My Salvation Testimony

When I tell people that I came to saving faith in our Lord Jesus Christ in 2021, those that have known me longer than that are often puzzled. “That can’t be!” “But what about….” “You must have been saved before that!” “You can believe that about yourself, but I won’t! I know you were saved!” I can empathize with those who are disturbed by this information, because it disturbs me too. In truth, it highlights the sobering reality of religious deception, and just how far our fallen hearts truly are from Christ Jesus. (Romans 8:7-8; Isaiah 53:6; 1 Corinthians 2:14; Isaiah 59:2; Ephesians 2:1-3; Romans 3:10-12; Psalm 14:2-3; Jeremiah 17:9)

I grew up in the Holiness Movement. If you are unfamiliar with this branch, it is a Pentecostal, works-based approach to Christianity. It was in this setting that I prayed a prayer as a youth, and believed wholeheartedly that I had been “saved.” This prayer, however, was actually just a very motivated commitment to be “good.” At the time, I thought that was what it meant to be saved. We realize we have been sinful, and we purpose to henceforth be “perfect.” (Ecclesiastes 7:20; Proverbs 20:9) It would be many years before I realized this was not a true salvation experience, nevertheless, it set me on a trajectory for a very religious lifestyle and future.

I went to Bible college, graduated, and then spent nearly a decade on mission with this school to educate and prepare young people for Pentecostal ministry. I married a preacher, and over the years we were involved in several forms of ministry. I was a very sincere, dedicated, full-time laborer and all the while I believed fully that I was serving the Lord. Over the years however, I became increasingly concerned with many of the Holiness Movement’s teachings, and how they conflicted with Scripture. Unfortunately, it was not an environment where questions could be asked openly or answered honestly—raising concerns often led to backlash. We were conditioned to believe that if our spiritual leaders were pleased with us, then God was pleased; if they were displeased, so was God. In hindsight, I realize how deeply this mindset fostered confusion and a dependency on human approval rather than on God’s truth. For this entire chapter of my life I derived an “assurance” of salvation from the approval of leaders within the Holiness Movement. To disagree, meant forfeiting this approval, which was one of the most difficult things to relinquish, because not only did your entire existence hinge on it, but you feared for your soul if you lost it. (John 12:43; Matthew 6:1; Matthew 23:5-7;John 5:44; Proverbs 29:25; Luke 16:15) Recognizing this initiated an important season in my life, where I would learn, eventually, to trust what I read in Scripture, no matter what it would ultimately cost me.

As my husband and I navigated our concerns, we hit a few bumps and got a few bruises along the way. We landed briefly in a church that emphasized Word of Faith (WOF) doctrines. We were unfamiliar with these teachings at the time, but the vernacular was very similar to that of our Pentecostal upbringing. At first glance, we believed this church epitomized the Book of Acts, or what we believed the New Testament church ought to look like. We were captivated by the enthusiasm and the triumphant approach to life. As lifelong Pentecostals, we had been raised to strive spiritually for the very things this church claimed to be experiencing. We were brought up in a world where every camp meeting, convention, and “revival” had the aim of resurrecting Old-Time Pentecostalism, miracles, healings, and supernatural wonders, so this seemed, initially, like the pinnacle of Christianity! For a time, we embraced their teachings, and we applied them in our lives. I began to promote them personally, sharing them with friends and loved ones. This is the sin of which I am most deeply ashamed. I misrepresented Christ and truly I feel there is no sin greater.

Shortly after we began attending this church, my father was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given only a couple months to live. In that time, the church’s teachings and doctrines on faith were brought out in full force. Because of what was at stake, there was tremendous pressure to embrace, fully, aspects I was unsure of. I found myself wrestling internally, feeling uncertain about what I was promoting. I was often troubled by the pagan-like practices, subjectivity, superstition, and the pervasive disorder surrounding their teachings. According to their teachings on faith however, we must eliminate any thoughts that didn’t support healing—this meant pushing aside all of these concerns. This created an intensely stressful situation for my mind. I feverishly applied these doctrines to our situation and became incredibly disoriented when they only fostered confusion and chaos. Without being able to acknowledge and address the things that unsettled me, my mind was rendered incapable of approaching my father’s impending death rationally, and safely. I went through a long period of cognitive dissonance, while I “battled” to rise above my doubts in what they called “faith.”

