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The Story of My Life
By Jonathan Esterman
Every time someone comes to Christ, they have a story about their life before they were Christian, and about their salvation. There are also instances in the Christian walk that become part of that story. That story is called a testimony. Some people, like the Apostle Paul, have testimonies about how they were so evil and killed Christians and that lot, then Jesus blinded them as He called out from the sky, "why are you persecuting me?" After that, of course, comes the miraculous healing as the person turns to Christ. Well, my testimony isn't exactly like that, but there is a divine intercession that not only brought me to Christ, but continued even up to today. So I'll let you decide what to think of my testimony, and if it does match Paul's any.
Before I begin, so you may have a better understanding, I will inform you of my family's faith. My dad finds himself as a paranormal freak, but calls himself Jew because his is by blood, Jew. My mom, by blood is not Jew, but had a Christian faith. Thus, I am Christian by faith but half-Jew by blood. My mom's Christian faith, though, is complacent. No Bible-reading, no prayer, worship, church, or anything. Like a said, complacent Christian. However, she was, at one time, a church member. But for reasons that do not concern my testimony, but hers instead, church ended. So when you read into 6th grade, that is approximately when going to church ended. With that background, it should be easier to understand why things in my life happened they way they did. And, as I said, I will now let you decide on what to think of my testimony, and if it does match Paul's any.
I was born January 1987, in Phoenix, Arizona. I have decided to include these facts, so that you may follow my testimony in the proper timeline. As I said, I was born in 1987. In 1989, my family and I moved to Sisters, Oregon. The cause of it was a tragedy, but I do not remember anything of it, all I know is what I have heard from my parents. Before my dad married my mom, he had a previous failed marriage, and two children from it. But back to 1989. My half-brother, Michael, six years of age, did not know how to swim or how to ride a bike. But not necessary in a big city. My parents were talking with their neighbors out front, and Michael went to go get them all drinks. After not returning for some time, they all became quite worried. They went out back to the pool, and inside, to look for him. No luck, so they drove around for him. After searching for some time, they finally headed back home. Upon arriving back home, my dad decided check out back again, and discovered the grimmest reality that they could face. The police report stated that he was riding his bike out back, and fell into the pool, and the bike pinned him to the bottom of the pool, a suicide case. My dad made an interesting note that the days previous, he had given away most of his belongings. He died at the age of six. That is the story of why my family moved to Sisters. Can't you just wait to hear about the next tragedy?
One of the first memories I have in Sisters is my sister, born in 1990. There isn't a tragic ending to her life, but there are years up ahead that brought in a rough life, and a difficult family situation. My dad traveled for a living, as he is a self-employed photographer, and my mom had to stay at home, because I was in school. The separation caused a little rift between them, and it would eventually grow into a fight, that like so many others, end with tragedy. This tragedy, this time, though, would end not in a physical death, but the death of one flesh, forever causing it to break into two pieces, all by that terrible word called divorce. I find it ironic, though, that such terror of the past could bring such freedom in the present and future. When I heard about the divorce, all I can remember is being depressed about the entire situation of life. I was going to have to leave all my friends behind, move into a completely new world called Bend, make new friends, and live in a new home. Most of all, I would barely ever get to see my dad. That year, 1994, would be forever tainted.
My life already has tragedies in it, yet I found myself Christian. I assumed that I was Christian throughout all of my childhood, since it was my mom's faith. At one point, though, I would have to discover that in my life, not even my mom's faith can be my faith. My "Christian" faith was like that of the Puritan belief, where God is like Zeus, ready to strike me down the second I forgot to pray or messed up on anything. I began to learn this when I moved to Bend (the Wrath part), and Jesus was mentioned, just in a much smaller role. Songs were sung to Him and all, but not mentioned was the forgiveness that His death brought. Upon moving into Bend, I had extreme difficulty finding good friends. I quickly made one at school, his name being Jonathan too. He grew up with a Jewish faith, and when I mentioned Jesus, and what happened, he seemed interested, but I never talked to him about that again, because I was afraid his mom would get mad at me. One thing in belief, though, that we found in common, was Star Wars. Oh boy, did we click to it, thinking we could use the force and all. Everything was good, and we did become good friends. But, by far, my best friend was my new cat, Casper. He was everything to me. Life found sweetness to it again, with my life revolving around fearful prayer at night, practicing a very crude form of witchcraft during the day, and spending my time at home with my cat. However, the saying that all good things must end happened, and it would seem to continually happen.
