January 31, 2024 • 41 mins
Join us in this compelling episode of Mercy on Display as we delve into the gripping spiritual journey of Cindy, a woman who traversed through various religions in pursuit of truth. Born and raised in El Salvador, her family's migration brought her to a new world of faith in the United States.
Despite being deeply entrenched in Catholicism, Cindy felt a constant void, unfulfilled by routine rituals and disillusioned by her faith community's shortcomings. A desire for spiritual understanding led her to explore Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam throughout her college years, even proclaiming herself a secret Muslim. Despite her religious exploration, she remained spiritually unfulfilled and disconnected.
However, a life-altering event and doctoral evidence of Jesus' existence sparked a newfound interest in Christianity. Heeded her call to the Christian faith, her journey beautifully demonstrates God's unfailing mercy, proving that no matter how far we stray, returning to Him is possible.
Cindy's path in life, including her scholastic achievements and struggles with adversity, deepened her thirst for understanding, leading her into Jesus's arms. After a traumatic encounter, she found solace in the teachings of Lord Jesus, resulting in her baptism, the second chance she yearned for.
Set your ears on this heartfelt and inspiring episode for a stirring chronicle of faith, transformation, resilience, and redemption. Listen as she talks about her personal encounters with God, her baptism, and her perspective on speaking in tongues and the Holy Spirit's role. Complemented by nurturing relationships, she develops a deep connection with the Creator, revealing an authentic testament of divine wisdom and grace.
Cindy imparts powerful words of God's wisdom and encouragement for the intimidated or broken, assuring them nobody is too imperfect for Jesus' love. She emphasizes that the peace and fulfillment found in Christ are available for everyone. Hear her manifest a remarkable journey of faith that can inspire those seeking Jesus amidst tribulation. This episode will encourage you to re-evaluate your life and consider the transformative power of Jesus.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Hello i'm mark and i'm cindy and
we're the hosts of mercy on display a storytelling podcast about god's mercy
in people's lives from dating to marriage parenting to careers and everything
in between we hope you'll be inspired encouraged and grounded in god's purpose.
Music.
For your own life we're glad you're here thanks for joining us.
(00:38):
Hello friends hello everyone it's
good evening recording in the evening we are recording in
the evening today like night but you know super early morning super late night
that's right well today on today's podcast today's episode we are recording
cindy and her testimony so So I'm very excited for this. So I know it's going to be fruitful.
(01:03):
And I know that it will be encouraging, inspiring for everyone.
I hope for definitely for all of our listeners. Well, definitely glory to all, to God. Amen.
But yes, I'm excited and very nervous to share today.
I love to share this testimony with others, not for myself, but because it's for the Lord.
(01:27):
But it also puts me in
a very vulnerable place yet i think
this is going to be a story the
lord has written so that others can come to him especially those who are really
far from perfect like i am and how i was so i know this is for those who are
(01:51):
thinking oh man is there a god God,
is there really a Jesus that cares about me?
For those who are just running astray, that's really what this is about.
I would love to start from the beginning.
I personally think, Cindy, that your life is a miraculous story of the Lord.
(02:14):
Of showing His mercy, His grace upon your life.
And I know that others need to hear. here, if anyone that is struggling out
there with faith, whether having a difficult childhood or teenage years or adulthood,
I know that life could be difficult and tough, but I'm,
(02:38):
for our listeners to know that there is hope. There is hope in the Lord.
And I would like to ask you a question, starting from the beginning,
but really getting into the present years of what the Lord has done in your life.
Yeah, yeah. So we would love to start off with some questions for you.
(03:00):
Where are you from? Tell me a little bit about your family.
And did you grow up in a Christian household? household?
So I'm from El Salvador. I grew up in El Salvador until I was about nine years old.
I came to the U.S. with my mother, my father, and my brother.
We had a really difficult circumstance in El Salvador that led us to coming
(03:22):
here, but they really didn't intend to stay.
They thought they would be able to go back, and they couldn't.
Things were just very complicated, but But they had hope for us here after seeing
what it was like to live here.
