jesus. You were sorry it took you so long to forgive people. You was utterly taken aback by what happened in that moment. You "felt" a rushing sensation flow over you and through you at the same time. It was kind of hard to describe but it kinda felt like "goose bumps" inside your body. You thought perhaps, that is what it feels like when God's love splashes against the cold walls of an empty space that he has waited so long to fill. Up until that point, the greatest love that you had ever known was your relationship with your husband, Terry. You felt accepted, loved, forgiven and protected all at once. Many negative things left you that day.
You were on cloud nine. Something wonderful happened to you and you did not know why. You searched for more answers. When you told people about it, some had pity on you, and some told you it was of God. Your sister, the one who told you about Jesus when you were young, shared her experience with you. It felt good that someone understood you. You were hungry for more truth. You thought you were a Christian because you knew about God and Jesus. You didn't know them, and what you thought you knew about them, was all wrong. In your eagerness for answers, you fell easily for anything anyone was saying about God and the Bible. It has been a long journey for you, but the more you talked to God and read in the Bible, the stronger your faith became and your heart grew closer to Jesus.
Oh, remember when you got upset because you couldn't understand how mean God was in the Bible? You read the verses again and you understood why God removed Adam and Eve from the garden. If they would have stayed there, they would have eaten from the tree of life and then no one in the whole world would have died and forever we would live with all this evil. It wasn't long before your faith was put to the test. The sudden death of your husband was a time you clung to God, but then slowly you let go only to run to Him when you hit bottom. Life is still full of all those twist and turns, but things are different now. You have learned to bring everything to God. Like the song says "what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer ."
Your mind still struggles at times over an issue, but you are always reminded of where the answer lies. The personal relationship you have with Jesus Christ is beyond anything that you thought you needed to survive and be happy. You often ask him to change your heart. It is painful to see what lies in your heart, because Jesus shows you how it is affecting your life and your walk. You were always building up walls around your heart. Your glad Jesus still walks through walls.
You have come so far and yet you see how much you still need to work on. You want others who are trying to get through life the best way they know how, to know this Jesus. When their minds and hearts get together with Jesus, there is nothing they can't do or overcome. Nothing