My mom remarried in 1996. Thus, I moved into my stepfather's home, and left my friend behind. We would grow colder through the years, going our separate ways. Instead of Buckingham Elementary, I was now at Lava Ridge Elementary. I began to manipulate the weather by chant, and found myself friendless, again. So how does one change that? Make friends, of course. So I made friends with Logan and Sean. Our trilogy didn't work too well, as I often found myself left out in partner activities. With that, I would find myself lacking any true friendship with another human being for a few years. At least I had Casper…or so I thought. And here it goes, the god of tragedy striking me once again. My cat disappeared in 1997, never to return. I was devastated. My best and truest friend gone, I came to a decision. I knew, by my beliefs, that if I were to make God angry, He would smite me with the lightening from His hands. Although I was wrong then, I truly believed it. So here I am, with the decision: on one hand, I have a life of tragedy…on the other, I have being struck down. I chose to be struck down, but I was too afraid. I battled trying to turn away from God, but not doing so in fear of death, daily. It continued until I had help to escape that, when I entered sixth grade in the 1998-1999 school year.
With my father's influence that he had in my life, however small, and with the help of some of my friends that I had made, I turned away from God entirely, and began down the road of believing in UFO's, paranormal, the force, and that aliens were out to get me. My friends: Casey, Logan, Sean, and JD, journeyed with me in paranormal in middle school. I remember one occasion, that a Christian heard the foul use of my tongue, which had existed since fifth grade, during lunch in the cafeteria, and came up to me. She lectured me, and I can still remember what she said, in a sense. She told me that if I was going to use such crude language, then I shouldn't be wearing the cross I wore. Since then, I've kept a careful watch of my tongue. Then, because I got slapped in the face about it; now, because God says it is wrong. At the end of this sixth grade year, hormones kicked in, all by puberty. I would love to come up with circumstances, like the tragedies, this and that, about why I did what I did, but it doesn't matter. What does matter is that I did it. I fell into sexual sin, that of masturbation. I do not like having this in my past, but it further testifies about how I've changed because of one Person, and the divine interaction that occurred. In seventh grade, I dated for the second time (the first one was Amy in kindergarten, my best friend, considered by some as "puppy love"). The girl was Amanda. To clarify which Amanda, in this current day in age, she is bisexual and into witchcraft. But our relationship lasted about a month or so, and it ended. She was home-schooled, and it ended because I was in seventh grade, which would mean that I would soon be in eighth grade, which would mean that I would soon go to high school at that time. Yeah, I know, complicated. Not much happened in eighth grade, and I entered high school.
Ninth grade, the 2001-2002 school year. I don't recall exactly when, but I do recall there were times before coming to Christ, during my high school years, when I would pray for God to help me, or make me better if I were sick. Nevertheless, I was into what I was doing, and didn't want to turn to God. I figured that He was punishing me for turning away from Him, and that I could occasionally pay tribute to satisfy Him, and that He would leave me be. In this year of high school, I had two relationships. The first one was with a Jennifer. It was at homecoming, we liked how each other looked, and we decided to date. Homecoming was Saturday. Monday morning, we broke up. The second one meant more, just enough more that I would fake Christianity to date her. The name is Melody. I knew the rules and regulations of Christianity from my past, so I decided to play the game. I even thought I was Christian. This was a good thing and a bad thing. I placed my knowledge of Jesus in Melody, so when our relationship ended a month later, so did mine with Jesus. I did participate in youth group, and told myself that I was Christian. I even stopped the sexual immorality at this moment, but I didn't stop the whole force thing. When our relationship ended, I reverted to my old ways completely, but had another thing to add to it: depression; a depression that would last for some time.
