When someone encounters Jesus, everything changes. It can be difficult to explain this to other people, especially if they don’t come from a church background, and this can sometimes lead to testimonies which underemphasise things which we fear unbelievers might be put off by. However, there is benefit to ourselves and to others when we rehearse what the Lord God has done in our lives with the details intact and within a doctrinal framework. Mrs Goodal, a Covenanter, wrote down her conversion experience in the form of a signed statement that she had totally committed herself to the Lord Jesus. She recalls her initial disinterest in Him, then her growing realisation of her need of Him, and then how His Word became the basis of her faith and hope, while praising Him in very specific ways for His gracious and glorious work of redemption. In the following updated extract, naming not only some of the Christians who had given her advice, but also the places and dates which stood out in her experience, she remembers her first love.
Where I started
Here, I declare, I do believe my lost estate in Adam. I find myself so polluted in my miserable condition, wherein I find myself all over, in my understanding, and will, and affections, in a state of estrangedness from God. His holy law, which is given to me to be my rule to walk by is my judge — I cannot obey it. I am summoned to the bar of God’s justice, and there I stand sentenced and condemned by God and my own conscience.
This did not appear to me so dangerous a state as indeed it was (though I was born and brought up in the place where I had occasion to have the benefit of the preaching of the gospel in power and purity), until the year 1677, when the Lord revealed my lost state to me.
Then I saw nothing but wrath and displeasure from the Lord, and that which I thought would have (as I thought) given me relief, only increased my sorrow. I found no comfort in the use of any means, either public or private. When I went to the Lord to seek relief, I did not dare say anything but, “Lost, lost! If only there was mercy for a hypocrite!” Tossed about like this, I thought I was a reprobate, destined to damnation, so that I did not need to seek salvation through Jesus Christ, for there was no mercy for me (though I knew He had abundance of mercy for all the sins of the elect).