Hi, my name is Elizabeth and I’m fifteen years old. Today I want to share my testimony with you and tell you about how Jesus has affected me and my perspective of life.
So I grew up in a Christian family. My parents took me and my siblings to church since I was little, and I attended Sunday school. At the beginning it was fun and I really enjoyed it. They used dolls and stuffed animals to teach us bible verses, and at the end we always got cookies and candies and stuff. But after a while, when I was around ten – eleven years old, it started to get boring. I kind of outgrew the things they did and I thought it was too childish. It led to me always trying to come up with excuses not to go to church with my parents, and eventually I quit going.
However, when my older brother and sister started going to the youth group at my church, I got curious. I’m the youngest one in my family, and of course I’ve always wanted to do what my older siblings were doing, so I also joined the youth group. It was definitely a lot more interesting than Sunday school, but I was still too young to understand everything they talked about. I remember, however, that my favorite part was the worship session at the beginning of every service. I’m a total music girl and have practically grown up with music and played music my whole life. Therefore, I liked the worship songs, but still, I was too young to truly understand the lyrics and the meaning of them.
In 2006 I was twelve and it was the first time I went to Summercamp; a Christian camp that’s organized by SCCC, the ministry I’m part of, and that was the first time I accepted Jesus. After that I started taking my daily devotions and going to church every Sunday. My faith grew a lot, and I started to understand a lot more at the youth meetings. I just felt so blessed and happy to be a part of such a great Christian community, and to have family and friends who supported me in my faith. I always had someone I could talk to and pray for me if I had a lot to do with school, or if I had problems with my family or friends.
After a while my perspective of things started to change. I started to appreciate all the things I had in my life, and I felt so lucky that I had people who loved me and cared about me, that I had everything I could possibly need to live a good and happy life, and most importantly, that I could have the opportunity to have a relationship with God. I started to understand the purpose and meaning of life. It is to try and become more like Jesus, to glorify His name and to spread the gospel. When I was little I always wondered about why I was born, but I never really asked anyone. Now I know the reason: it’s because Jesus died on the cross for us. And if you think about it, that’s just crazy. God, the creator of the universe, offered His son to have a relationship with us mere humans. Before, I didn’t get why bad things happened to good people. Now I understand that God has trials for everyone, and that if I still have faith in God and seek Him while I go through the tests He has for me, it will only strengthen my relationship with Him.
After I became a Christian I realized that everyone have so much to be thankful for; having someone to love and care for, to get an education, having a church to go to and to be able to do things I love. And I can still be able to thank God even though bad things, or things I don’t like, happen. If I ask for sunshine, I can still thank God for the rain. Even though I want to be happy, I can still thank God that I’m able to feel sadness. It’s all part of how great God is. And I could never have realized these things or experienced such joy through my faith if I did not accept Jesus earlier in my life, and I want as many as possible to have the same experiences as I have – and will have in the future – and that is also a part of the reason why I wanted to come here on this mission trip. I wanted to share my faith with other Christians and to see God’s work in other places and through other people.
