[mantis]

hi guys, i'm new here=)
i've just been looking around for the past while and saw this testimony board, and thought, yeah.

my testimony is still in the making, i suppose we all can say that though. my prayer last year at Bible college was simply, 'Daddy God, take away all that demands my attention away from you. make me solely dependant on You.'. heavy stuff. next time you pray, make sure you mean it! the next month things started rolling. my next youngest brother had been killed in a freak accident, my parents announced their seperation [not a surprise to us in the family but to everyone else who saw them as a model Christian couple], i had to leave Bible school permenantly, my parents reconsiled [sp?], announcing a few weeks later the conception of a miracle child, and only a few weeks later seperating again, my mother was hospitalized long term, my church split, than the church i had begun going to burned down, my new baby brother was born three months premature and is in icu [pray for him!], and GOD IS SOOOO GOOD TO ME!!! wow, a month ago i'd not have ssaid that with conviction, but it is certianly truer than i could even ask or imagine! Here i was a mere year ago, in bible college planning a long term ministry with music and children, and God said nope, you still are a little baby adn i want you to feel a little suffering before you go thinking you're a tough one adn can handle suffering of a bigger kind.
i just want to encourage anyone who is gonig through any kind of suffering that God hasn't forgotten you, He's just got bigger plans for you, and you still have some growing up to do!

praying mantis

[stillgrowin']

Hey Mantis,

Those are some intense stuff happening in your life. I am so encouraged that you are coming out of it praising God rather than blaming Him in bitterness. In one way, you can look back all you've been through this past year and say that all the tough things happened as the result of the prayer you prayed. Or God could have been the One who prompted you to build a stronger relationship with Him in the first place, because He knew about all those things that were going to happen. When I first became a Christian, I thought being a christian was living a trouble-free life with no worries and no hardships. Only six weeks later, my dad died with a liver cancer and I never got to see him before he died. And before I fully recovered, I learned that my family would be moving to philadelphia, and I started thinking that all the bad things started to happen after I became a Christian, and blamed God. Later I learned that my dad had been sick for three months before he died. If you do the math, I got saved after my dad got sick and before he died. My dad would have died regardless of whether I was a Christian or not, but by His amazing grace, God entered my life to be my comfort and even take the blame in times of trouble. Yeah, GOD IS SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO GOOD!!!!!