Elizabeth's Testimony

In San Antonio, Texas, lives my friend Patrick; we have been real friends for 34 years since college, where we love the Lord together and had real fellowship.

The testimony below is given by a lady named Elizabeth, whom Pat had been witnessing to. - Mack Tomlinson

Elizabeth Testimony and Baptism Plea
To her family, she said, "Please come to my baptism! This is the most profound event in my life, and having you there means more to me than I could say!"

About Becoming a Christian:

"I defined myself this way: liberal, bisexual, and very much for cohabitation and sex outside of marriage. And . . . something was waiting for me. Now everything I knew myself to be has been thrown into question. Here's what I want to say to those of us who don't believe, as I didn't: Jesus is real. As in, touch me real. Real like a person standing next to me. He has been in my spirit since I invited him in a couple weeks ago and since then there's been in me a new gentleness, friendliness, and peace. If you're curious at all, I urge you to ask questions, to go to a longtime Christian and voice your resistance. This is what I did with Patrick, even almost to the point of yelling at him. I realized how angry I was at Christianity--Patrick's listening caught and defused this. I can't believe how blessed I am that this has happened. I don't even realize a bit of the full extent of it. I don't know the last time I've felt this kind of . . . bliss.

I never thought this would happen. I am a Democrat. I love to recycle and I was appalled when my Baptist sister-in-law spent a summer in Washington, D.C. lobbying Against ( ! ) gay marriage. For seven years of my life, I was an athiest. I bought a T-shirt with a Darwin footed-fish logo and wore it proudly, even though no one in Amarillo, Texas knew what it meant. I didn't like--okay, I hated Christians. The last thing I wanted was to be one. I thought they were, at best, idiots, at worst, judgmental, evil, and, well, kind of dorky.

And now here I am one, reborn as who I am meant to be. I have uncovered the deeper, richer, freer me. From now on, I'm devoting every aspect of my life to the glory of God. This is the key to me. I feel like from here on out, there are no more questions. In the how I do this, there will be questions, but so far as the why, I'm complete. I have gained everything--Everything! I love people--I want transformation for us all--but there was something more I didn't know. In touching my love for God and God's love for me, I feel like my love for people has been freed and unleashed.

I didn't know Jesus was real. I really didn't. This emergence feels like what I've waiting for without knowing it. It feels like something deep that has long wanted to be righted has been righted. The opening is so profound I know I can only begin to sense its ramifications and how it will deepen and enrich my experience of life and the experience of life of those around me.

I have begun reading the Bible. I have an actual hunger and it is not something I have to make myself do. For the first time, the stories are alive. Even though I've had an extraordinary life, this sense of comfort and serenity and rightness haven't ever been here in my life. One of the things that opened me was reading Josh McDowell's More Than a Carpenter. Also, the idea of what Patrick called "the heart of Christianity," different from the religion Christianity we see in the culture around us. I realized Christianity was something bigger than the way it showed itself in the world, something bigger than Christians can accomplish, at least at this point in our history.

Update on my life: I've started a new book. The novel I've been working on the last few months I set aside, as it was spiritual in nature and written to refute Christianity, which no longer applies."

- Elizabeth