Being a living testimony

One of the hardest parts of following hard after Jesus is being that living testimony. Being the salt and the light to those around you. This is my testimony of how we loved and brought Deanna Cooperson to Christ
                                              Witness Report

The person I have chosen to share about has been in our lives for more than 4 years. Deanna is the young lady my son chose to pursue a relationship with. When he first met her at Hershey Park, he came to me sharing his feelings for this young lady. The first question I asked him was, is she a believer in Christ. He could not tell me the answer to that question. I,of course, expressed my concerns for getting involved intimately with a young lady who is not saved. He was discouraged and tried to discourage involvement with her, but that did not seem to work for his feelings for her were strong. He relented and came back to us (his parents) and said I know you will not approve because she is not saved but I do believe that God will bring Him to Himself through me, and our families example of how we live our lives for Christ. 

    When Deanna started to regularly come to our home to spend time with Alex and his family it was during the time when my husband and I were leading  a discipleship group for older singles in our church. We met once a month for food, fellowship and sometime in the Word of God. She was often overwhelmed with the number of people and noise. She is a very shy person and comes from a home that did not socialize with people outside themselves or their immediate family. Hospitality was very foreign to her. She also had no idea what to think or how to feel about all this bible and Jesus talk. She also comes from a non-churched home. The only experiences she had with the church or the Word of God was on an occasion when friends would ask her to church through her childhood. After a few months of her coming regularly to our home for the discipleship group, I sought more opportunities to try to engage her in conversation on how she felt about everything, in particularly how she felt about Jesus. I asked her if she even understood why we need Jesus in our lives and she honestly said no. I was truly at a lost.

     On many occasions we had opened our home to unsaved, lost people. We loved them, and showed them Christ in our lives by friending them and caring for them. I had never dealt with someone who truly had no understanding of Jesus or their need for Him. I have run into unbelievers who did not want to give their life to Christ because they did not want to change the way they live. They enjoyed and loved their sin too much. I knew that if I did not back off and tread with tenderness and love and give this girl Jesus in a different way we could harden her to Christ forever. I did emphasize to my son ,who was now seeing her regularly, how important it was that He be a living example. I shared with him that now that he was emotionally attached to her that he was now responsible for showering her with the Word of God and helping guide her to the truth and life in Christ.

    Through the years, Alex remained faithful in asking her to attend church with him regularly and she did regularly attend.  I nurtured and loved Deanna in the place she is. I have tried to show her the love of Jesus and our need for Him in our lives by being a living example and exposing her to Christ in our lifestyle. We regularly engaged in the Word as a family, in her presence. We never changed our expectations for godliness from our son.  He, in turn, worked hard to be an example to her of our expectations of him in their relationship.

    On Easter Sunday, March 27 Deanna attended church like she had many other times before. This Sunday was special, though. As we sat listening to the message, my mind and heart started to wonder about Deanna’s condition. It had been years since she had been around us, and had been a while since I had approached her about Christ. She was starting to show signs of her belief by praying with my son, and desiring to read the Word together. So as soon as the service was over I walked straight to her and asked her, “ Deanna, you have been around our family and in our lives for a few years now, have you come to the understanding of our need for Jesus Christ in our life?”

 She surprising said, “Yes.”

 I asked her, “ If she believed in Jesus Christ as Her Lord and Savior.” 

She said, “yes!”  

At this point, she began to cry, which in turn I began to cry. I then asked her if she had accepted Jesus Christ?

 She said, “ I don't know how.”

 I asked her if I could pray with her to accept Jesus Christ as her Savior. 

She said, “Yes”

It was the most joyous thing I had ever done. It was a moment of rejoicing for our whole family as I prayed with her. My son joined us, and wrapped his arms around both of us, with tears streaming down his face in rejoicing. Her giving her life to Christ was an answer to our prayers and to my son’s prayers, because he was waiting on a sign on when to ask her to marry him. In light of her giving her life to Christ, he saw it as a confirmation from God to move forward in his relationship with Deanna. 

Now that she has given her life to Christ we are working on her walk in discipleship, helping her to understand baptism, and guiding her through the Word to strengthen her walk with Him and in Him. To God be the Glory forever and ever-AMEN

Solo para la gloria de Dios Angie