My family has been Catholic for a very long time.
(03:42):
There's not a single person in my family who does not remember a time when they were not Catholic.
The country has been Catholic for over 400 years, a large majority.
It's not until now that there's some evangelism going on.
And so my first encounter with the Lord really was when I was about eight seven
(04:03):
years old when my mom was invited to a Baptist church by her brother which was
a really big taboo my grandmother did not agree to it my mom did it anyways
you know with white little lies right she,
she would tell us you went to the store and we actually did we would go to the
store after church but we went to to this church and they asked me would you
(04:24):
like to accept the Lord in in your heart when I was in the little children's
Bible study class. And I said, yeah, I would.
And I just felt very emotional, very connected to the Lord that day.
So that kind of stayed in the back burner for a while, you know,
because between being eight years old and by the time that I was here in the U.S.
(04:46):
And things were complicated and difficult as an immigrant, I kind of forgot about that moment.
I was a Bible school teacher since I was, I think I was like 12 years old at
the very first Spanish-speaking Catholic church in Indiana, in southern Indiana.
And my family was a part of the founding members of that small church.
(05:10):
And I wanted to have a relationship with the Lord, but I didn't know how.
I felt like I constantly were spoon-fed the same stories over and over and over
again. Noah, Moses, all the greats, right?
And I saw them as these great men that we could never be, these great saints
that we could never be, that we had to look up to, to them, instead of looking at Jesus.
(05:35):
My parents, you know, they would read Psalms and Proverbs and they would talk
to us about wisdom, but none of it stuck.
I mean, I even went to Catholic school.
From the time I was in El Salvador, when I was going to private school,
because my parents made really good money, to coming to the U.S.
And they would work hard to get us into private Catholic school here.
(05:58):
There was only one year in my third grade that I did not go to a Catholic private school.
So I was being taught every single ritual, every single milestone that it was
to walk in the Catholic faith.
Yet I didn't have a relationship with the Lord. Fast forward to me being 21, 22 years old.
(06:18):
I find myself feeling so numb. I'm in college at this time. I'm meeting the wrong people.
Believe me, I've always grew up really sheltered. I mean, even my clothing had to be very modest.
My grades and schooling were the ultimate and top priority in life.
Not marriage, not being a wife, my school.
(06:41):
Same for my brother. We're both very competitive. We were competing against
each other. and he excelled in a lot of things and excelled in a different way in other things.
The relationship with the Lord wasn't a forefront in my family.
Yes, we went to church every single Sunday.
Yes, we served in church. We served in every summer event. We served in every holiday event.
(07:06):
We sang in choir. We were, I don't even remember, but I believe I was like Mary
multiple times for the play that they will host for Christmas.
But it felt so numbing.
I didn't really know the Lord, you know? So I remember questioning things in college.
(07:27):
I was studying at first biology. So I was a pre-med student and I was very fascinated
by science and very much question, were we really created by God?
I mean, evolution seemed to get it right and microbiology and zoology and organic
(07:47):
chemistry were all making kind of sense to me, I thought,
which is funny that now I say that, I'm like looking back, like,
yeah, but they all pointed to God, you know?
But I didn't see it. And so I left
that degree when I was a sophomore more
and decided I wanted to have a history and English degree that
I didn't want to be a doctor anymore I wanted to be a
(08:10):
lawyer so I remember at 21 22 now questioning do I really want to even be a
part of this church this whole religion thing seems just so bogus I don't even
want it I don't even know what I'm doing here I'm sitting I'm standing I'm kneeling
the pastor says the same thing over and over again.
And everybody says that they believe in the Lord, yet they're going to parties or drinking alcohol.
(08:35):
They're showing up to church hungover.
They're dressing in ways I even thought it was inappropriate,
you know, and putting value on expensive vehicles and the best house,
the biggest house and the most materialistic ways. And I thought,
(08:57):
I need something deeper. Yeah. So you really didn't see God in it.
I didn't. All these years you're in a Catholic upbringing, so you're going through
the rituals, you're going through the motions.