In the end, my father passed away. During the period of grief that followed, I spent a lot of time reflecting on the contradictions, the troubling fruit, and the things we had been taught—and in turn, taught to others. (Matthew 7:15-20; Luke 6:43-45; Galatians 5:22-23) The doctrines had encouraged us to steamroll others, behave irresponsibly, and at times become borderline abusive. The stress of standing in faith had caused me to “explode” under pressure. Lies and exaggerations were promoted under the guise of “faith”. Much of what we clung to as evidence of healing was subjective at best. At the center of it, one felt pressured and exploited. We had even felt, at one point, that we could not talk to my father about salvation, because that would indicate we were expecting death. When he died, though my heart was shattered in a million pieces, I felt a sense of peace in God’s sovereignty. (Daniel 4:35; Proverbs 16:9;Job 42:2; Romans 9:20-21; Isaiah 45:7; Isaiah 14:24; Isaiah 55:8-9) I found comfort in the knowledge that my father’s life and death were in God’s hands. Even that comfort was assaulted by these teachings, when someone came to my father’s calling hours, and asked me, in the presence of onlookers, to help raise him from the dead. There motive was based on the flawed assumption that it was not God who had allowed my father to die, but the devil, who “stole” my father. According to them, I had a responsibility, as a Christian to stand in faith and fight for his resurrection. My father had been dead 3 days at this point. The confusion, distress, and pressure was reignited at once. I didn’t know what God expected of me. I had no “compass” at this stage, because the doctrines had twisted and mangled and contorted every shred of clarity and sense I once had. When I finally declined, and took a firm position against this idea, the minister who suggested it looked at me as though I was a demon, thwarting his heroic faith. I hid, during my own father’s funeral, for fear of being pressured into questionable situations.

This was a bitter wake-up call for me—I could not reconcile the harmful fruit of the situation, and others like it, with the little bit of the Bible I did accurately understand. The individuals who, in their best and most sincere efforts, believed they were bringing something victorious and triumphant to our situation, heaped guilt, shame, condemnation, and humiliation upon us in our grief. My decision to rest in God’s sovereignty, and not join in attempts to raise my father from the dead, was likened to Peter denying Christ. I was pressured afterwards, to embrace the teachings in order to strike back at the devil for “killing” my father and “have a comeback like Peter.” They believed the way to redeem myself after my “failure” to stand in faith was to pray for people to receive healings. The utter confusion during this season caused me to take a step back, and fight for some breathing room. I slowly began to examine the doctrines, and I discovered one by one, roots that were in direct opposition to Christianity. It became apparent that these teachings were an entirely corrupt worldview, from beginning to end. They butchered, maimed, and mutilated the Gospel from start to finish.

What weighed on me the most was realizing that Word of Faith (WOF) teachings were an extension of the Pentecostalism we had embraced all our lives. The only difference was a matter of degrees. Pentecostalism was all I knew, but I realized that if I continued using Pentecostal methods to “grow spiritually,” I would inevitably end up in WOF territory. This realization shook me deeply. My entire life had been built on Pentecostalism, and questioning it felt like my world was being upended. If Pentecostalism wasn’t “where it was at”, then I didn’t know what was, and that was terrifying. (Matthew 7:24-27)

During this time, I experienced tremendous confusion. As members of the Holiness Movement, we had been taught that Christians from other denominations were illegitimate, which only deepened my uncertainty. I didn’t know who or what to believe. The Christian world felt like a cacophony, with countless voices claiming they had the truth and stood on God’s Word, yet every one contradicting another. Though I yearned for clarity, I felt like I couldn’t hear through the noise of “Christianity.” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3) I became so terrified of counterfeits, and of myself and my own deception, that my whole arm shook when I reached for my Bible. I had this awful dread, that I might misinterpret it and that I could not trust myself to understand it. I feared that I would contribute personally to this noise and chaos within Christianity, and make it difficult for others. I think, for me, having believed all of my life, that my life was built on the Bible, and that Pentecostalism was the purest form of Christianity, nothing could have been more traumatic than to have both of those things swept out from beneath me. I was brought to dust and ashes.

