Being the Salt of the World to Add Flavor to My Life

Between going to a Christian school and growing up in church, there was one thing I was taught that I always had a hard time with. It has nothing to do with the belief system. In fact, it's quite the opposite - MY belief system. I cannot count how many times I've been told to "practice sharing my testimony, so when the day comes, I'd be ready." My problem with this? I didn't have an interesting testimony. My testimony, I thought, was bland. In fact, I can write it in two sentences. I grew up in the church and went to a Christian school. When I was in first grade, I accepted Christ. The end. Thrilling, right? As I got older, those two sentences expanded to "where I was, when I chose, who Christ is to me now." I was able to tack on the fact that I grew up, and God became my Father, my Guidance, my Friend, and my solid rock when I was on shaky ground. I would hear other people's stories and think about how lame mine sounded. Kids my age turning their lives around made my life feel dull.
The older I got, the less inspiring I found my story. Up until recently, I never realized just how inspiration my story really was. I didn't tell it to anyone, and no one who knows me told me just how impacted they felt. It was just one of those things where I realized, no one's testimony is greater than another person's. In fact, they're all the same story:
"I was broken and enslaved to sin. God's grace gave me salvation and made me whole. I was lost, but now I am found. I was a child of the world, but now I am a child of the King."
If you ask me, that's some powerful stuff right there. That's my testimony. Sure, I was 6, my life had only begun. The worst thing I had done was lie to my parents or take my sister's toy away from her. Interesting? Maybe not. Powerful? Always. How great is it that we get to become God's kids?! People say "it doesn't matter how old I've gotten - I will always need my mother/father." That's how it is with God. We will always need Him. It doesn't matter how far away from Him we've gone, the things we've done, or how independent we THINK we are - He'll always be waiting there for you to call on Him, because He knows you'll need His help. Whether you're sick, hurting, just want to tell Him "thanks," He waits patiently for us to call on Him. Just like our parents.
1 John 3:1-2 - "How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is."
If you read the rest of that chapter, it delves into the salvation Jesus provides for us. It's our testimony! Take a look for yourself: (vs. 3-10)
"All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him. Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God. This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister."
We sin. God saved us. We are free from the bondage of sin.
THAT is my testimony.