Tag: Encouragement for Christian Women

Share Your Testimony

Testimony Tuesday: Bekki’s Story

Michelle Lesley

Bekki’s Story

Part One – MY LIFE IN ADAM.

I was born, raised and educated in a religion. I attended church weekly and then some. I married my husband, Jeremy, in 1996 and when we decided to start a family, we discovered I had health issues. Naturally, without knowing God, I took control of the situation and was determined to resolve my own problems. I turned to self-help books, spiritual gurus and all sorts of herbs, teas and magic tonics. Despite my miserable efforts, God graciously gave us our son, Ace in 2002. You would think I would have seen God’s hand in all of this and given Him the glory, but sadly, “blind men don’t see nothing”! So I continued my downward spiral. In 2012, my dad passed away suddenly. Foolishly, I thought my “advice” was helping my dad. Not so.

Later that same year, I had an appointment with one of these self-help gurus. Oddly enough, this appointment was very different from the rest – instead of my physical health being the issue, he began asking me questions about my spiritual health: who I thought God was, who Jesus Christ was, who I prayed to and the like. I was speechless! (a special moment for my husband, no doubt). :o)

No one had ever contested nor questioned me on my faith up to this point in my life. Each time I stumbled through with an answer to his question, he then responded with a Scriptural text and added, “But, don’t believe me, read this!” all the while patting his hand on a Bible laying nearby. Something was changing. I left there that day and actually began to ponder over the questions he asked me about God. For the very first time in my life, even though apprehensive, I actually wanted to see and to know what was in the Bible (remember, this is after 12 years of religious education).

I asked Jeremy if he would read the Bible with me. He said “Sure – but can you find me a really dumbed-down version”? Being the loving wife I am, I replied, “Absolutely” while I searched for a Bible loaded with colorful pictures!

Seriously! You can’t make up something like this! A paraphrased version and a picture Bible most third graders would be envious of!

Part Two – MY LIFE IN CHRIST

On January 1, 2013 we opened our Bibles for the very first time as husband and wife and began reading. We read daily, finishing on June 5, 2013. How could we have prepared ourselves for the authority, the power, the vitality coming forth from the pages of the written Word? I remember growing up being told that I could never understand the Bible. Yet, here we sat, day after day, in our living room, reading the Bible and beginning to understand. It was so real. In retrospect, we now know, the Word was coming alive and active to our darkened souls. It was like God, through His Word, was unfolding and explaining our lives – to us.

There I stood convicted, in awe of a Holy, Holy, Holy God I had never known. I saw myself truthfully, as He did. The pedestal I had been standing on for nearly 40 years was knocked out from under me. I knew I needed to be saved! I repented and trusted in Jesus Christ and His finished work. No longer did I see Christ as dead, hanging on a crucifix (as I had all those years in the church I grew up in) but He was now alive – in reality and in my own heart!

Seeing Jesus Christ in His full majesty through the gospel has been nothing short of a miracle in our lives!

Who could have imagined?

For the first time in our lives, we actually care about the things that God cares about. The things we used to think were so important, we have lost track of. We now genuinely care what people know about God. And His Son. Who would have thought that we would one day walk away from the religion, the traditions, we had both been brought up in for 40 years? Who could have known we would one day sit in a church where the Word of God is expounded verse by verse? Who would have ever imagined that we would now be sharing the gospel – even to a young Muslim man helping us load our TV – in Walmart’s parking lot! Who could have known that the power of the gospel would lead us to joining our first Bible study ever? And, that we LOVED it? And that study would lead to the next…and the next…and the next! How could we ever imagined that reading God’s Word – the double edged sword – would expose and convict us of our sins? How could we have known the Little Missouri River, along which Jeremy was raised, would one day be our place of baptism? As believers! How could we have ever taught our son about the Lord Jesus Christ…had we not first been taught?

Who could have ever imagined?

But God!

If it were not for the gospel…the very power of God through His Living Word – we would have never known LIFE from DEATH!