Solutions but there was sounds like
there was what was really missing is that
genuine connection with the lord a
(09:20):
relationship that maybe someone never sat
down introduced that to you or or mentioned that to you that you're able to
have a relationship with your creator and what that's really like taking those
steps giving your heart yeah yeah and so i remember thinking i mean why why
do I want to be a part of a community like this?
(09:41):
And there was a lot of gossiping. I mean, I don't like the gossiping.
It was just so hard for me to hear the way they would talk about each other.
And I would hear people talking poorly about my mom when I knew my mom did her
best to love another. So for me, that was very hard to hear.
I left the church. I mean, I was going every Sunday.
(10:01):
I was Bible study, you know, Bible school teacher, and I left the church.
I just kind of stopped going and believing.
I was studying history, so I studied Hinduism, Buddhism.
When it came to Judaism, I thought that was way too close to Jesus,
(10:22):
so I don't want to go into that, but let me study Islam.
And I really got into Islam. I mean, I thought there's one God,
He's a creator. There's all these rules. I think this is it.
And I'm studying the history of it. I'm starting to learn Arabic.
I don't even tell anybody, but I declare myself a Muslim. There's this little
(10:44):
short, I guess, prayer or saying that you say in order to become a Muslim.
And I did it in my dorm room. I thought, okay, I'm going to say this.
I'm going to believe this. It's going to be my faith.
I'll have a lot of Middle Eastern friends. So going to dinners with them,
hanging out with them, which is funny because now looking back,
the way I criticize a Catholic community that I was part of,
(11:04):
and yet these friends of mine were smoking and drinking, it wasn't any better.
And so I thought, this is the way, you know, I have one God,
at least I'm not, and I was agnostic for a while, right?
Now, fast forward two years later, I'm believing in something.
I didn't even tell my parents.
(11:25):
They later told me they assumed something was going on.
But I started hanging out with just the wrong crowds, making bad choices.
There was a lot of brokenness that was happening in my life.
And part of that came when there was a student that attempted to sexually touch me.
(11:48):
I did not let it happen but
I remember praying to God and saying Lord
I need you and if
you and I didn't even say Lord I said God I need you I said God I
need you can you please help me and save me he did he saved me and I remember
having to go to counseling because I was in the class they were talking about
(12:09):
the importance of speaking up and not being afraid and reporting issues like
this. And I remember speaking up.
My university didn't do a good job, but later on, I learned all the procedures
and they didn't do a really good job of protecting me.
There was a protective order against this person. And I just,
I got counseling a few times and it helped a lot, but there was always like this fear.
(12:34):
And from that moment, I remember thinking, well, you know, God saved me.
God, he's there. He heard my prayer.
And I remember having a Middle Eastern class paired up the same semester with
a historiography class.
And the historiography class, you talk about primary, secondary types of resources in history.
(12:59):
And the teacher happens to mention that when a document has,
you know, more than two or three types of primary sources that you can point to,
then that's like, that's fact.
You know, this is, the more solid it is, the more solid evidence you have,
(13:21):
the more likely this happened and therefore it becomes a fact in history.
And I thought, oh, that's really cool. and I went over to my Middle Eastern
class and then they point out, oh yeah, Jesus, he was a real public figure.
He was here. We have all this evidence.
You know, obviously some people believe he was more than just a human,
(13:41):
but I was thinking, is Jesus showing up over here?
In your history class. In my history class. Yeah, and that's why I tell people
Jesus didn't show up in my history class.
So i thought okay that's pretty cool and it really touched me because it felt
so factual and i remind you i had studied science i said history i had studied you know other forms of.
(14:09):
Religions and i thought this is interesting that he's showing up and this is
evidence and my eyes I just felt like some scales were starting to come off.
And I remember driving home and feeling so broken still from everything that had happened.
And I turned on the radio and the song came on from Caleb.
(14:32):
And I don't remember exactly what it was, but I feel like that God put that
song on the radio on purpose.
