Somewhere on Facebook a friend shared a like of a testimony.  I love testimonies, because they’re people’s stories of themselves and God.  This particular one was by Scott Lybrand, host of blog Gay Restorationist.  Here’s some random clippings to whet your appetite:

Waking up.

I came out of the blackout to discover that I was behind the wheel of my Buick, driving down a large, tree-lined boulevard I didn’t recognize. How had I gotten here? In what direction was I driving? Who was the person in the car with me?  How had I gotten so drunk?

…

A few years earlier, my life looked completely different. In 2003 I graduated from Harding University, a Church of Christ school in Arkansas with a B.S. in Chemistry, and moved to Chicago to study at the University of Chicago Law School. I came to Chicago afraid I would be out of my intellectual depth, but I quickly discovered I thrived in the work hard/play hard environment. Which is to say, I knew how to work hard, and I desperately needed to play hard after 18 years in Texas and 4 years in Arkansas.

…

Screw you, God. … God versus Gay….

…
During this time of downward trajectory, I made one great effort to save myself. One day, my lesbian-latina-Yale-educated-atheist-feminist roommate told me to snap out of it. “I can’t believe I’m saying this” she continued “but…you have to go to church. Now.”…

…
When I arrived at the meeting, I looked awful, smelled worse, and didn’t want to talk to anyone. I sat in the back row and didn’t raise my hand when the moderator looked directly at me and asked if any new people were in the room. I tried to run out of the room as quickly as I could after the meeting, but was stopped by short, angry-looking bald man. I thought I was going to be scolded for not raising my hand or for some other breach of etiquette. Instead, he looked me in the eye and said, “You never have to feel this way again.” That moment was, and continues to be, the deepest moment of grace in my life.

…I testify: resurrection doesn’t just happen at Easter, or at the Eschaton. I experienced God’s resurrection in my own life. I am a queer, bourbon-soaked Lazarus, and I tell you that I have been raised from the dead. I was dead, but I am alive. And I feast at God’s table, because God is love. Thanks be to God.

 

Click here for the rest!!

It’s wonderful.  Completely not my story, but I can still somehow relate to the desire to pick up and walk away from God, from church, from life.  And I know what it means to be chased by a stubborn God who has his own desires.  Plus, Scott’s story actually does follow a bit of the stereotypical notion society has about “the destructive ways of that lifestyle, with the reality and ending the doesn’t fit the stereotype.  I love it when God seems to think of different endings than society expects.  Here’s a hint: Scott’s still gay, lol.

But take a few minutes to read it if you will.  Besides being wonderfully written & infinitely touching (I really did tear up for most of it), Scott’s story is encouraging.  It reminds us of how involved God makes himself, how loved we are, and how we can’t make it out on our own, but do have a higher power that wants to help.  That’s why I love testimonies.  They help us dwell on all that is good, noble and pure.
Advertisement