ANHUE DOAN’S LIFE STORY: Chapter 1: I FOUND GOD WHEN I WAS 15 YEARS OLD. I was born in a godly family. Each time I look at those who are believers in Jesus Christ who got persecuted by their family members, their parents, their brothers, sisters, and relatives, I silently thanked God for the fact that I am extremely blessed! My grandparents on both sides were believers in Jesus Christ in the church of the Christian and Missionary Alliance (CMA). My mother was born in a godly family. My maternal grandparents had accepted Jesus as their savior before I was born. And my paternal grandmother believed in God first and then she led her husband and her family to believe in God especially of all of her five sons and daughters. Currently, a lot of my family members and relatives serve God as ministers in the traditional evangelical church CMA. My parents were very devoted to the Lord, and they dedicated all their lives leading souls back to their Father God in heaven. Since I was just a baby, I know my parents taught me to pray and sing hymns of praise to The Lord. When I was just about to know how to read and write, under the direction of my parents, they lead all of us in family meetings daily to pray, sing hymns, and read the Bible. I felt such a great joy! But gradually as I grew up and got to go to school, I just did not see any friends believing in God at all. My friends often teased me about my Christian faith and hated me for it. I did not dare to say anything about the Lord, but they knew I was a Christian because my father was the pastor of the CMA church, and we lived in the only building closed to the church in the city of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Each day when I came home from school I have to go back to the house closed to the church building so my friends knew I was a Protestant. Many of my friends did not go to the church but they went to the Buddhist temples. Because I was different from all of my friends, I felt so guilty and embarrassed. I started to think and wonder about religious issues. I posed a lot of questions: Why do I believe in God? Where was God? I could not see God anywhere but I just found the whole world around me criticizing me about my religion. I stopped believing in God because I thought I was being indoctrinated by my parents. Then gradually I began to drift far away from God. But still read the Bible, pray, and go to church every Sunday to please my parents. I often read the Bible but for me I read it as any history book. I read the Bible and enjoyed the thrilling stories of the Old Testament that the Bible was written. Because the pressure of my parents forcing me to pray every day usually in the family, I just prayed by mouth only but my heart was far away from God. On the outside I appeared eager to read the Bible, pray to God, but inwardly I hate all of these things. Gradually my heart became hardened. I thought that I would live happier when I will be separated from God. But the reality, my childhood life was horrible, I became unruly, selfish, and no one liked me at all. My friends, my brothers, my parents did not liked me, and I was failing in everything. I tried to live a sadness, loneliness, and hatred life. I hate to study at school and my life became meaningless at that time. It was until I was 15 years old that I started to complaint about why I have to live on this earth? I wonder about what on this earth am I doing? I wished I would not be present here on this earth because there was nothing good at all. But it was too late for now that I was already born and raised on this earth. If I die where will I go? Was there any life after death? If what my parents taught in the Bible that there was heaven and hell, where would I go after I die? Maybe hell and demons will be coming to pick me up immediately after I will die. I stayed with that thought day and night and I began to fear for my future. I could not sleep with a peaceful sleep anymore as I used to do so. Every night I have these thoughts about heaven and hell for months. I was in a state of spirituality confusion and I worried about my future life after death. Suddenly one night I felt something pushing me to the wall and I was willing to kneel down and pray to God with a lot of tears coming down from my eyes. I repent of all my sins to God and ask God to forgive me from all my sins. I pray to God asking for the joy and peace instead of confusion, anxiety, fear and insecurity. I also ask Him to transform my body into a new person as he promised: Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is become new, old things have passed away, behold all things are become new. I promised to God that if He was real and answered my prayers, I will dedicated all my lifetime to be in His Service and I will testify to all my friends with a true heart to led many souls returning to Him again. It was on that day the Lord has heard my pleas. The next morning when I woke up, I felt what a change in my life, like a burden off from my shoulders. I felt everything around me was unusual. I felt a new change in my everyday life. God really changed all the pieces inside of me. From then on I was not anymore a naughty and selfish child. I loved my parents, my brothers and sisters. I also began to get affection from them back. Hallelujah! Praise the Lord because I know that now God was real and He changed my life and He lived within me also. Im eager to start reading the Bible again. This time I did not read the Old Testament any more as I used to do so, but the New Testament became my favorite book because it showed me the sacrifice, the shed blood of Jesus who died for the sins of all mankind including myself. Every time I thought about the cross, I thought about my sins and I cried. Because of my sins and the sins of humanity that Jesus had to die on the cross. Without the blood Jesus shed on the cross, then I where would I will be like today? Maybe I will die and my soul will be lost to the eternal hell. Actually I thank Him every time I think about my life. It is only a small grain of dust on this earth, I deserved nothing but God still remembered me. He has tried every way to lead me as a lost sheep to return to his arms as he had promised in the scriptures.
Posted on: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 17:31:07 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015