The Power of Testimony

Most people immediately connect the word testimony with witnesses sworn to “tell the truth and nothing but the truth” in courtrooms. Me? I think of testimonies that revealed God as ultimate truth to a young girl.

My father was a church pastor when Sunday evening services and Wednesday night prayer meetings were still standard in most evangelical churches in America. Our whole family was present for every one of them.

I didn’t want to be there.

For one thing, my family was younger than most of the people who came. Oh, a smattering of faithful adults my parents’ ages showed up, and maybe a youth group was somewhere in the building, but any kids my age were relegated to the sanctuary with “the old people.” We had no children’s programming outside of Sunday school.

The traditional wood pews, dark and scratched with the wear of decades, were torturously hard for a kid who wasn’t allowed to wiggle too much. Worse, if my mother got waylaid after the last “Amen” by someone who wanted to talk (and talk and talk), I had no choice but to hang around, potentially missing Bonanza on a Sunday night. Worse, those old people liked to try to talk to me!

And honestly, when my dad was preaching or even praying, I usually wasn’t listening. He was just my dad and church was his job. Yawn.

My forced attendance, however, was a gift in at least two ways. First, while singing hymn after hymn next to my alto mother, I learned to harmonize. And second, from one row behind the front pew, I listened to the people my parents called “the saints of the church” respond to their pastor’s invitation:

“Does anyone have a testimony?”

Sometimes no one would speak for a full minute, but my dad somehow knew he should wait—or at least sing another hymn before asking again. Almost always, someone who usually seemed a hundred years old to me would slowly rise. Hands on the back of the hard pew in front of them, the person would say, “I have a testimony, pastor.”

The doctors say it doesn’t look good, but the Lord . . .

I was afraid, but the Lord . . .

I didn’t know what to do, but the Lord . . .

Only now do I realize listening to these accounts was like listening to one of the psalmists:

But the Lord has become my fortress, and my God the rock in whom I take refuge (Ps. 94:22 NIV).

The righteous person may have many troubles, but the Lord delivers him from them all (Ps. 34:19 NIV).

I was pushed back and about to fall, but the Lord helped me (Ps. 118:13 NIV).

Although I cannot recall a single testimony in detail, the sometimes stumbling but always laced with gratitude and praise words spoke to this little, introverted, rebellious pastor’s kid in the second row, preparing her heart for the visiting speaker who came a few years later. I, of course, ingested what my father said more than I realized, and the Holy Spirit had been doing his work. But I believe those shared accounts of God’s grace, from spiritual rebirth to the smallest of comforts, helped to prepare the way for my own first real understanding of the truth.

Many churches today present fewer—or at least different—opportunities for believers to tell their stories; Sunday evening services and Wednesday night prayer meetings are far less common, and I am okay with that. We are more likely to be rightly encouraged to share in personal conversation. Many of us have opportunities to encourage others through the written word, in small groups and classes, or specific ministries. [Tweet “When we see Christians faithfully endure troubles, their journeys are inspiring testimonies.”]

Sometimes, though, I think about those long-gone, white-haired saints of the church who stood before a captive kid and said, “I have a testimony.” Someday I want to tell them, “God used you, you know. In part because of your testimony, I had a testimony too.”

I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day.  (2 Tim. 1:12 NIV)

Jean Kavich Bloom is a champion coffee drinker and mostly productive, pink-bathrobed freelance editor and writer. She does not garden, bake, or knit but says playing Scrabble is exactly the same thing. Jean and her husband, Cal, live in Indiana. They have three children (plus two who married in) and five grandchildren. You can read her blog at bloominwordstoo.blogspot.com.