Lucinda (or Lu as she is known to most) has been a member of Pittwater Uniting Church for nearly four years. On a Sunday she is usually found leading worship or singing backing vocals in the worship team. She also teaches acting techniques to Pittwater's drama team.
I Surrender!
Whenever I’ve been asked to give my testimony, I’ve always avoided the issue. You see my journey to becoming a Christian didn’t have flashes of lightning, or a booming voice from the sky. So I always thought I never really had a testimony. Well late one Monday night God made me get up out of my nice warm bed and write this. I think he wanted to prove me wrong again.
I come from a very non-Christian family and I lived a very non-Christian life. When I was 15 I had already gotten myself into many unsavory situations. So it was to all my friends suprise when I started dating a Christian guy. I thought I’d set him straight on this whole Christianity thing, show him how anyone with half a brain could realize how false the whole thing is. We debated and argued about it for two years, I would raise a point and it would be defeated, with hard facts, and reason and logic. Until one night I simply said that "I think I believe in Jesus". I didn’t say the salvation prayer, I didn’t even invite the Holy Spirit in, I did quickly hang up the phone and ask that my boyfriend not ask me about it again. Sometime later I started going to church, I must have invited the Spirit in, but I don’t remember when. That may sound bad, but I think I was so skeptical about the whole thing that I didn’t really think it would happen.
I would test God, closing my eyes and saying (with needle and thread in hand) “God, if you’re really God then I’m going to close my eyes and move my hands near each other and when I open my eyes this needle will be threaded.” Well God is so patient with us, he threaded that needle three times for me.
Seven years later I know I’ve grown in my relationship with God, but I still feel like such a newborn. God has been so faithful to me and my dreams. That patient boyfriend has become my patient husband! I’ve learnt that although it’s my dream to be an actor, I have to let God make it happen, otherwise I’ll get the glory, and I don’t want that. The more I struggle and try to do it my way, the longer God will have to spend undoing my mistakes and re-teaching me the lessons I should have learnt. I have to give everything to God. I have given away small things that don’ t really matter to me, then felt guilty for giving God my left-overs. Recently, for the first time, I actually handed over a part of my life that matters. I thought that I’d handed stuff over before, but I hadn’t. You can’t hand a situation over to God and then be upset when it doesn’t go your way. That’s the whole point, you hand it over and it’s not up to you anymore. It’s Gods will and whatever happens you can rejoice because that’s how God wanted it! It’s taken me all this time to learn! But I get it, the pressure’s off. If I hand it to God then it’s not up to me anymore. All I can do is my very best, and that’s finally enough, God takes care of the rest! Isn’t that awesome? Rejoice sisters!! Jesus does actually set us free!
I’m not near ready for His return, there’s still much work needing to be done. I still haven’t learnt how to give everything over, not nearly. But I’m trying really hard, and I’ve had a taste now. I will someday. My Father promised me.
I pray that you know the freedom I’ve just learnt, and if not I pray you learn it faster than I did! I ask that you pray for me, and the church, that we will learn to trust God more fully. To let Him love us, and for us to love him more deeply. Remember, True Love stories never end.
