PERSONAL TESTIMONY
FOR
RUSSELL STANTON FLETCHER
My personal experience with God began at an early age. I was given a Bible by my mother on my eleventh birthday. Already an avid reader, I began to read it almost every day. The truths I read there interested me very much. I was not a stranger to these ideas because my mother and grandmother had always been godly influences on me; but actually reading the words written to us by God held endless fascination for me. I soon ‘joined’ a church and got baptized, not truly knowing exactly what those things meant, but our family attended only sporadically. Little did I know at this time, but through the reading of the Bible and the work of the Holy Spirit, I had come to know the saving power of Christ in my life. It all just made sense to me, this business of being ‘saved’ and believing in what He did for us on the cross. I accepted it all with a child-like faith knowing that this is how it is supposed to be.
Before this experience with God in my life I, being a young child, would not necessarily say I led either a bad or a good life. Of course, there was the occasional disobedience to parents and fighting with my little brother, but there also was no real awareness in my life of things eternal, at least on a personal basis. Therefore, there was no supernatural event or radical change from bad to good, but gradually I became convinced that I personally knew and could communicate with the Creator of the universe. This knowledge was about to become very valuable in my young life.
After a few years, my parents began to have marital problems, resulting in divorce when I was sixteen years old. I can vividly recall the turmoil in my heart and mind as I saw my family life falling apart. It was during these times of family disharmony that I experienced the love and comfort of our heavenly Father. He brought peace to my young, confused heart. He gave me assurance that all was in His hands. He gave me strength to be the support that my mother needed and the guiding hand that my brother could lean on.
The power of God in those days formed a foundation of faith in my life that has stood rock solid for me in the nearly four decades that have passed since those tough teen-age days. Although I have not always been faithful to Him, He has always been faithful to me. The mercy He shows me every day is indeed new and refreshing. God not only has not given me what I really deserve in life, punishment, but also has done by far more than I would ever expect Him to. His blessings and providence in my life can only be described as gracious and totally undeserved by me. Most recently, He has healed me of a debilitating neuromuscular disease that I had suffered from for over fourteen years. God is truly good!
The love of God goes much farther than in this life, though. Because of what Jesus Christ, God’s Son, did for me on the cross, I am assured of eternal life in heaven with Him. I have learned over years of reading the Bible that I am a sinner, have fallen far short of the glory of God and can do nothing to secure a place for myself in eternity with Him. God’s unwarranted, unconditional love for me caused Him to provide payment for the consequences of my sin through Jesus’ death on the cross. He actually took all my sin upon himself, taking with it the punishment so richly deserved by me. By accepting this gift from God, I have entered into eternal life and am experiencing a life of joy and peace that I could never have imagined.
