Courtney's Testimony

I grew up in a home that we prayed to God, before bed and prayed for our food on Christmas and Thanksgiving. 

It wasn't until I was 13 years old that my Grandparents, sent me and my cousin Christi to church camp. It was there that I got my first experience in praise and worship and had my first religious experience. 

We all gathered at the lake and sang songs, that is were I asked Jesus Christ into my heart and understood for the first time that he died for my sins. Being a young child, and going home to a family that didn't understand or practice religion, I fell away quickly. I still believed in Jesus and a greater power and knew that I needed to try and be a better person, but very rarely thought twice about it. I just lived my life trying to survive one day at time. 

It wasn't long after that, that I meet my husband to be, Taner, in 2003 and we were married in 2004. About 8 months later we found out that I was pregnant. When I was about 2 and 1/2 months along I had a spontaneous miscarriage that was very devastating to the both of us. After being sick from the miscarriage I lost my job and Taner worked as a car mechanic and the work at my husbands job was getting less and less. For me I felt the only way to relieve the pain I was having was to try and get pregnant again. We found that is wasn't as easy as the first time. We tried for many months without success. 

Then one day I decided that if I was going to have a family, I wanted to get into church. My best friend April invited me to her church, College Heights Baptist in Lubbock TX. I tried to convince my husband to come with me but he refused. I soon came to the decision that I did not want to be with him anymore if he would not attend church with me. Needless to say he started attending with me and now Christ has transformed Taner and he is now a very strong soldier for Christ. 

After many months of trying to get pregnant it finally happened but not long after it started to look like we would lose this one as well. That's was when we decided to give it to God and we fell to our knees and begged God to let us have this child. That was the first time I felt and saw the power of prayer and God. Parker Mitchell Terral was born April 26, 2006 and was and is the perfect child, our gift from God. 

Also during my pregnancy we were forced to move in with my father in law because I was put on bed rest and Taner lost his job. We then again put our trust in God and prayed for him to guide us. Taner was offered his current job that paid much better and was much more Christian friendly. And we stumbled across a great deal that got us in our own home. That was my second time God had went above and beyond blessing us. After this there was no way I would ever be able to turn away from God again.

I now understand just how much God has giving me not only did he answer my prayers in that hard time in my life. But I truly understood what it meant to say Jesus died on the cross for my sins. If someone did all that for you and saved your life I don't understand how anyone could not live there life trying to make it up to him by following and worshiping him and spreading the news to others who need his saving as well. 

God also blessed my husband and I with the power to sing and spread the word of God through song. What are the odds that I would find someone to have so much chemistry within a marriage, in music and the same goal in life to use our talents for Gods glory. I am a true believer that we are not alone. We have a creator that sent his only Son to die and for our sins and that he has a plan for us and if we let him in and give him our lives we will prosper.