Because on the way home, which took me about 30 minutes to drive home,
I started to cry and I said alright Jesus
if you're real maybe you're the good prophet that we Muslims believe in or maybe
(14:56):
you are the son of God whoever you are if you're real then I need you to show
yourself to me I need you to actually come into my life I'll give you another shot,
and I still had a lot of turbulence in my life I still was not,
Okay, at that time.
Fast forward to graduating college, going off to law school.
(15:24):
Still keeping in contact with my friends, but a lot of them are international,
so those people are not in my life.
But in law school, I kind of pair myself up with the same people, you know?
And I'm honestly struggling in school.
The first year was very overwhelming for me. I didn't exactly know how to study.
(15:45):
A lot of my friends have generational lawyers in their family,
so they knew what they were doing. I didn't.
And at this time, my mom had been praying for me this whole time she had been
praying for me to come back to the lord.
She was telling me we're constantly calling me we
talked like five times a day i don't even know we're best
friends so she was always telling me like you need to
(16:06):
go to church please like find a church in your city you
need to go to church and i was like all right mom and i go
to one church and i'm thinking oh man not really
my type of church just a little too slow go to
a different church oh not this one and I go to another another church
and I thought oh this is good they have a woman priest
it's so radical you know like at this time I'm
(16:29):
declaring myself as a feminist I'm you know
still going to parties and
you know not doing not doing the
good things just picking bad choices just drinking and
just hanging with the wrong crowd and I'm going to this church where a a woman
is preaching and I'm thinking this is wonderful she's a priestess she's got
(16:51):
the whole garment everything on
I do meet this young guy who said he's Christian he's he's really not and,
unfortunately I end up in a dating violence situation where it's physically
emotionally mentally abusive yet at the same time I'm learning how to study
for law school so you know I'm I'm feeling like I love this person.
(17:18):
I'm feeling like I need also the help from this person. And I want to have a
relationship. So my psyche starts breaking down.
And long story short, I was able to escape the situation after about a,
like, I don't remember. I don't know, like eight months or so.
I had been isolated from my friends. My friends finally reached out to me because
(17:40):
they think something's going on.
At this point the police are involved he's
in a different country the courts are involved the school is involved there's
a whole thing there's a whole procedures i am so emotionally physically tired
from everything in working full-time going to school and i'm so weak and broken i remember,
(18:04):
I'm drinking one night, and my friend comes and talks to me.
And that was the last time I drank, by the way, by myself and in a really bad way.
But I remember thinking, oh, man, how am I going to get myself fixed?
I'm going to move forward.
(18:24):
I always talked about creating myself, and I don't even know what I'm doing anymore.
I had no help. I thought it was all up to me. This is my world.
You know, but I had started attending another church, and this other church
was non-denominational, and when I walked into that church, oh my goodness,
I felt so different, I didn't know what it was, I was just like, wow,
(18:50):
the praise, the people, they're lifting up their hands, they're praising the
Lord, the pastor's talking really well, and I don't exactly understand everything,
but I like what he's saying and i remember him
constantly repeating the words cindy it's not
about you or telling people it's not about you it's not
about you and i'm thinking why does he keep saying
(19:11):
that it's not about you like i my life is about me my brokenness is about me
my degree my career it's about me if i want to have a relationship with this
god why isn't that about me like i'm the the one that needs to be changed somehow.
I don't know how, but somehow.
And I did not understand what he kept saying. It's not about you.
(19:35):
But I was curious. So I was definitely curious what he meant by that.
So you're at this new church. And when did the Lord start taking even further
and larger steps towards you?
And how was it that transformations happened around this church,
around this time what changed sorry i
(19:57):
started asking tough questions of the pastor that
he didn't want to really answer not because
he wasn't being direct not because he didn't want me to concentrate on
political things because my mind was flooded with it he wanted
me to concentrate on jesus and so i would go to coffee with him and he would
talk to me about the bible i actually met a guy named mark it was not my husband
(20:20):
mark i'm talking to right now but I remember hearing his name and thinking that's
really special like that name means something but I don't know what and I remember
meeting my friend Anthony,
Anthony was this very jolly person.