In July of 2021, in complete desperation, I cried out to God for clarity and deliverance from false doctrine. I had come to the definite conclusion that I had embraced a counterfeit faith, though I didn’t fully understand how or why I had been so deceived, and how to ensure it wouldn’t happen again. The idea that I could believe I was walking in truth for decades, only to discover I was deeply deceived, shook me to my very core. I had no confidence in myself at that point, to find the truth on my own, so I placed all of my trust in Christ to lead me and my family. That prayer was the most pitiful, unrefined, ignorant prayer I’ve ever prayed. It went something like this:

“Dear God… the true God. I don’t know how to circumvent the counterfeit versions and reach the true, holy God. Lord, Jesus Christ, the Christ in Scripture, who came and died for my sins—that Christ—I pray You can hear me, and I pray You would rescue me! Please, please rescue me and my family from all that is false. I don’t trust myself. I don’t trust myself to know or figure it out. I am terrified to read Your Word! Terrified that I will come away with something false! I am in complete darkness, but I pray You would shine the light of Your Word upon my path. Teach me, Lord. Please teach me.”

In His mercy, God answered that desperate prayer. He began to reveal the depths of the deception I had been under, showing me that my pride had been the root of it all. I had spent years relying on approval, my own self-righteousness, morality, and piety—never truly loving or trusting Christ. The horror of this realization led me to deep repentance. I felt like God brought a scalding light upon my soul and revealed the nitty gritty grizzly truth of who and what I was, and what I had done to Christ. God graciously began to reveal Christ through Scripture, read in context, which exposed, fully, the counterfeit Christ I had embraced. Though they bore the same name, they were nothing alike. When I understood Who Christ truly was, as revealed in Scripture, and the dreadful wretch I truly was, I turned completely to Him, and trusted fully in Him, and never looked back.

Since that time, God miraculously delivered our family from the clutches of false doctrine. He closed doors that needed closing and guided us into His Word, teaching us to separate truth from error. It was a beautiful thing, to read God’s Word (in context) and for Christ to come fully into view! For the obscurities and clutter of false doctrines to be swept away, and to see my Savior, undimmed, in all His splendor and holiness! The Lord orchestrated a series of individuals, and encounters from among the glorious Bride of Christ, to strengthen and encourage us. It amazes me how He almost literally plucked us out of one setting and transplanted us in another. He pulled me from sinking sands, and set me on the Solid Rock of Christ.

Today, when I think of the unhinged, shapeshifting, religious world He rescued us from, I am in awe of His mercy. Though Christ’s name was tossed about like confetti in the religious environments we were in, the blackness, and deception of that world was akin to a heathen jungle where Christ’s name had never been uttered. He rescued me from that! He pierced that darkness. I was a false teacher, and He had compassion upon me. I was a wolf among the flock, and He intervened for me. I was Ananias and Saphira, and He was merciful to me! I was Simon the Sorcerer, Hananiah the false prophet, and Saul, doing violence to the church! I was the worst of the worst among humanity! I thought I knew Him, but I misrepresented Him. I marred His name among men, and abused His glorious Gospel, but He had mercy upon me, and He rescued me. He shattered all of my darkness and confusion and brought our family into the light of the true Gospel of Jesus Christ! I can’t think on it without my eyes brimming with tears! I surely do not deserve the grace He has extended to me, but with all my heart, I will serve Him, and work diligently to spread the glorious, truth of Christ, as revealed in Scripture.