Monday, April 25, 2005

testimony from gary 

This is amazing on my part, it was painful to do, its is the slightly longer than the one handed to the person at church running an evangelism course, a couple of explanations were needed. Gary

Gary’s Testimony

At the age of 12 things changed very much for the good. There were 3 changes: I became a very good reader, (and read many books I shouldn’t have), I got into sports, (and wasn’t very good at most but there I met people and developed some social skills), and a girl in my class organized a group of us to a Youth For Christ rally in my home town. I had a marvelous night and there became a Christian whereas Sunday School hadn’t done much for me.

The day after that Saturday night YFC rally my life became a struggle if not a battle, to keep going because, (I’m trying to keep this short), I had a very unhappy homelife and there were going to be some bad experiences, some bad Christian experiences too.

A month later the same group from school plus a few others were at the next Youth For Christ rally when a quite confident and little older boy and girl asked us to join the youth group. I quickly became considerably jealous of the guy, Roger, and the girl, named Coralie, gets a mention soon.

I was the only one of my school group who went to the Youth Group but generally I had a great time despite: (1) I wasn’t the norm as I dressed in early 60s ‘swinging sixties’ clothes and shocked the ‘squares’, (the rest of them), I came as an only child from a family of divorced parents which was very very bad in those days, and I was rapt over my JB Phillips translation of the New Testament while ‘they’ all had the ‘real’ bible of King James; and (2) most of them, if not all, they gossipped about me, (they had enough without finding out about my being psychologically and to a slight extent, sexually abused), until after a couple of weeks Coralie told them to shut up and ‘mothered’ me.

But I was on the way to being involved in Christianity, doing lots of reading, lots of church involvements over the years, getting great amounts of good teaching and forever trying to make the right choices. My wife, Shirley, has been a huge help, often by just being there and by keeping her faith as we all have done. Roger’s younger sister, Michele, (of this blog), has helped a little recently. When I was in YFC she was just a shy schoolgirl, I’m pleased she is confident now.

At 13 I chose to be baptised and remember it all well. It was a highlight of my life which I followed quickly by confirmation. It was also the year that I read three very significant Christian authors, John Robinson, who got me thinking deeply, JB Phillips who got me thinking in an expanded way, and Billy Graham who got me thinking clearly. Then I read lots of other Christian books while reading many many novels.

Over many years (I’m now 55) my knowledge has grown. At one time my faith went radical then became more traditional. I had a few people to forgive and I expect some needed to forgive me for I was often brash to hide my considerable shyness. The foregiveness on my part wasn’t so hard to do, but, getting over the jealousy (mine of many people, Roger wasn’t the only one with a family I wanted, or the confidence I didn’t have, or the success I didn’t get) and the anger, yes, those were both hard and took many years. A few things were put right from prayer, and a few from good teaching, and a few from my own understanding. Being alone hasn’t always hurt: some things were ‘realised’ while walking the dog.

Enough! Gary March 2005

# posted by Anonymous @ 9:33 am