After a long sabbatical, I gave my life back to Jesus when I was 28 years old. The first chance I had to really share my faith was of tremendous importance and terrible cost to me, and it taught me a lesson that I will never forget: the greatest witness you can give is the way that you live your life.

I was living on Long Island, working as an editor for a large publishing company. I had accepted Jesus as my Savior when I was four years old, but I didn't learn what it meant to have a personal relationship with Him or to walk with Him in faith, obedience, and love. All I remembered of the Bible was from Sunday school as a child and from half-listening to sermons as a teenager in the balcony of the church, where I giggled with my girlfriends. I winged my Christianity through high school, then drifted so far away during college that I almost fell off the end of the earth. When I graduated from the University of Michigan, I moved to Long Island, where I began working for an advertising agency. In God's providence, I got fired and ended up working for a magazine doing trade journalism. By the time I was 24, I had become the youngest editor-in-chief in the history of another local publishing company.

But as my career moved upward, my personal life spiraled downward. I went through so many emotionally and physically damaging relationships that I no longer had any sense of who I was. Even worse, I had lost my sense of moral absolutes. Morality for me was relative, depending on who you were, how you were brought up, and what situation you found yourself in. Soon, my compass was swinging wildly out of control. I was totally, and completely, lost. After a series of personal tragedies, I found myself in a rocky live-in relationship with a strong and driven man, a former Marine Corps honor graduate who pushed me beyond my limits. My best was never good enough. Every decision I made was wrong. Every day that went by, I grew smaller and smaller. All he had to do was look at me and I would crumble. I was miserable.

But the Lord hadn't given up on me. First, He began working on me through my Christian parents, then through a friend who, unbeknownst to me, was also a Christian. In God's perfect timing, He used these people and all of the events in my life to drive me to my knees. I will never forget the day that I stood on the sidewalk, stretched out my hands, and cried out to God, “I'm Yours. I'm done doing it my way.”

All Things Become New

I was cleansed that day, and I knew it. Everything looked different to me, full of promise and hope. I knew that God had a plan for me and that my life would never be the same. I had heard that when we give our lives to Christ, “all of the old things have passed away and all things have become new” (2 Cor. 5:17). Now, I knew from first-hand experience what that felt like.

I went home that day and began reading the Bible. God had given me another chance, and I felt both a sense of gratitude and responsibility. I decided that I would take every word to heart and do whatever it told me to. The first thing I knew I had to do was to remove myself from my live-in relationship and get my own apartment. But not on Long Island. I felt compelled to drive to Pennsylvania on the weekends, looking for the place that God would lead me to.

God eventually led me to a small town I'd never heard of, a town called Ephrata, and over the next several months, He led me to a church and an apartment. When I signed the check for the security deposit, I was shaking. Eight years I had lived on Long Island. Almost four years I had lived with this man. Everything I knew was there. Now I was making a commitment to move to a town where I had no friends, no family, just faith that this is where God wanted me to be.

When I told my boyfriend, he thought I was crazy. He had already sensed a change in me, but now he knew it was serious. He yelled. He screamed. He tried every trick in the book. He called my new church a cult. He told me that the Bible was a man-made product and couldn't be trusted. He quoted “scriptures” he had heard through the years — scriptures that didn't, in reality, exist — to prove to me that I had been brainwashed.

But the easily manipulated woman he used to know had disappeared. He argued logic with me. I remembered Jesus. He argued morality with me. I remembered scripture. Every time he yelled, cajoled, and reasoned, all I could think was, “I'm free.” Although I loved him, I packed my things and moved.

Test of Faith

We continued to see one another even after I moved. My hope was that he would come to know Jesus and we could still get married someday. His hope was that I would see reason about this “Christianity thing,” our relationship would get back on track, and we could still get married someday. But there was a huge stumbling block in the way: Jesus.

Although he visited me frequently, the nature of our physical relationship had changed. No manner of arguing or reasoning could get me to change my mind. He listed every worldly reason that we should maintain physical intimacy. I listed one why we couldn't: scripture. He listed all the historical reasons the Bible couldn't be trusted. I read a copy of Josh McDowell's Evidence That Demands a Verdict and told him all the historical reasons why it could. Eventually, all we did was fight. We argued about the divinity of Christ. We argued about the reliability of the Bible. We argued about the nature of God. Night after night, day after day. Until one day, I heard this scripture clearly in my mind: “But avoid foolish and ignorant disputes, knowing that they generate strife” (2 Tim. 2:23). I knew it was time for us to stop talking.

I thought this might be the end of my boyfriend's search for God. But it wasn't. Without me to argue with, he began walking the streets at night, alone, talking to God. “If you're up there, God, show me the truth,” he said. “If she's right, do something to show me.” I am so glad that we have a God who responds to heartfelt prayer. Three weeks later, he called me again. “Heidi, you won't believe this, but I gave my life to Jesus!”

I could believe it. I had been on my face praying for him since the day I moved to Ephrata. In fact, there had been many factors working on his life during that time. God had brought his mother to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. He had brought his good friend from work, who had married a Christian woman, into a Bible-believing church. Then there had been little, personal encounters my boyfriend had with God during his time alone. But, he later told me, there was one thing during that time that was more compelling than any other. It was the change he had seen in me.

All Things Become New

There was no denying that I was a completely different person. I had hope. I had peace. I had joy. I changed the way I dressed. I allowed God to conform my beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors to those that were pleasing to Him. But most important to this Marine was that, no matter what he said, no matter what I did, he couldn't get me to compromise on our physical relationship. Not even when the dearest thing to me at that time — our relationship — was on the line.

“I know you,” he said. “You aren't that strong. I knew that there was some power working in you that was stronger than you. And I had to know what that power was.”

Telling this story still gives me goosebumps today. And what sticks with me more than anything else is that the testimony of the life that I lived was stronger than any of the words that I said. All the books I had read, all of the hours I had argued, all of the months I had reasoned... they paled in comparison to what he saw me do. And this testimony was strong enough to keep ministering to him, even when we stopped speaking for a time.

The next time I saw him, he was a different person. If I hadn't known it was him, I wouldn't have recognized him. His face glowed. It was like someone had lifted the weight of the world off his shoulders. And Someone had. Jesus.

In spite of all we'd been through together, God had another husband in mind for me, but I still sometimes think of all the years of frustration and pain we spent together. When I think of his words, “I had to know what that power was,” I know that it was worth it. And I learned a lesson I will never forget. The testimony of a life lived is far more powerful than words spoken.

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