My testimony is a hard thing. I simply do not talk about my personal feelings. I can share my political opinions, or facts about my life, but when things turn toward my own inner emotional facets, I close up. Too many times in my past, I've been forced to deal with these aspects of my being, and they've never been good for me. My parents have done this. My teachers have tried. Principals, guidance counselors and other "educational professionals" have tried. I've been through it with girlfriends, my wife, clergy and psychologists. At no point has any dive into my inner emotional being been anything other than a painful, devastating moment.

You know what? That's fine with me. My emotions are rarely relevant. When I'm involved in something that's important, my emotions rarely offer benefit. Outside of the love I show my family, I have little need for emotional research. Some people would say that this is an unhealthy way to live, but I think that I've spent enough of my life as an emotional little crybaby who gets his feelings hurt anytime somebody does something against me.

With all that said, I've still got to write SOMETHING about myself and my faith, and that will always delve to some degree into my emotional state.

My testimony, in a nutshell, is very simple. I was raised right, in church, as a believer in God the Father and in his son Jesus the Christ. I was baptised at 9, left church at 17, backslid for a long while, and came back.

In truth, however, that's no real testimony. There's more to it than that.

I was raised by good, christian parents. I was raised in a good, small Baptist church. I've never known a time when my faith in the existence of God was a question. I've never known a time when my faith in the existence of Jesus as the son of God was truly shaken. I was baptised at 9 years of age, though I know I didn't fully understand what it fully entailed.

At 16 years old, I grew dissatisfied with my church. I tired of Sunday School classes constantly being merged for a week because one teacher or another didn't show up. I got tired of bickering among members. I got tired of the looks on the faces of classmates at school, when they found out who I went to church with. They had trouble believing that some of these people actually attended church at all, because of the actions they displayed publicly. Eventually, I got up in the middle of Sunday School, announced that I was leaving that church and not coming back, and I left.

For the next year, I attended various churches, but found little satisfaction at most. One church I did feel most at home at is the church I now attend much later. In the end, however, I just stopped going to church altogether.

in the ensuing years, I worked several jobs, moved to Raleigh, moved back home, went to college for a short while, moved back to Raleigh, got married, had a son and moved back to my hometown again. During this time, my life was a big backslide. I was never the big drug-addict, biker, felon, drunk, gambler type backslider like you hear in the best testimnies. I had too many girlfriends, drank too much a few times, and smoked my share of pot. I made a lot of wrong choices, some of which I had to pay the price for.

My turnaround came when my wife found salvation. She had gone to a Prince concert in Minneapolis with a friend. It was more than a concert, actually. It was a week of events, leading up to a MAJOR concert event. She toured Paisley Park, saw Prince's guitars, hung out with other fans, tripped Prince and his guards, and in an unrelated occurrence, found Jesus.

When I say found, I mean it. She had been a good heathen girl, when I married her. She wasn't a bad person, mind you, but she sure made backsliding more fun for me. Finding Jesus, for her, was the proverbial baseball bat upside the head. For me, it was a signal that my backsliding days were going to have to end.

Over the last three years, I've embraced my faith once again. I've read more of my Bible, and found more understanding of its meaning. I now understand that being a part of the family of God means service to him, through his son Jesus the Christ. I endeavor every day to serve him better, and more faithfully.

I've come to understand the role of Jesus Christ as kinsman-redeemer, sacrificial lamb, firstborn son of God the Father, representative of God, and King. Now, my job is to gain more understanding of my own role as redeemed kinsman, subject, cleansed and brother of and in Christ.

That's it. That's the whole boring story. One day, maybe I'll have an interesting testimony, but for now, I'm still a lump of clay on the potters wheel, with nothing but a hole forming as the shape begins to appear.