My Signature Testimony~Part One~
Featured ~ Suzanne Davis Harden
~Learning The Gospel In Truth
For years I asked the Lord to help me gain a deeper grasp of the Gospel. Receiving Christ as my Savior and later being baptized in Church while still in my teens, I remember that though I had been taught the basic tenets of the Christian Gospel, I still had but a vague grasp of its meaning.
For years it often seemed that I was only swimming in shallow waters, not comprehending the deeper significance of all that salvation meant for the Christian.
While mentally agreeing with Christianity’s fundamental tenets, I strove to understand what had impelled the early martyrs to lay down their lives for the sake of the Gospel, when it seemed in today’s culture the Church could not even hold on to its traditional Christian name, but universally melted it down to the noncommittal “believers.”
After I prayed for more insight, the Holy Spirit led me to do things that never made sense ~like singing for Christ, when I was quite sure I had no musical gifts, ~and then of all things ~share those talents in public !!! ~when I would much rather not have done any such thing opposed to my overwhelmingly shy, timid nature.
Singing, creating music for the Lord, and sharing this gift was the first martyr like thing the Lord led me to do as He began teaching me how to comprehend the Gospel.
All of which reminds me of my mother for it was during this time of year that she passed away in 2020. Mama was not pleased if I did anything that went beyond the realm of our private lives. She preferred me to focus on my art and writing. I always was anxious to please my parents. To do anything that they did not agree with unsettled me.
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. 16.25 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, and whoever will lose his life for my sake will find it.
“… For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and forfeits his life? Or what will a man give in exchange for his life? Luke 16:24-26 (World English Bible)
“This is eternal life, to know You God and Your Son Jesus Christ.” See John 17:3
In this I had to really pray for discernment. Was this music gift of God?
How could it be of God if Mama does not like me doing anything in public? She absolutely despised social networking. She was not open to me having an online shop. It seemed everything she did not want were the very things the Lord led me to pursue at the time. Alas!
You are too delicate! She would caution… alas… but I realized she was concerned that these things were not in line with my nature.
And yet, Mama became my greatest encourager once I did the thing the Lord led me to do! That was the wonderful thing about her. Once it was done, she approved and was a great blessing to me! I loved how once Mama learned about a thing the Lord led me to do, she was no longer afraid of it.
I fervently prayed the Lord could help me comprehend all that His Gospel means for the Christian. His word promises He gives wisdom to all who ask. (See James 1)
The Lord inspired me to meditate on the Gospel of Salvation in Christ as I began to attach my name to the works He asked me to complete.
In doing this, I began to understand the significance of laying my life down for Christ and to experience persecution unlike I ever had known before.
The first thing I noticed (and it happens every time I use this signature) is that I fall far short of that standard to which people whether consciously or unconsciously hold people up to when they bear Christ’s name, and the verses that supported how I believed the Lord was asking me to glorify Him.
I was reminded of all my imperfections, unworthiness to do God’s work, etc. But then the Lord reminded me of this: that God had only one perfect child, Jesus.
All the rest of us His redeemed are forgiven (in Christ) yet we are given His righteousness through His sacrifice for us on the cross.
“So we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God is pleading through us: “Please, won’t you come back and be God’s friend?”
God made Jesus, who never personally sinned, experience the consequences of sin so that we could have a character that is good and right just as God is good and right.” 2 Corinthians 5:20-21 FBV
“If we claim to be sinless we only fool ourselves, and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, he is trustworthy and right so that he can forgive us our sins and make us clean from all that is not right in us. If we claim we haven’t sinned, we turn him into a liar, and his word is not in us.” 1 John 1:8-10 FBV
One time not long after I received Christ as my Savior, I was about eighteen years old, and my father had been struggling with ill health, and Mama was stressed over many things.
I had been busy all that morning trying to get ready for a community college class (this was the year directly after I graduated from high school just before I left home to go away to college. My dad had not wanted me to leave just yet.)
Mama was busy vacuuming the dining room and she was fretting over something but I had not realized this. I don’t remember what happened but when I came into the kitchen, she said something and I said something, and she broke down, truly upset, disappointed, accusing me: “I thought you were perfect!”
Astonished, confused and hurt more than anything else she could have said or done. “You should never have thought that!” I shouted, burst into tears and fled back to my room.
Riddled with guilt I could not pray till I repented for disrespecting Mama by speaking so to her.
Part of the Gospel is honoring your mother and father, ~one of the Ten Commandments. My conscience would not let me dishonor Mama while at the same time claim that I loved Christ.
I had learned from the Bible that Jesus despised hypocrisy. How could I go to Church, face the Lord in prayer, or look Mama in the face, when I acted so rudely toward my mom?
As I prayed I knew I loved her very much and desperately needed her forgiveness.
I prayed for the Lord to help me somehow be a better Christian for His namesake.
It was never easy then as I remember back to those long ago days, and it is never easy now in this world where we face so much opposition to our faith, myriad temptations to try our patience, even those who actually find joy in making us angry or stumble in our faith in some way.
We can rejoice though! For Jesus said, “In this world ye shall have tribulation. But be of good cheer! I have overcome the world.” See John 16:
We can also rejoice for the Word promises: “It is the Lord who works in us to will and to work of His Good pleasure. (*See Philippians 2:13)
