I Have a Testimony to Tell

In the church I grew up in, we had what was called Testimony Service. This was the part of the service where we had Praise and Worship, and the saints would give testimonies about the goodness of God, and miracles He had performed in their lives.

What I particularly enjoyed about Testimony Service was when someone would go forth who was anointed by the Holy Spirit to tell their testimony. It was always moving, and you could tell the ones that was anointed from the ones that wasn’t.

The person full of the Holy Spirit could tell a simple story, but even a simplistic story told under the power of the Holy Spirit could move you to shouting (our slang for dancing in the Spirit).

We also had our special way of beginning the testimony, “Giving honor to God, and to my pastor, and the first lady, and to the ministers on the rostrum, and to the deacons, and missionaries, and evangelists, the Sunday School teachers, the ushers, the junior choir, and all of God’s saints assembled in the house today.” They gave honor to everything from the front door to the back door. Then the person would launch into telling their awesome testimony. Hopefully, it was anointed. Sometimes it wasn’t.

Well… I have a testimony to tell. And in the spirit of nostalgia, I am going to tell it like we used to do it back in the day.

 “Giving honor to God, my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I thank the Lord for being here. I thank the Lord for saving me and filling me with His precious Holy Ghost. He didn’t have to do it, but He did. I thank the Lord for the many blessings He has bestowed upon me. He woke me up this morning and started me on my way. He kept me from dangers, seen and unseen, and I am truly grateful.

 I want to tell you what the Lord did for me on this week. We have a house right next door to us that was very, very neglected. The gentleman that lived there was in poor health and had not kept it up. He had very large, overgrown trees that hung over our driveway, and the birds would often poop on my car. When ever I came out and saw bird poop on my car, I would pray about it.

Finally, the neighbor’s health declined so much that he had to move out and go live with relatives. I prayed for him too. The condition of the house declined even further and was vacant for quite some time. The trees had pretty much died. The branches had started to fall off and land in the driveway, giving me concern not only for the bird poop, but for the large branches that could possibly land on my car. Finally, the neighbor sold the house to a company that came and started fixing it up. They gutted the entire thing down to the framework. They sent a tree surgeon out to cut the trees back. The trees were so big, he had to stand on the rooftop of the house to cut them down. When he finally finished working on the trees, every single branch that hung over our driveway had been completely removed. In fact, none of the trees hung over on our side of the property at all. Then, this morning my husband took my car keys to go put air in my tire. When he came back, he had washed my car completely. It was beautiful!! My God had taken away the trees the birds used to poop on my car, and spit-shined my car on top of that.

To you bird poop might seem like a small thing, but God shows His love toward us even in the minor things. Because anything that concerns us, concerns Him. God is good all the time, and all the time God is good. Y’all, pray my strength in the Lord.”

Glory to God!