Testimony

I'm not sure exactly where to start. I don't even know why I decided to write this blog. I can say this, I love to tell my husband's testimony. I love to tell everyone about his journey from complete non-believer to absolutely undoubtful believer. And I love to tell people how I saw a man who I knew for 16 years and suddenly changed before my eyes. I laugh sometimes and say "who are you and what did you do with my husband?" And I know his journey, but I have cheated him out of the same joy and excitement regarding my journey because I didn't share it...at all. Why? I don't know except that there was a major change in my family life in the past 4 days, we inherited another child...yep you heard me right. The reason that I feel that I have to set my testimony into the written and then, soon, in the verbal word is because of this child's recent life issues.
While Lee was a non-believer and totally turned around, I was someone who chose to walk away from God; I truly chose to walk away from God in my life. I was angry, inwardly, and walked around like all was ok but I carried with me unforgiveness that dominated my life. I had decided that I couldn't be saved because I couldn't forgive the person in my past that I literally hated. And after Lee accepted Christ as his savior and became this man that was walking totally in faith and love, I became very frustrated and began a fight that was turning my life upside-down. I remember clearly being in a position where I thought and believed I had to chose whether I was going to forgive this person in my past and accept the forgiveness of Christ..or.. not. That was the way I felt and the way the road to salvation appeared to me. Over the course of about 3-4 days I prayed, cried, searched for answers, withdrew from my family life, stiffled my work life, you name it I was struggling with it and it came quickly. I was going to the bottom of the of the barrel and quickly because I couldn't forgive this person in my past so there was no way Christ would forgive me for my sins and short-comings. What was I going to do? I had no idea what to do or where to go to find the answer. Until.....I was reading one day and read Romans 12:19 "Do not repay evil for evil, but give to your enemy with love and you will heap burning coals on his head, for vengence is mine, and I will repay." I was, in all sense of this verse, repaying evil for evil. I wasn't going out and killing people or beating my children or anything that you would normally equate with 'evil' but nonetheless, I was in a way repaying the evil that I suffered with evil toward others. I was holding onto my anger and unforgiveness so hard that it became part of my life and part of my soul. The struggle became when the Spirit of Life, Christ, wanted me and my soul didn't want to give up on the anger that was dominating my life. The fight was on, I had to chose, I had to make a decision of what I wanted my life, for that point forward to be.
What I learned was that God could forgive me because Christ had paid my price for my forgiveness in God's eyes and presence. That didn't meant that I could just say "wow, cool, ok I'm in." That's not the way it goes. My spiritual life had to have a cleaning out of the 'stuff'. I wasn't ready but God knew that when He called me to Him, I didn't know that when I made the decision to believe and follow Christ. I still carried with me the hatred and anger when I accepted Christ as my savior, I still carried it around for months after the Spirit showed, told, and directed me to let go of the anger and hatred I held and allow God to take control of that part of my life, it didn't happen overnight!!! But, after being pushed and moved forward, even in my resistence at some points by avoiding issues, God through his Son and the Spirit moved me to dig through the hatred that I held and allowed me to truly forgive the person from my past as well as bring to the surface that I had held onto anger toward God. Talk about a complete break down of walls, that was a morning full of tears and revelation that I don't think I was really ready for.
I dont' know if anyone reading this, or if anyone is reading this, but I wanted to let you know that you aren't going to walk a perfect, unaffected, unangry life, but you don't have to, not right now. God is fully aware of your anger, unforgiveness, anger, issues, etc, etc, etc. If He's calling you..listen because if He is calling you, He knows your ready to move in the direction to release all of the stuff you have in your soul So I guess my question is, what are you holding onto? And is it stopping you from hearing God's voice?