My testimony

I will be giving this letter to Pastor Rob sometime this comming week. This letter was originally going to be just about Apex and the impact this church has had on my life. However, being a writer and quite long winded; I couldn’t just stop there. There is a line in a Christian song that says: Everybody has a story to tell. I’m no different than anyone else. So this is my story and a pray you can sit through it and that it doesn’t bore too much.

I was born in 1981 into a Pentecostal, musical family that did and still loves the Lord very much. My mother has deep roots in this denomination while my father actually came from the Grace Brethren/ Lutheran type back ground. Everything is very liturgical, very formal; while the charismatic church I grew up handles life the way they do worship in church: full throttle and with abandon and no thought to whatever people thought of them or their passion for the Savior.

My mother had trouble with bringing both me and my older brother, Matthew into the world. She wasn’t even suppose to be able to have children and I think even tried to make sure she wouldn’t’ get pregnant, but God had other plans.
When Matthew was born the doctors at first thought he was premature. He was very tiny. His lungs were undeveloped. He had I.V’s everywhere. However, an X-ray of the growth of the bones in his hand showed he was full term. He would struggle with asthma through out childhood. But the most amazing thing happened. Matthew is blessed by the Father with amazing musical talents. As difficult as it was for him to breath in grade school and with sometimes bad allergies, my brother now plays several wind instruments, a little bit of the piano and is As. Prof. of music at Evangel University in Springfield, MO. He no longer suffers from breathing difficulties

While pregnant with me she was on bed rest most of the time. By the grace of God, she managed to carry me to term. However, when just nine months old I had to have a surgery performed on my head b/c my soft spot was fused together. I had a very high temperature, could have ended badly, but obviously survived the ordeal. When I was kindergarten the public school system told my mother I would never learn to read or write because I was mentally retarded. But the Lord told my mother to keep my name on the lips of the saints. So my home church continually lifted me up in prayer. Today, I read at college level, there is nothing wrong with my I.Q. and I went on to win awards at local and national levels for my writing in high school and have written articles for OnCourse, an Assembly of God magazine for teens. So much for I will never learn to read and write!

My senior year of high school, my churches youth ministry went on a youth retreat. I woke up on the last day in terrible pain. I could not put anyway weight on my right foot. At first the doctors though I had a really bad sprain. As it turned out, I had something called compartment syndrome. In short, that means I had a blood clot somewhere below the knee cutting off circulation to the muscles in my leg resulting in lots of swelling. I had to have emergency surgery to release the pressure on it, but the doctors discovered that one of the muscles in my calf had already died and therefore had to be removed. During my recovery and physical therapy to learn to walk again I questioned God. I was like, “Why didn’t you just let me die.” This was a condition that could have caused me to lose my leg from the knee down or kill as blood clots can be very dangerous (as I’m sure you know). I didn’t know where my life was headed and felt like I had no real purpose. I thought it was better that I had died.

Then one day God got a hold of me. He just seemed to say,”You idiot! How dare you pretend to know better than me. You can die. That can be arranged. You’re still alive because I am not through with you yet.”

The ironic thing is while in the hospital I prayed for an older lady in the hospital bed next to me. She was having severe headaches and the doctors weren’t sure why. She was touched by my willingness to hop to her from my bed after having surgery and pray for her healing. It took me a while to realize that if God brought me to that point just to minister to her; then whatever inconvenience I suffered was worth it; knowing Christ suffered much more to bring me to himself.
God is continuing to reveal Himself. Over the years I have often struggled with feeling of belonging and fitting. But since coming to Apex, the young people have just loved me and supported me. Your message on community is exactly what I’ve needed hear. I learning so much about what it means to be apart of a community of believes. Thank you.

And I thank God for parents that went on their knees before the Lord for their children; recognizing the battle belonged to the Lord. My brother and I would not be where we are today if it wasn’t for their obedience to God.