Testimony

I have known ABOUT God most of my life.  But I didn’t come to know Him in my heart till my mid twenties.

When I was a youngster, I was sent to Sunday School by my parents, like most kids I grew up with.  It was just part of our education, you learned the 3 Rs and you learned about religion.  Mum went to church, and Dad wasn’t really anything, but he had such a great world view, and taught me so much about compassion and non judgementalism.  Mum was a great church lady but didn’t really become a Christian till she was very old, and had dementia.  She came to Christ as a little child.

But I digress.  I went to Sunday School, and SOAKED up the Bible stories, and this was probably the beginning of my love affair with ancient history.  We moved, and this time I was NEXT DOOR to the church, which admittedly was just a tin shed (they did build a better more modern church later).  The tin shed had spider webs in the corner, but there were still Bible Stories for me to lap up.  They also had Christian Endeavour and Girls Life Brigade which I attended.  They also had input into my life, instilling Christian virtues…and marching.  The Girls Brigade did a lot of marching and we were really good at “fancy” marching, where you marched in formation, and formed patterns.  I loved it!

Time passed and I had taken music lessons.  Another church started up a few blocks away…another tin shed, but this one had a harmonium and I used to play it for their services.  I had outgrown the Sunday School I suppose, but still went to CE and GLB, and I used to also accompany the next door neighbours on the other side for any special occasion to THEIR church, the Salvation Army. 

I suppose you could say I had a good grounding in Christian behaviour and Bible Stories.  But I didn’t really know Jesus.  I knew ABOUT Him, but I didn’t really know Him.  I thought salvation was about behaviour, not an internal conversion.

Fast forward to adulthood, marriage and family.  I was still playing the organ at times, but it was still about being “good”.  The only real thing I had learned is that any change I was able to make about my behaviour did not really last. I kept going to church, and also went to a non denominational Bible study group where I finally heeded that still small voice, which admittedly at times shouted at me.  My conversion was a gradual process until at last I prayed to the Lord to “come into my heart”.  Nothing happened for a while, or at least nothing that I noticed, but one day I did notice something.  Up until that time I was the queen of holding grudges, and I wouldn’t even entertain forgiving a person for doing something that upset my apple cart. Someone said something to me that normally I would take the wrong way.  This time, instead of being hurt, I forgave that person,  sincerely, within my heart.  Whoa I thought, that wasn’t me that did that!  And so it had begun, the new creation, and I hadn’t even noticed!

I noticed eventually that I was displaying the fruit of the Spirit…in small ways at first, but then I spoiled it.  I was a new Christian, a baby Christian, I had to show Him that I was DOING something.  Honestly, I just roll my eyes at myself, at the way I was.  All I had to do was love God and love people.  And to show people by my life that I was a follower of Jesus.  But no I knew better, and decided I should belong to the church that was most like the church Jesus started.  I really didn’t have a clue.

So true to what I do best, I researched.  I reckon satan was having a laughing fit by this.  The church I picked was the SDA church.  In my defence there was no internet then, all I had was the local library….but still…..The Holy  Spirit allowed me, after all I had a lot to learn.

One of my husband’s workmates was SDA.  He was a lovely man, and his wife was wonderful, and they had two little girls.  So they started giving me studies, and in due course I was baptised.  I was completely hoodwinked.  I met some lovely Christian folk, and most of them WERE Christian (looking back), just went to church on a different day.  Some were obviously converted to ellen, but most were just Christians, with a difference.  They taught me a lot about love, loving each other, loving God, loving people in general. 

I also learned about the Sunday law…and the sabbath…and tithing…and things that even then didn’t sit comfortably, like Jesus being Michael.  But I thought, this is where God wants me, in HIS church, obeying HIS commandments, and keeping HIS sabbath, although I found that very difficult.

Here I was, with four little kids, and a non believing husband.  There was no way I could keep sabbath “properly”, there were nappies to be washed, mouths to feed, and a husband to look after.  And from time to time the kids would get sick.  They didn’t wait till after sabbath to come down with the latest bug.  They would start sometime on Friday, and Saturday I would have to take them to the doctor, or at the very least, go to the chemist for whatever they needed, or to the supermarket for appropriate supplies.  I would feel so guilty.  Sabbath was no blessing. 