Near the end of my ninth-grade year, I began to read Harry Potter. Delving into believing that witchcraft is real, as the book introduced to me, I began to formally practice spells and that like near the end of the summer. During the summer, I was introduced to horoscopes, believing that I was a "Huna" (ie: spiritual god on earth), and paranormal properties of crystals. By the beginning of tenth grade, I was into weather spells, and that sort. I must record at this moment, but not knowing the time, during this part of my life I would entertain the thought of homosexuality, considering my history with girls: three (not counting kindergarten) failed relationships by the end of ninth grade. During my encounter with witchcraft, I met someone named Natalie. She interviewed me for our speech class assignment, and when she asked what I believed, I told her that I was in the process of creating a religion that included the force, witchcraft, use of the metaphysical properties of gemstones (a.k.a. crystal worshipping), and God's approval of them. I do recall that she never asked me any questions after that. In fact, I do not recall her talking to me after that. Later, I would find out that it scared her away. Instead of trying to reach out to me, she ran from me. However, I got revenged for scaring her off, when she presented the interview to the class. It began, "have you ever met a balloon animal artist? Well, Jonathan is one." Embarrassed tremendously.
After a few months, something didn't jibe with the witchcraft; something just felt wrong about it, so I got myself out of it. Not completely, as it was difficult, but I was out of the casting spells. Shortly afterwards, I lost my packet of spells to the black hole in my room, called the closet. When spring break came, I spent my time in San Francisco hunting ghosts at Alcatraz, and purchasing crystals in shops. When I got back, though, it all would turn to be a further waste of money. This day that I speak of is April 1st, 2003. Yes, I know, April Fool's Day, but what happened is no joke.
The earliest time that I recall on this day is lunchtime. I was sitting with my friends at that time at a table in the cafeteria. They were JD, Jessica, and Lauren. JD had the same belief as me at that time. Jessica and Lauren are Christians. I, once again, tried to push crystals, meditation, and that lot on them, but something happened. Out of nowhere, strength beyond this world gave them the power to speak to me the truth. Thus, the divine intercession began, with a powerful shot to the demons in my own life. I was told that unless I accepted Jesus Christ into my life, I would go to hell. JD said that he didn't care if he did, but I was put on defensive. I knew that word, that word that I was taught to be the worst place on earth. And I didn't want to be there. I started blubbering about how I had accepted Jesus into my life before, but I turned away from Him, but the truth still stuck. I was scared. I started to think about everything, and God put the evil in my life on hold, so that I could have clear thought long enough to realize that Satan's grasp on me needed to end. But it would still take some talking until I consciously thought of it. After lunch was a special production of Footloose, with Evan as the preacher. I don't know what he said, or how he said it, but a divine interaction occurred during it. In my heart, something felt different. I felt a hope, a freedom. So when Jessica asked me to try out Oneighty, I felt so moved that I didn't even realize that my lips were moving until I heard that I said I would go. Lost in a myriad of what happened, I started thinking, but no particular thoughts at all. So, more rather, feeling. Something happened; I don't know how to explain it. All I know is that I was moved so much that in my room, that evening, I accepted Jesus Christ into my life as Lord and Savior of it. Suddenly, I had the power, given by the Holy Spirit, to overcome what was in my life. I instantly dropped the force, the crystals, and the sexual addiction. It was difficult for that last part, but God gave me the strength. All that was left in my life was depression, which would take its leave soon enough. I began to attend morning, Bible study, and lunch prayer, where I met Natalie once again. We talked, and I told her what happened, and we became friends. I also found myself attending Oneighty, and OnTrack, which is the Bible study that runs the school campus clubs.