As a side note, in case you are wondering: Jeremy and I have moved on to Big People’s Bibles now! :o)

May I leave you with this: I know Jeremiah is called “the weeping prophet” but I love his passion/depth in his words and I think he says best what my heart, my new life in Christ, the LIVING WORD says: “But if I say, I will not mention Him or speak any more in His name, HIS WORD is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.” (Jeremiah 20:9)

Ladies, God is still at work in the hearts and lives of His people, including yours! Would you like to share a testimony of how God saved you, how He has blessed you, convicted you, taught you something from His Word, brought you out from under false doctrine, placed you in a good church or done something otherwise awesome in your life? Private/direct message me on social media, e-mail me (MichelleLesley1@yahoo.com), or comment below. Try to be brief (3-4 paragraphs or less) if possible. I’ll select a few to share on the blog another time. Let’s encourage one another with God’s work in our lives!

Share Your Testimony

Testimony Tuesday: Berna Deene’s Story II

Michelle Lesley

Berna Deene’s Testimony II

(You may remember Berna Deene’s previous Testimony Tuesday story. Here, she  graciously shares with us another instance of God working in her life.)

Background….Brand new born again babe in Christ Jesus. In August 2011 I walked into a church with very few members. Only about twelve. I made thirteen. Only four men counting the pastor. The rest all women. I didn’t know much of anything but I was hungry and on fire for our Lord. I read my Bible daily and studied hermeneutics in depth.

One year later, I was asked to be Sunday School Superintendent. When asked, I said, “No, definitely not!”. “Why?” they asked. I told them it is not biblical.

A few weeks later during elections at church I was nominated for the position, and like a split personality I said yes (the devil and/or our flesh gets in when we least expect it!). I felt obliged because there was no one else.

I did it for three weeks. I loved it! I really loved it! I would open with a reading from Charles Spurgeon, Sunday School business, and a prayer. Then I was asked one simple question by my biological brother who happens to be a pastor and my mentor. He simply asked me, “So you’ve changed your mind about women’s place in the church….hmmmmmm?” My answer was a resounding NO. I know what it says in the Bible. So what was I doing?!!! On the third Sunday of my being Sunday School Superintendent , instead of Spurgeon and the rest, this is what I opened (and closed) with 1 Timothy 2:8-15:

I will therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting. In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works. Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.”

It is not me
It is Thee,
It is not we,
It is Thee.

I can not pray in earnest for something, then act as though God won’t answer. I surrendered all to God not quite a year ago. I pray to be an uncompromising follower. I pray for His church.

I pray for the men in my [church] family. I pray for their repentance, salvation, hunger and love of our Lord. I pray for their unerring obedience in God and that they step up and be the spiritual leaders of our family that He designed them to be.

How can I pray for the patriarchs to lead if I then accept the position strictly for them? As long as there is a Godly man in my household, in my church, I am commanded by God that they are to lead.

Christ is the head. Man is next, and then the woman. I spent my entire life railing against this fact. When our gracious, loving, almighty, forgiving God saved me, when I got up off my face and knees, He laid His truths before me. He opened my eyes to this undeniable hierarchy. He gave me a totally new heart and flipped my perspective 180 degrees to His Way, His Truth and His Life.

I surrendered. I am grateful. I have to obey Him. His word says I must not hold an office or teach or preach to Godly men in His church. Godly men are called to be our leaders. While I joyfully may continue to be the custodian of His church, the bell ringer, and an avid student who comes to praise, pray and seek Him, I can not, nay I am not allowed to hold the office of Superintendent as long as there are Godly men to do so. And I fervently pray that we always have Godly men in this church.

So as much as I love each and every one of you here, and want you to love me in return, as much as I want this church to succeed in all it does, I must not want it at the expense of Scripture. I am stepping down and I pray that one of you men step
into this position rather than leave it empty. If not, I am sure we can study without a superintendent.

And I want to thank The Most Holy Father, the Blessed Son, Christ Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, my comforter.

And with that, I resigned. And don’t you know one of the men stepped up and stepped into that spot.