The kids got bigger, and on good days, they would accompany me to church if their father offered them no better choice.  In time the kids went off to various universities and colleges.  I was terribly proud of them, wherever they went.  My elder daughter chose Avondale, the SDA college here, to do teacher training.  I might add she had a great time, and made great friends and close to thirty years later they are still friends.

One of the subjects she had chosen was religious education.  This meant that she did some of the same subjects as the theology students, and this was the first crack in my belief system.  She used to come home at holidays and tell me what she was doing, and various anecdotes about students and teachers, normal kid stuff, and then she said, “Mum, the theo students aren’t really doing Bible study, they’re learning about EG White.” I thought this was a bit strange but thought nothing more about it.

Another time she came home she presented me with some photocopied stuff from the college library.  Again, no internet, so it was a bit difficult for her, but boy I’m glad she did.  She brought home what EG White (who was now demoted (?) to eggwhite) had written about amalgamation, and some of her racist comments.  Now this really shocked me and though I saw this in black and white, I thought this can’t be right.

This is what she wrote about amalgamation for those who don’t know: 

“But if there was one sin above another which called for the destruction of the race by the flood, it was the base crime of amalgamation of man and beast which defaced the image of God, and caused confusion everywhere.” —Spiritual Gifts, Vol. 3, p. 64, 1864.

“Every species of animal which God had created, were preserved in the ark. The confused species which God did not create, which were the result of amalgamation, were destroyed by the flood. Since the flood there has been amalgamation of man and beast, as may be seen in the endless varieties of species of animals and certain races of men.” —Spiritual Gifts, Vol. 3, p.75, 1864.
 
I determined to prove ellen right (I should have trusted my daughter more) and in so doing I started studying the Bible.  Now the Holy Spirit must had had a hand in this because I did not study the writings of EG White, and of course, I realised she was wrong.  She was a fraud, and my daughter was right!

It took a while before I actually left the church, but the die had been cast.  The seeds of doubt were sown, and I started moving away from ellen and her church.

I might add all through this I still loved Jesus, although I was very deceived. 

My daughter finished her studies and gained her B Ed but was told she would not be able to work within the church because she asked too many questions.  Proud of my girl, I was!  (still am!)

But God cared for her too.  She also left the church, and after her graduation, set about finding a job.  Teaching jobs in her subjects were a bit thin on the ground, but her father happened to be reading “The Land” newspaper and saw a job advertised for a governess.  The people preferred the applicant to have teacher training so she applied, got an interview, and her father drove her out there…four hours from home.  But she loved the place, and they loved her.  She went to work there and hasn’t looked back.

The place was isolated, and she taught the various children in the family and the workers’ children.  In the school holidays she worked in the pottery on the grounds of the property.  When the children left school she worked full time in the pottery, and now is the designer and one of the potters there, and a very important part of the pottery.  When she was little she always said she wanted to earn her living with her art.  And God saw that she did.

I was a bit lost for a while after leaving the SDA.  I started having health issues and marital problems.  The wheels were falling off all over the place.  But I grew closer to God and my neighbours and friends drew round me.  They didn’t do anything special, they just loved me. They were as Christ to me. They all went to the same church, the one I used to go to, and I started going back.  Lo and behold they needed an organist so they doubly welcomed me!  These people were so obviously full of the Holy Spirit, love oozed from them.  Genuine agape love. 

Typical Anglicans, their doctrine was all over the place, but they were united in their love for the Lord, and the community (including me)  They were so terribly inclusive, they didn’t care that I had been going to a different denomination, I was there now and they cared.

It was quite a few years of being cared for before I joined facebook and joined groups where I met other former SDAs.  A lot of these had become atheist, but I met some who were still Christian, or now Christian.  I learned so much from these people.  I learned more and more about Jesus, and about His grace, and I learned more and more about the faults of ellen, and her out and out lies, how the leaders of her church knew she was false and have kept the falsehoods going so that so many are deceived.

Now I am one of the many “escapees” who try to tell SDAs the truth about Jesus….and the Gospel…and ellen and her lies.

Please pray for us, that many may come to Him.