And him and I were still I don't know,
He was new to the church, but he was not new to the faith. So we were in discipleship
(20:42):
class together. He was actually a mentor.
So I'm asking him all these types of questions, and I will ask him about his life.
And he actually was in jail, from my understanding, for several years.
And he came out, he was working, he was reformed. And he met his wife.
When she saw him, she said, the Lord told me you're going to be my husband.
(21:05):
And I thought, that's weird. And he said, yeah, that's what I thought too. And it was true.
And I thought, the Lord can pick your husbands out?
I mean, your wife, I mean, your spouse out? How does that work? That's interesting.
I just kind of fell in love and it just happened, you know?
So I remember going to discipleship class, asking really hard questions.
(21:28):
I remember I asked the pastor, what book should I read? And he said,
read Matthew, John, and Mark.
Like, read the Gospels. like you just need to and Luke you need to just read
those and that's a good beginning so I thought,
wonderful I want to start somewhere but somehow I ended up
in the book of Acts so before I got baptized
though I had a demonic encounter I was in my apartment by myself and I remember
(21:54):
I was praying and you had told me that I could hear the Lord and I thought the
Lord can And you could hear him, like, seek him out.
So I asked him if I could hear your voice. But when I said that,
I heard an audible voice that said, I'm coming for you tonight.
And it gave me chills. Just, oh, it was an awful feeling.
(22:19):
And you questioned me about that. And your question was, you know,
are you supposed to have that much fear or dread when hearing the Lord's voice?
And the answer was no. No, when God speaks to you, you know,
it could be overwhelming, but there would be peace and there shouldn't be any fear.
(22:40):
Yeah, and it gave me so much fear I started to cry. And then I see my cat eyes acting weird.
I had a cat that, it's my parents, but I had it for the semester because I felt
really lonely living by myself.
And this cat starts acting weird, looking at me like intensely.
And I don't like the way he's looking at me. and I go out into the kitchen.
(23:01):
He's actually on the cabinets.
He's looking at me like he wants to hunt me. And I'm like, what in the world?
So I lock him into the, I think I remember like drawing him in or like throwing him into the bathroom.
I was like, all right, you stay there. I locked the bathroom door and I went
into the room to pray because it was just a weird feeling from this cat.
And as I'm praying, I hear a bang on my door.
(23:24):
The cat had opened the bathroom door that was locked and gotten out.
And he was throwing himself against the door. It was awful.
It was, oh, I still like, ugh, get chills from that. It was so terrifying.
And my mom calls a friend and her friend's nearby.
And my mom is three hours away, but they're driving here to try to get me because
(23:47):
I'm crying and telling them what's going on.
And so they get to me.
I think we went back to their hometown
town and we leave the cat by itself in my
apartment next day we come back
they take the cat with them the pastors
(24:08):
come over they're talking to me and my pastor says hey the reason that you're
being attacked or this is happening it's because you don't believe who you really
are who the lord says you are in him your identity you don't believe you're
the truths about you you and the Lord.
And I wasn't sure about that. I don't think I was very satisfied with his answer, but it made me wonder.
(24:30):
And this was before baptism. This was before baptism. This was before I was
truly called to the Lord.
And from that moment, I end up reading the Bible and going into the book of Acts.
So I started reading Acts, and I remember sitting in my apartment on my couch.
Actually, I was on the floor with the coffee, table
(24:54):
my bible on the coffee table and i remember reading through
the book of acts and somehow the pages felt like they were coming alive and
i see stories of people getting baptized and hearing the gospel and their lives
being transformed but the first person that i'm interested in is paul the lord
specifically talks to him a person with so much hate in his heart.
(25:16):
He calls him Lord when the Lord talks to him and he's blind.
And his scales come off his eyes and he's a new person. So Saul becomes Paul.
And I'm thinking, wow, the Lord changed that man. I've never read the story before.
And I read about Lydia and about the jailer.
And there's all these people coming to baptism and just being awake, awoken.
(25:43):
And I'm thinking, I want to be like one of those people.
I would like to be like them.