June 5th, I found myself at the school Bible study, giving the message. The next day, I was unconscious. You see, even though sin in life is forgiven, it still has its damage. And the toll in my life from the sexual sin would be a hernia, requiring surgery. So I went into surgery, and left weak. If it weren't for God being with me, I don't think I would be in such good a return as I am now. That summer was hard for me: not seeing friends, hernia surgery, lip surgery, and wisdom teeth removed. With the lack of people and the surplus of narcotics in my system, the depression was still able to survive. Anyways, I still liked that girl, Melody. Meanwhile, I discovered I had started to like Natalie. That summer was confusing, with the whole girl thing, but I got over Melody in late August, when I felt God telling me to move on, that He has greater plans. With moving on, I left the depression in the dirt.
Free at last, I have no depression, and my past died completely. And the best part- no need for a girl in my life, or so I thought. Natalie and I became really good friends, and I planned to start attending her youth group and church. All is well, except that before I could start attending, we discovered each other's liking for the other. One night, after OnTrack, Natalie said, "we both need to say what we both feel but haven't said." And with that, we began a relationship. We decided to court, and plan on marriage and that good lot, even though we didn't really know each other, we just wanted the simple bliss that, as I've discovered, cannot exist on this world without God's direct command. At least for us that was so. We began our relationship September 21st, 2003. We had our issues to overcome, and we slowly grew a little bit closer. That is, however, until November 20th, 2003. Then was the killing shot: Natalie ended the courtship. Said what we wanted was impossible, and that it would never happen.
Well, I've decided at this point that tragedy comes in all shapes and sizes, and I must be prone to it. I must find the cure quick, but what can it be? I wouldn't realize it until much much later, but the cure to that is God's Word, to "seek first the Kingdom of God, and then all things shall be added in." Now the trick with Natalie came to be creating a friendship. How seemingly impossible, but I would learn that "all things are possible with God." We attempted a friendship, and it utterly failed. We started to argue and fight, and several a times both of us had thought about giving up entirely. Yet we didn't, and I believe that is because God still had plans in store for us. Meanwhile, I was having some difficulties at OnTrack, and also some in my own life. I let myself be messed up emotionally, and believe every thought that ran through my head. I was a wreck. But I prayed fervently to be fixed, and God fixed me. It was around mid-January that I found myself down on my knees, praying for the storm of the failed friendship to pass. My prayer was answered. At that moment, in worship, God showed me the vision that there was a Gardener, two caretakers, a plant, and a thief. The plant was in good blossom, but winter was coming. So the Gardener told the caretakers to place the plant in the greenhouse. All was well and the plant was still in full bloom, until a thief knocked on the greenhouse door. The caretakers let him in, not knowing his nature. He opened all the doors and windows, and the plant went into hibernation. Somehow, the caretakers were blindfolded to all his actions. Springtime was coming, and the thief wanted the plant dead, so the thief began to cut off all of the buds when they came. At the last possible moment, the Gardener saw what was happening, and told the first caretaker. Then that caretaker told the second one, and they rebuked and banished the thief, and the plant was saved and came back to full health. From that vision, I instantly understood it, and when I told Natalie the vision, she instantly understood it too. I was the first caretaker, Natalie the second, Satan the thief, and God the Gardener. It was truly a vision, as the moment that the vision was communicated, we were aware to the devil's presence in our relationship, got rid of it, and we didn't have any fights or anything after that. From that moment on, we worked on our friendship, and it developed quite deeply quite quickly. One thing to help was the Purpose Driven Life, which forced us to talk to each other and confide in each other.
The friendship was a blast, and it all went well, and we fell in love with each other. But we didn't see a green light from God yet, so we stuck to the friendship. February 6th, 2004, is when we first communicated to each other how we felt, and decided that as friends we can't say that to each other. That lasted a week. It was Open Friday at Northwest Christian College, and Natalie joined my family and me at our coast home for the weekend. After being around each other all day that Friday, Natalie asked me why we can't be in a relationship. So we talked about it for a few hours, prayed about it, slept on it, and decided that if God didn't give us a red light, then it was a green light. I guess we forgot yellow lights exist. So we began our second relationship with each other February 14th, 2004, not knowing that it was Valentine's Day at the time. We had the simple bliss that we so desired; too bad it was a dream world. When we got back from the coast, life was extremely difficult. Our relationship had daily struggles, and mountains that we never seemed to overcome. I remember that we shared our first kiss together. Make that eight. Our first one was on March 4th, and the others were the following week. After those eight, Natalie decided she wasn't ready to kiss me yet. That caused a mountaintop to get over, but we made it over, just in time for missions trip.
