We know a God who loves and cares about us deeply, and we love to hear the stories of people encountering God’s love for the first time. One lady from Cumbernauld Vineyard church in Scotland, who recently got baptised, shared her testimony with us.
“Growing up in a community where church wasn’t that much of a thing, nobody in either my close or extended family attended church or even showed any hint of belief. It was inevitable then that I too would follow in their footsteps, not believing in God.
A few years ago I found myself a single parent of two young boys under the age of 18 months, a survivor of domestic abuse and battling with postnatal depression. I felt like life was far too busy to even question the direction my life was heading in. I had made friends with Aly Brown, one of the pastors at Cumbernauld Vineyard Church, through a page on social media just before the first lockdown, and we had become quite good friends. Aly had openly shared her faith, however it hadn’t really felt like that was something for me. I had always understood Christianity to be restrictive and fueled by too many rules, something which I felt like I didn’t need in my busy life.
In January 2021 I caught COVID and became very poorly. Both Aly and her husband Dave had let me know that they were praying for me and I thanked them at the time, however I had convinced myself that it was what they needed to do to feel like they were helping me. Then I got considerably worse. It was around 11 days after I tested positive that I had reached a point where I had to remind myself to forcefully take a breath every few seconds. Aly begged me to call for an ambulance and asked if she could ask her friends from church to pray for me. My response was “I’ll take all the help I can get!”
Later that night, in my local hospital, X-rays showed double pneumonia and a swollen heart. I felt like this was it, my boys were going to lose their mum. But something amazing happened, that night I suddenly realised I didn’t have to remind myself to breathe. The prayers kept coming and I kept healing at an incredible speed. Three days after the pneumonia diagnosis I was able to recover my oxygen levels well enough to stand and wash my own hair in the shower. Another two days after that I was able to lay down in my bed without my oxygen levels dropping, and another two days later I was well enough for my boys to come back home.
Just seven days earlier I was so incredibly poorly, and much to the surprise of the COVID team, now I was well enough to resume my role as mum. I knew then that this miracle had to be God’s work, I just didn’t understand how.
I asked Aly if I could attend their church on Zoom and began logging in each week. I felt like I could relate to the messages shared from the bible extracts, the prayers and prophetic words resonated deeply and the worship music was so incredibly calming. But I was confused, everything I had believed my whole life was being challenged and I wasn’t entirely sure if this was the work of God, or because of the close friendship I had with Aly.
A few weeks later there was a guest speaker at church and I realised during that service that everything I was hearing and feeling was in fact from God. I was completely undone by this revelation and spent the rest of the day reflecting on what it meant to believe in God. That night I prayed to God and told him I believe and that I was sorry for my sins. It felt like instant freedom, I opened my heart to Jesus and felt his love in return.
Since that day my faith has continued to grow and my relationship with God has flourished. I have experienced some incredibly challenging times since I began my journey of faith, but the love from Jesus has enabled me the strength to face these challenges head on. I am incredibly excited to see what God has planned for me in the future, and where this remarkable journey will take me.”
