Over the next few weeks, I’ll share with you some aspects of my personal Christian testimony. As time permits, I’ll also include an audio or video.

So…let me start at the very beginning.

Do you Remember When You First Became Aware of God’s Presence in Your Life?

There has never been a time when I wasn’t aware of God’s presence in my life. I knew the Lord really from infancy.

I was born just 3 years after the end of World War II. So like all parents, my parents had to deal with the ‘leftover’ challenges of 6 years of brutal, traumatizing, worldwide war.

But no matter how tough the circumstances facing them might have been, my parents managed to remain consistent and tangible examples of what it meant to be everyday disciples of Jesus.

As a result, they sowed into my mind, heart, and spirit the tiny seeds of Love, and of a genuine gratitude for and honouring of God. And then, with single-minded dedication and sacrifice, they provided the deep, nutritious soil necessary for these tiny seeds to grow.

This in no way meant that my 2 brothers, my sister, and myself always behaved like angels straight from heaven! We had the usual spats, mischief-making, and disagreements that all children experience.

In fact, I remember vividly the times when, as a reward for ill behaviour, we were all made to sit quietly in our living room, without talking, for short periods of time! 

At What Point in Your Life Did You Begin to Seek God Actively?

‘First-Time’ Teenager

I vividly recall first seeking God actively as a girl of 12 or 13 when I was being prepared for Confirmation in my Anglican/Episcopal church. This was the Lord’s invitation to me to reaffirm, and take personal responsibility for, the gift of His Holy Spirit.

Now, I received more consciously the powerful Light and Love and Wisdom that would continue to guide and direct my life and lead me into all truth:

But when the Friend comes, the Spirit of the Truth, he will take you by the hand and guide you into all the truth there is.

John 16:13 The Message

University Student

Then, in my first year of university when preparing for a daunting set of end-of-year exams, for the first time in my life I experienced an unsettling anxiety.

I wondered how I would ever get through my exams.

I started to feel unusually distant from the Lord.

Studying at the University of Durham, England, 3000 miles away from my family (except for my brother who was also at Durham in his final year), I was forced to forego the support of a family structure at an unusually stressful time.

In trying to deal with this, I started to seek God more actively than I had needed to before.

It was at this time that I remember reading a book called Naught for Your Comfort, written by an Anglican monk, Trevor Huddleston. It chronicled his tireless, dangerous, ongoing, ‘never-give-up’ struggle against apartheid in South Africa where he had been sent as a missionary.

Huddleston’s unflagging courage against those who opposed his work channeled new Life into my anxiety-burdened mind, heart, spirit —and, yes, into my body as well.

Gradually, I began to experience the same Power that had fuelled Huddleston’s living faith and enabled him to carry out his stressful work.

Trevor Huddleston bore consistent witness to God’s love, care, support, guidance, and protection for each and every one of the South African people, and for himself.

And that witness impacted me. 

I was now able to see my anxiety in a new Light and with new eyes — the eyes of Jesus, my 24/7-available and ever-dependable Saviour.

Huddleston’s witness had pulled together my distracted consciousness and pointed it strongly back in the direction of God.

With great gratitude, I wrote to the Superior of Huddleston’s Community in England to let him know how this book had quieted my anxiety and restored my lagging faith. In return, the Superior encouraged me to follow Huddleston’s example and make my own public witness to the good news of Christ’s Gospel.

Young Adult Woman

Then, as a young woman of 21, I very actively sought the Lord when I needed to make a critical life-decision. I needed to know the Lord’s will on whether I was to marry the man whom I loved and who would in time become my husband.

The Lord came through for me again.

I’ve covered this period of my life in my book.

However, the turning point in my relationship with God would arrive 15 years later. This would set the stage for the next 40-plus years of my journey with God!

First Apparent Breakdown of My Connection to God:

My Experience of God’s Absence

Fifteen years later, as a young happily married woman of 35 with 2 young daughters, a situation arose which propelled me to seek the Lord far more actively and to a far greater depth than I’d ever had to do before.

For the very first time, God seemed to have abandoned me.

He seemed absent, to have disappeared totally off my radar.

What to do?

This disorienting, anguished experience would end 15 months later in what I have called ‘my second conversion’ .

This experience was —and has remained —THE turning point in my relationship with the Lord. It effectively ‘revolutionized’ my understanding of the Father, of Jesus, and of the Holy Spirit.

This in turn brought about a new understanding and practice of prayer and of my journey with God as a whole

Over a period of 15 months, the Lord answered my desperate cry for His help in amazing ways, after which time my entire consciousness had changed!

I now saw God, myself, and all other folk and my relationships with them through a brand-new lens and with a brand-new heart and mind and spirit.

Gradually, the Lord revealed Himself to me not just as my Saviour but as my

• brother
• father
• creator
• friend
• Healer

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Disclaimer

No content on this website should ever be used as a substitute for direct medical advice from your doctor or other qualified health professional or
clinician

 

Watch out for Part 2 coming after next month's Christmas article titled:

Did My Understanding of God Change over Time?

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Have you listened to my webinar? 

And to Sonia’s interview with me? 

 

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