The recording of missions trip is not written in this testimony, but is rather a journal of itself, being 14 pages single-typed. If you're interested in reading it, let me know. When we arrived back from missions trip, Natalie ended our dating relationship one week later, on April 2nd, 2004; the day after my first birthday in Christ. Since then, it has been difficult to have a friendship, as I do want more than a friendship. But that's out of my control, so back to the timeline. April 30th and May 1st, Fine Arts Festival. This is also a journal of itself, and if you wish to read that, then please let me know. I had difficulties when coming back, with a stalker situation and it being resolved by being struck, then school authorities taking control. The details you'll find in the Fine Arts journal. What a rough trip.
Free from the tragedy, and enjoying life. Yeah, it was still rough, and would still be rough, but I could live life to the fullest in Jesus. He's like the cream to the cream soda, the milk to the cereal, the punch in the fruit punch. Life is so much better with Him. Life may not get easier, as you have to stir in the cream, but is sure does get better, as the cream enhances the flavor. From my life of tragedy, to my life of glorifying God, I have traveled an incredible journey, which is told by this testimony. It may not be like Paul's, but it still communicates how Jesus has affected my life. I look back and realize that if I didn't turn to Jesus when I did, I could be dead right now, from suicide. With Jesus in my life, everything has gotten so much better.
Maybe you haven't asked Jesus into your life yet. Maybe you're Christian, but you've grown cold in your relationship with Him. Turn to Jesus, be set on fire for Him. It may not make life easier, but it does take away stress, worry, fear, and all those things that slowly destroy a person. It's easy to do, simple as ABC.
A - Admit you have sinned. All that is doing is saying that you need God's help to get your life on track; it's just saying that you have sinned in your life. 1 John 4:8 says, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." Romans 3:23 states, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."
B - Believe in Jesus to forgive your sins. Just believe that Jesus died and rose again, and that by His death, His sacrifice for us, we can be forgiven of our sins. Romans 10:9 says, "If you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." John 3:16 states, "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life."
C - Confess and forsake your sin. God already knows you sinned, so confessing it is just agreeing that you were wrong, and forsaking it is not doing it again. 1 John 1:9 says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Romans 10:10 states, "For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved."
If you've never accepted Jesus before, or have accepted but grown cold, or just read this testimony because I wished you to, here is a prayer that I would ask you to pray:
Jesus, I am a sinner. Please forgive me. This moment, this day, I dedicate my life to You. I invite You into my life, heart, and soul. Help me be on fire for You. Let this light of mine shine bright. Thank You for dying on that cross for my sin. I believe that You died, and rose again, and that You will forgive me of my sins by that sacrifice. Guide me every day, and teach me to trust You and wait for your answers. Again, thank you. Amen.
Maybe this testimony spoke to you, maybe not. But this is the story of my life, as I recall it. This is who I was, who I am, and does reveal who I will be. God has blessed me beyond what I could believe, and I am thankful that I am a Christian now. There is this overwhelming sense of peace when times get difficult, or stressed. And when I have beyond what I can handle, I'm thankful that God steps in and helps me accomplish what He has given me, because He will never give me more than I can handle. This life story of mine started with a wretch, and ended with eternal life and joy even in sorrow. The change that occurred in between, the meat of this testimony, is simple divine intercession. This testimony may not be anywhere near Apostle Paul's, but this is the testimony that God gave me to reach to others, and I pray that I have done that. Every time someone comes to Christ, a testimony is created. Every time someone lights the fire again, a testimony is created. Every time something happens in life that gives praise to God, a testimony is created. This is my testimony, every growing. What's yours?
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