Fast forward 3 years…I had already left this little church for other reasons, but lo and behold, they have had a women in the pulpit for over 5 years now. I was thankful to not have been there when she stepped behind the pulpit.

Ladies, God is still at work in the hearts and lives of His people, including yours! Would you like to share a testimony of how God saved you, how He has blessed you, convicted you, taught you something from His Word, brought you out from under false doctrine, placed you in a good church or done something otherwise awesome in your life? Private/direct message me on social media, e-mail me (MichelleLesley1@yahoo.com), or comment below. Try to be brief (3-4 paragraphs or less) if possible. I’ll select a few to share on the blog another time. Let’s encourage one another with God’s work in our lives!

Encouragement, Share Your Testimony

Testimony Tuesday: Stories from Several Sisters

Michelle Lesley

On today’s Testimony Tuesday,
several sisters in Christ share their stories.

From Facebook:

Cheryl’s Story
Words are powerful, and when they are well intended, but off-base, they can cause massive damage.

About 25 years ago we lost two of our three babies to a genetic disease. When the second of the two was still with us, (they died 4 years apart), a well-intentioned person came to encourage us, and told us, “If you have enough faith, your baby will live”.

Those words were a hook that dragged me through years and years of torment. “If I have enough faith, then…” My baby died, so it became MY FAULT because I didn’t have sufficient faith. It also made God someone who couldn’t be pleased. How much faith DOES one need to get a miracle, and how do you get it?? It was a huge can of worms.

Two decades later, I broke down into a major depression that nearly ended my life, but God led me to safe counsel, and I was truly, finally healed from carrying that horrible guilt and grief all those years.

Words are powerful. Use wisdom because sometimes Satan uses well-intentioned words as bait that have lies wrapped in them.

Anonymous
I was going to a charismatic church and the pastor started promoting and giving Rick Warren’s book Purpose Driven Life out to all the new Christians. I was very concerned since I don’t agree with Warren’s teaching so I made an appointment to meet with the pastor and his wife (who is a co-pastor). They didn’t agree with my concerns at all and even mentioned during the conversation that they like Joel Osteen! I knew then that it was time for me to leave that church. I started attending a Baptist church and have left the Word of Faith doctrine completely. Feeling very blessed to be where I am now!

Comments from blog articles:

From The Mailbag: I “feel led” in a different direction from my husband:

Deby’s Story
Submission has gotten a bad rap in our society. It is not being a doormat or being mentally or a physically abused submission. It is submitting as if to Christ. My husband was not a believer and now he is. It was hard for me not to nag him about things, I had to trust God and put my husband in God’s hands and his will. Sure I made some mistakes along the way but eventually in God’s timing not mine, he called my husband to the faith.

Catherine’s Story
When I was first married, I was the unsaved and my dearest husband was the Believer. You have no idea what that man of mine had to put up with in the first 2 years of our marriage before the Lord got a hold of my heart and I was made to look at my own depravity, sinful desires, and all-around foolishness. I am a fortunate woman that my husband stuck around for that conversion, and I know that too was part of a Sovereign Lord’s plan and one that I cannot thank Him enough for. After 32 years of marriage, I have not “arrived”. I look back on those first couple years and I’m humbled by what the study of God’s Word and the sanctification that the Spirit works in a person’s life has done to change me so completely.

Ladies, God is still at work in the hearts and lives of His people, including yours! Would you like to share a testimony of how God saved you, how He has blessed you, convicted you, taught you something from His word, brought you out from under false doctrine, placed you in a good church or done something otherwise awesome in your life? Private/direct message me on social media, e-mail me (MichelleLesley1@yahoo.com), or comment below. Try to be brief (3-4 paragraphs or less) if possible. I’ll select a few to share on the blog another time. Let’s encourage one another with God’s work in our lives!

Encouragement, Share Your Testimony

Testimony Tuesday: Barbara’s Story

Michelle Lesley

Barbara’s Testimony

I can only start with, “God help me, I’m so very weak.”

Last March I trembled my way to pre-op for open heart surgery. With promises from my husband I’d be okay, I kissed him hurriedly goodbye. I opened my eyes, two open heart surgeries and seventeen days later. Still nearer to death than life. My darling husband smiling down at me.

