gifZeffra's Testimony - Part 4 - God called me by name and guided me (for a little while anyway).....................................................................................................................................Part 4: God called me by name and guided me (for a little while anyway) ..................................................................................................................................... Jumping to another subject. Now... I've read the Bible, cover to cover, beginning to end 4 times. (And I'm not saying that to brag) . But that was before my late teens / early adulthood. But, about the same time I asked God back into my life, I began searching in the Bible. (Keyword »searching«... not just »reading«, but searching ) . Asking God to guide me to something he wants to show me, every day. And, for 3 weeks, every time, the Bible opened up on passages to either answer me with something on a very personal level, or point me towards Revelations (the last book in the Bible) . Revelations, Revelations, Revelations. One day, while hanging out, I even heard a voice call my name. Not a physical voice, not my own head-voice nor an imaginary voice. It was a gentle, warm and clear voice. It came from the direction where the Bible was laying. On the sofa. So, I walked over and picked up the Bible, of course. This was exciting! Then the voice said »Corinthians 1« . And, once again, it was an answer to something personal. The voice spoke again the next day. I was asking God what my purpose was. What was His plan for my life? What was He gonna use me for? While closing my eyes to listen I tapped on my heart with the »Italian hand-gesture« . What I heard I will not say. It's private. But, at the time, it comforted me. Warmed my heart and made me smile. And then... silence. 1 week of silence. Oh how the anxiety kicked in. The longing to hear that voice again. To be guided again. Wondering:»Why the sudden silence?« I picked stuff to read in the meantime, and it usually referred to the End Days. But it was still silent and un-personal (by comparison anyway) to before... until an evening in November (2023). The thumbnail for a video (»Why God is silent«) (Or something like that) had popped up a few times for a couple of days, but it was only 3 or 4 days later that I decided to watch it. »God wants to take your faith to a new level« . That's the message I got from listening. Tears were streaming down my face. There was my answer, yet again. I wanted to share this to the preacher who posted that video, almost immediately after watching it, out of thankfulness. But, as a comment, it was quite long. And it failed. I took it as a sign to not post it there as a comment, but instead turn it into an animation (or something) and then share it. Days passed. Weeks passed. More videos came across my screen. More videos where my heart felt like:»I should share something here!« . Only for my mind to stop me and make me hesitate with clicking the »post comment« button... And ultimately, delete the comment before it ever got posted. Eventually, there were two videos from someone , where the strongest messages I got from them was: »Don't be afraid to share your testimony.« and »Your testimony could be the key to someone else's salvation.« I'm not really afraid of sharing, so that second statement hit me the hardest. THAT'S why I'm sharing this. And this isn’t even ALL of it! I could have talked about The time I saw Demon Lights as a child . Or about The time God saved me from falling into a river . Or about The time God touched me and made me laugh when everyone else was crying . Or about The time I yelled at God and He ALMOST struck me O.O;;N...not proud of that one =( Or about The time God covered our car with flowers .This happened fairly recently actually. Or about How God showed me which bible to get / read .This happened very recently! Or about The time God showed me and let me understand that He is the Creator !!!This happened super recently!!! Or about how my walk with Jesus is currently going… spoilers:I think he »called me higher« too soon… the struggle is real… and... what once comforted me, now makes me doubtful and uneasy... I still choose to trust in God's plan though. »His ways are higher than our ways. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts.« But this is quite long and it's taken many writes and re-writes to get this much on paper. (Y'know - without adding TOO much detail... or leaving too much out) . It was only near the end of 2024 that I finished writing everything down into a text document on my computer. Or, everything so far . I don’t think any of our testimonies are truly finished until the day we die, because God will continue to work on us for as long as we are alive. If you want to read the other stories, follow the links. There's many other people, both men and women, who've been obedient and shared their testimonies. What they shared helped me in my walk with God. I'm grateful to God and happy for everyone He has saved. ^_^ Maybe my testimony, or at least part of it, can help someone else too. If it is His will, He will make sure that this reaches whoever it needs to reach, at the exact time they need to hear it.....................................................................................................................................The time God saved me from falling into a river.....................................................................................................................................The time God saved me from falling into a river ..................................................................................................................................... Remember the two sisters mentioned earlier ? Here’s a story with them, a neighbor and me. We were hanging out and walking on a sandy forest trail, when we came upon a bridge and decided to take a break there. We were looking at the shallow sparkling water as it flowed out from under the bridge. Somehow, we got the idea to take a handful of dry sand and pour it into the creek a couple of meters below. Watching it slowly sink and being carried a little ways under the water. One handful turned into several, and it was very fun. But our small hands could only hold so much, so we got the brilliant idea of taking off our shoes and fill them with the sand instead, as they could hold much more, and then pour the sand out into the creek. That was even more fun, because we could pour for longer and almost make a steady sand water-fall. And then the neighbor girl accidentally dropped my shoe. I panicked because I was afraid my mom would get mad at me, but one of the sisters snapped me out of it by tugging on my shirt and pointed to the neighbor girl, who was silently staring out at the water, but had tears streaming down her face. Quickly regretting blurting my concerns out loud like that, I tried to make her feel better. Telling her it was okay and that we would figure something out. She was also the youngest among us. So all 4 of us looped around the bridge, ran down the slope and started chasing after the shoe down the creek. The water getting murkier and faster as the creek widened and deepened into a river. Staying on land, we tried using sticks to fish the shoe in, but eventually I had to go into the edge of the water to reach at all.(Hey, my shoe, my problem) . Caught it pretty much last second. Not too much further ahead was an iron grate. The bars wide enough for a shoe to slip through, but not wide enough for a child. The waters were strong, so after getting my shoe flung onto dry land, we all cheered. They were on the one side, I was on the other. But the grassy, muddy ledge gave way, causing me to sink waist deep into the water. Now, scared and clinging on for dear life, unable to get up on my own, it took everything I had just to stay still and not slip further down stream. Somehow, the older sister (who was still younger than me) , managed to run from the other side of the river, quickly reach me and pull me up and out from the steep mud-slope. We all took a moment to breathe, then happily gave thanks to God for making the sister fast and strong enough to save me. We all walked back to the bridge, then parted ways to go home. Me, soaking wet and barefoot, carrying my shoes by their laces. But grateful for how things turned out. If you’re curious, once I got home and explained to my mom what had happened, she just chuckled and said that if the shoe had been gone, it would have been gone, and that we would just have bought me a new pair. XD....................................................................................................................................headphonesflash