Writing Our Testimonies: Life Before Encountering Jesus

This post is part 3 in a series of posts by Pam Williams on "Writing Our Testimonies." To read the earlier articles click on Writing Our Testimonies: Why We Share and Writing Our Testimonies: A Biblical Example.


Writing Our Testimonies: Life Before Encountering Jesus


People get more excited when we are passionate about what we are writing. Passion involves strong feelings and intense emotions. When we write our testimony, God wants us to be passionate about what we have to say so that our stories stir the depths of emotion in our readers.

The goal of dedicated, skilled artists is to strongly and favorably stir the emotions of every person who sees their paintings. God would have us become like a masterful artist at sharing our testimony. He wants us to paint the best picture we can in the minds of our readers using words as our "brush strokes". Why? Because our testimonies are the most important and exciting stories we have to write and are the most effective witnessing tools at our disposal.

Just as it takes time to become a skilled artist, it takes time to master the art of writing our testimony. It is not learned in one day. A painter has to paint and keep painting, learn what others know, acquire knowledge and develop the skills of painting. As we write our testimony, we do the same thing.

We start by putting words on paper, perhaps a paragraph a week. We ponder and change the words, adding some and deleting others, until our roughly formed testimony is eventually transformed into "a piece of art" that stirs the emotions.

How should our testimony begin? Today we will look at writing about our life before becoming a Christian. Some areas to cover within this section include the following:

1. Your spiritual life:

• What was the spiritual environment you were raised in?
• How was your family involved in the life of the church?
• What did you think about God when you were growing up?
• How did your spiritual beliefs affect your every day life?
• What questions did you have about God?

2. Your challenges:

• How did you feel about yourself?
• What struggles were you facing?
• How did your family life impact you?
• What challenges felt beyond your control?
• What habits were you involved with that were pointless or even enslaving?

3. Your priorities:

• What brought you satisfaction?
• Where did God rank in importance for you?
• What was most important to you?
• What was your outlook on life?
• What were your goals?

When we ask, God will teach us how to share our testimonies in such a way that they will pierce the soul of every person who reads them. The task can seem daunting, even impossible. The challenge is to pour the stories from our hearts onto the paper, mixing details with passionate emotion. May you be blessed anew as you ponder the tremendous love and power God has and is pouring into your soul.

©2011 Pamela D. Williams