I couldn’t move. I was so very weak, hallucinating from the drugs they had used to keep me sedated all that time. I was confused and scared. Nothing made sense.

Eleven months later I’ve been through a grinding process of rehab. Eleven weeks in the hospital, finger amputations (tops, tips, half my thumb, toes), lung failure, kidney failure (kidneys are better!) but NO SURGEON could fix my spiritual heart.

I strove, oh I have and do, to live this life as a godly wife, even when some “charismatic ” friends said it was foolish and not really what the Bible said. My sister arguing with me that serving gets you nowhere, if men are too weak or lazy just step in (as if I’m not weak or lazy!)

But there he was, Dave, smiling down at me, so happy I was still with him. I couldn’t move from my bed, I was attached to dozens of lines, but he only left me to go to the hotel to sleep. For weeks he was with me constantly. He made sure I was okay. For the last year he has served me, while I’ve been crazy humbled.

Every day, he helps me dress, get washed, gets me to therapy. Every day, he makes me tea (the best!) and toast. He makes sure I have lunch and checks in on me often. He cooks dinners (say “Hello Fresh”) and then gets me tucked in at night. He listens to Steve Lawson with me in the morning. He prays with and for me.

Why did I type all this? Because, though I was the server, he was a server too. We were a team in that regard. Then it shifted. I was no longer a participant in our marriage in any physical way. AT. ALL.

And he just didn’t care. Oh yes, my pride made me cry a lot. My fear made me cry a lot. But he just said, “Barb, you’ve served me for 27 years. I got this now.” He did. He puts together my 65 pills a day, he rubs my destroyed feet, he holds me when I’m just too tired and I feel I can’t go on. He always has been a godly husband to me, but Jesus has shone through, shining into the lives of tens of other (mostly women) who watch his grave, grace-filled care of me and ask us, “Why?”. And we get to share the gospel.

It’ll be a year soon and I struggle NOW more than ever putting my life in his hands, shutting my tongue, speaking kindly, knowing that my life must have room for tragedy, but that God is working it all out for those that love Him and are called according to His purpose. I don’t know any more about the length of my life now than I ever did. God has surprised me with extended life since my first breath! So, I pray I remember these simple but freeing truths. Freedom from sin, free to trust, free to simply be.

Ladies, God is still at work in the hearts and lives of His people, including yours! Would you like to share a testimony of how God saved you, how He has blessed you, convicted you, taught you something from His word, brought you out from under false doctrine, placed you in a good church or done something otherwise awesome in your life? Private/direct message me on social media, e-mail me (MichelleLesley1@yahoo.com), or comment below. Try to be brief (3-4 paragraphs or less) if possible. I’ll select a few to share on the blog another time. Let’s encourage one another with God’s work in our lives!

Encouragement, Share Your Testimony

Testimony Tuesday: Berna Deene’s Story

Michelle Lesley

testimony-tuesday

Berna Deene’s Testimony

(Berna Deene shared this with her family and friends on social media
and is sharing it with us today)

“Let the redeemed of the LORD SAY SO,
whom He hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy!”
[Psalm 107:2]
“Come and hear, all ye that fear God,
and I will declare what he hath done for my soul. ”
[Psalm 66:16]

My dearest family and friends,

I know you see what is on my timeline, I know because periodically you will hit the like button. I am asking each and every one of you to share this with your family and friends.

I spent the majority of my life dead spiritually. I wouldn’t admit there was a God, I didn’t like God and wanted nothing to do with Him other than a prayer now and then asking for help when I got myself in trouble. I never believed He heard me and as it turns out, it says in the Bible that He does not listen to the prayers of (unrepentant ) sinners. (Proverbs 15:29 “The LORD is far from the wicked, but he hears the prayer of the righteous.” And again in John 9:31 “We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly person who does his will”)

berna-deene-edited

My life was long, longer than I wanted. I was ready for it to end. I had seen everything, done everything, was afraid of everything even though most thought me quite gregarious and bold. I was so sick of living, so sick of this world, running myself ragged trying to fix the world while blind to the fact that it was not in my control to do so. I was listening to a song on my computer one day…..Laura Story singing Blessings….and as she sang “this is not our home” I knew! I knew Jesus was with me. He had come for me. He calmed me….THEN, THEN, GOD, started drawing me, He called me (and I don’t mean I heard Him yell “Berna Deene”) but He called me just the same. He put me on my face and knees in my living room all by myself and I cried out to Him. I ask Him to forgive me.

