In the Sower’s Hands – My Personal Testimony


My spiritual journey and quest for the meaning and purpose of life began at the age of 18. It was during my senior year of high school that God first entered my heart and planted the seed of urgency. It was during this time that I began to have the repetitive and fearful dream of being burned alive! Although these nightmarish dreams were not real, the vivid detail of them was so seemingly real that they began to consume my thoughts and make me fearfully wonder about my eternal destination at the unavoidable point of death. Soon afterwards in talking with my mom (not telling her about my dreams), I told her that I wanted to be baptized. Amazingly enough, the fiery nightmares were quickly extinguished once both my younger sister and I began to study and prepare for baptism with the pastor from my mom’s church. Little did I know at the time that my troubles were not in the least bit over, but only just beginning.  

All through Jr. high school and high school I had a real passion for competitive running. As a high school senior I had completed “laurel” seasons in both cross-country and winter indoor track, and was looking forward with much anticipation to a most promising spring track season—my final glory before leaving high school. The day of trouble quickly came upon me one early spring afternoon when the track team and I were all preparing to leave the school building and go to the sports track for practice. The first of two knifings came when my head coach told me that I could no longer take anymore track practice days off to prepare for my soon to come baptism. He told me to do so would be to show favoritism and that the team would lose its cohesiveness. Stunned and dejected I was sent to girl’s track practice field to run quarter mile sprints to be made an example of, I guessed? While leaving the school building the second and decisive knifing came when the assistant track coach approached and reiterated his own verbal attack upon me. I left the school building that day both emotionally wounded and in the valley of decision. As I entered the girl’s track field with one of my teammates who was to keep time records of my sprints, my tears soon turned into fueled anger and I ran the hardest and fastest sprints possible. I ran a whole track season that day and my glory was shown in the time records of those sprints. As difficult, painful, and sorrowful as the decision was; I made the choice for Jesus, and resolved myself of everyone and everything to do with track—my promising season was now over.  

Shortly afterwards, both my sister and I were baptized and made members of our mom’s church.  The only problem was that I did not feel any different; I had not had a heart changing experience.  As a result of all that had recently taken place including losing almost every friend in high school, because they felt that I had abandon them from the track team, led me to believe that God did not care about me or my downtrodden situation, so I did what I thought He had done to me—I abandoned Him. For the seed of urgency planted within my heart fell to the wayside, and my relationship with Him soon ceased.

The sower went out to sow his seed; and as he sowed, some fell beside the road; and it was trampled under foot, and the birds of the air ate it up.  Luke 8:5 

Within the Fall of that same year, I entered my freshman year of college. As enjoyable as my first year was, it was also very lonely. As a commuter student, I had no close friends where I was living away from home or on the public college campus. It was within this first year that the spirit of loneliness crept into my heart. As strangely familiar as it all seemed to me at the time, I will always remember a particular situation that still haunts me yet to this day. Having rejected God and feeling very lonely, I was sitting in my freshman psychology lab class gazing at a beautiful young woman across the room from me. While staring at her, I discerned within her eyes and flaccid facial expression—a deep loneliness. For in that very moment I clearly saw the mirrored image of myself.  While yet mesmerized by her reflective facial expression, the graduate student teacher asked the class to individually share with everyone their response to the question, “What makes you happy?”  To my utter shock and dismay this lonely young lady said to us all, “I enjoy reading my Bible and spending time with God.” Thinking back to my own dejected experience with God and seeing the same deep loneliness in her eyes, I (now regretfully) said, “What a fool!” 

In my second year of college the deep loneliness remained, but something much worse started to manifest itself—the spirit of depression, so much so, that my will to live was fading fast. The time of trouble came when one early morning day while driving to school. I started to pass the car ahead of me on the two-way road, when suddenly it sped up so I couldn’t pass. It was within the valley of decision and on the wrong side of the road that I decided to give up my life, seemingly forever shrouded in the darkness of my loneliness and depression. In His infinite grace and mercy, my rejected God didn’t allow me to take my life or the life of the individual in the direct oncoming path of my vehicle. From that most sobering experience and spiritual awakening, I soon entered into crisis counseling and quickly found the freedom from all my loneliness and depression in joining an on-campus student organization. For God had planted a new seed in my heart, the seed of hope. Before I knew it, I had more friends than I could have ever possibly imagined, it was truly a blessing in itself. I was having a good life, I thought, but I was still missing out on a relationship with the Lord, and because of that “missing” relationship, the seed of hope fell upon the rocky ground.

And other seed fell on rocky soil, and as soon as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture.  Luke 8:6    

Upon completing my college degree, I was fortunate to have a good paying job to enter into right out of school. For the first time in my life I had what I thought was a lot of money. At that same juncture, God entered into my life again, this time planting the seed of desire. In the desire to live my life to the fullest, I began searching for and accumulating everything I wanted and thought I needed, as well as spending all the time on satisfying myself. Everything was complete, except for that one missing item—a relationship with Jesus. The seed of desire, which was planted in my heart like all the rest, was eventually choked out from growing because of my own selfish desires.

And other seed fell among the thorns; and the thorns grew up with it, and choked it out.  Luke 8:7

With my worldly life withering under fallow ground, the Lord God came once again back into my life, but this time He planted a seed much deeper than all the rest—the seed of fear. Fear of not knowing who God is, and the fear of this world soon ending and not being ready for Jesus coming. All during this time, I began to quickly lose my taste for social alcohol to the breaking point that even one drink would make me violently sick all the next day. With the new year starting, I made the choice to return to my church in search of the answers to my very real and overwhelming fears. Standing in a state of quandary and trying to desperately make sense of it all; it wasn’t until I along with several other soul-searchers and the associate pastor began to study the Bible together—that I found what I was searching for and what my soul most desperately needed. The first few Bible studies were quite awkward in that I didn’t know how to pray let alone where to find the different books in the Bible, but as I intently studied with my fellow sojourners and began to find the much-needed answers to my heart’s questions; something most wonderfully began to slowly manifest itself in all our lives. In our desire to know the truth of what the Bible had to say, we (not realizing at first) had begun to slowly build upon our small measure of faith (beliefs) and through our humble prayers to God to know the truth, God in the presence of the “The Holy Spirit” began to wonderfully manifest Himself in our lives, and guide us into a much deeper and clearer understanding of the Bible—thus helping us to see for the first time the reality of God, His great love for us through His Son Jesus, and His never-ending desire for us to have a personal and meaningful relationship with Himself as our Heavenly Father. I can only best describe this spiritually uplifting experience in that it was as though someone had been slowly turning up what was at first a very dimly lit light until I could see and clearly make sense of it all. For the seed of fear that was planted deep within my heart has now been cast out by His perfect love (1 John 4:18), and it is love that remains! Today, I can most gratefully tell you that there is such a wonderful hope, lasting peace, and fulfillment of joy in my life, which has only come from knowing and having a very real and personal relationship with my Creator, the Lord God (Jesus) my Savior!    

And other seed fell into the good soil, and grew up, and produced a crop a hundred times as great.  Luke 8:8 

P.S. Jesus’ answer to this parable in my life may be found in the gospel of Luke 8:11-15.