I was a rebellious drug addicted rock and roll feminist. I believed in pro choice and pro gay marriages, I believed when you died you died. Period. I believed and lived like there was no tomorrow and indeed most the time I was hoping there would not be. He forgave me All of that. He opened my blind eyes, He replaced a heart of stone which I was born with, and gave me a throbbing heart of flesh which beats every moment and cries out “my God, my God, thank You for being my God.” He changed my mind when He changed my heart. I went from pro choice to knowing it was no choice. It is God’s choice. I went from believing everyone had a right to love whom they wanted, when they wanted and who did it hurt. It hurts them. And it makes God very very angry.

berna-deene-edited-1

You see, in Genesis, right at the beginning as He created EVERYTHING, He set the way. Man, woman, child, beast. Marriage was between one man and one woman. Man was the head over the woman and meant to protect, provide and if necessary lay down his life for her. Woman was to be of support and submit to her husband just as we all, men, women and children are to submit to the LORD. She was to bear the children, teach and raise them to love, worship and obey God. But Eve listened to evil in the garden, deceived she decided on her own to eat the forbidden fruit, then offered it to Adam who ate it also even though he knew God said it was not allowed. From then on each and every one of us have been born dead spiritually and it isn’t until we are born again that we can reconnect with our Creator.

Why am I writing this? I have had loved ones die, that I know are not in heaven. I was not born again at the time of their dying so I could not be a witness to them about Jesus, born of a virgin, leading a totally sinless life, hanging on the cross with the sins of His sheep heavy on Him, dying to save me, and lo and behold resurrecting in 3 days just as He said He would! There are no coincidences in life my friends. The LORD GOD, knows all, sees all, and will judge all. Jesus is coming back. He said, if you repent and believe He will in no way turn you away.

Repent doesn’t just mean I’m sorry, It means to turn around from your sins, and leave them behind, Remorsefully bow at the foot of the cross where HE shed His blood to cleanse us. Doesn’t mean we don’t falter, slip, are perfect. No way. He was the only perfect one. But if you think you are born again, and your life hasn’t changed completely, drastically, and you don’t hate what you used to love, like drugs, lying, cheating, stealing, porn, abortion, cussing, gossiping, then you need to think again.

berna-deene-edited-2

If you are not now Christ centered, waking in the morning and thinking of God, praising and praying and obeying His Word, think about Him through out the day and in bed as you lay down at night…you need to re-evaluate yourself. If you aren’t reading the Bible, the Word of God every day, if you don’t go and read where you can find out what HE expects and commands of us, how can you say you love HIM and you are His? If your soul isn’t grieving for the lost, the unsaved, the unrepentant, if you are not sharing your faith and Jesus, please reconsider if your new birth was in fact the born again that Jesus Himself spoke of.. None of us are guaranteed the next minute let alone tomorrow. Do not put off seeking HIM. Time is so much shorter than you think. I love you and I want to see you in heaven. I remain …..in praise, prayer and need of prayer.

Your sister Berna Deene

Ladies, God is still at work in the hearts and lives of His people, including yours! Would you like to share a testimony of how God saved you, how He has blessed you, convicted you, taught you something from His word, brought you out from under false doctrine, placed you in a good church or done something otherwise awesome in your life? Private/direct message me on social media, e-mail me (MichelleLesley1@yahoo.com), or comment below. Try to be brief (3-4 paragraphs or less) if possible. I’ll select a few to share on the blog another time. Let’s encourage one another with God’s work in our lives!