And I, at this point, I have been going through some recovery.
And I actually end up meeting Mark, meeting you on Facebook.
(26:04):
You were my friend and you would talk to me about the Lord.
We would FaceTime and you would talk about him. I remember still having a lot of anxiety.
You will pray with me about it. And that was the only thing that would calm me down.
And at this point, I'm feeling that the Lord is calling me to Him.
So I am reading Acts. I'm talking to you as my friend.
(26:27):
I'm talking to my pastor, and I tell him, I think the Lord wants me to get baptized,
but I've been Catholic. I was baptized as a child. What do I do?
What do I do? He tells me, you get your baptized.
Yeah. Wow. Wow.
So I didn't want to tell you that I was getting baptized.
(26:50):
Right. And I kept it to myself. I was going through classes.
They took a video series of me as well, just why the Lord was calling me. I was very emotional.
And I remember you sharing that with me. And I saw the amount of work that the
Lord was doing in your heart.
(27:10):
And like you said, He was really working in your heart, taking those steps towards you.
And it has been such a transformation for you as you shared that with me.
And that has been such a beautiful journey at this time that the Lord was just
speaking to you through Scripture and the Scripture really coming alive.
(27:36):
So that was so wonderful to hear. And with all of that, that it wasn't anything
that you needed to do for me because I believe that we were dating already at
that time, at that moment.
So it was your personal walk with the Lord,
a relationship that you were having with God of learning about the Lord and
(27:59):
taking that step, that step of faith with the Lord into that covenant.
So it was very personal for you. Yeah, and I mean, definitely,
I didn't want to tell you because I knew it was about me and God.
Because I didn't, I mean, the Lord had told me about you already by this time.
We'll get to that in a different episode here.
(28:21):
But I definitely knew that I did not want to do this for anyone but myself and the Lord.
The Lord had called, He Himself had called me to Him.
And that's what it was about. and you also had shared with me that there was
this Holy Spirit that I kept reading about people mentioned it but didn't know really how it worked.
(28:43):
How the Lord sent his Spirit that this was a gift and I remember you saying
when the Holy Spirit comes down you can ask for a gift and I speak in tongues
and I thought that's weird in my Catholic faith they told me speaking in tongues is something demonic,
I thought, why would I want that? But okay, and I'm reading about it and thinking,
(29:05):
oh, well, I guess he's right. They're speaking in tongues.
This is different. I didn't really know, you know?
And you were sharing so much about your family, about the stories you shared in the first episode.
It impacted me in so many ways that all of them were seeds that the Lord was
planting in my heart, ready for them to grow.
He was watering them. With every person I met, with every passage I read, he was watering me.
(29:31):
He was delivering me for things from alcohol, from the friendships I had built,
from, you know, wanting to be of the world, little by little.
So I come to baptism day, I get baptized.
It is the best day of my life. I mean, the pastor told me, Cindy,
you are not going to feel any different.
(29:52):
Like, don't think that you're going to be dunked and you come out glowing in
glitter or something, you know.
I'm crying when he asked me if I want to accept the Lord Jesus as my Savior
and I'm baptized by the Father and the Holy Spirit.
And he dunks me and I come back out and I'm feeling this fiery fire.
(30:15):
Embers in the middle of my chest and this joy oh it was the best day of my life and so I remember,
going to get changed and I'm in the changing room I'm feeling something and
I'm like the pastor said that I may not even feel anything but I'm feeling something
so I said you know Lord this is true that when Mark is saying that if I can
(30:41):
pray for a gift and it could be tongues lungs,
then Lord, I'm going to pray.
And so I prayed for three days and I felt like there's something was coming up like a whisper.
Something was bubbling inside of me and yet there was little tiny flames.
And I remember sitting in my apartment in the carpet by my bed and the window,
(31:05):
and I just knelt on the ground and I was very emotional.
And I kept praying, Lord, Lord, I believe in you.
I know that if you truly can give me this Holy Spirit that Mark talks about,
that I can have this gift of speaking in tongues, Lord, then I ask for it, Lord.
(31:28):
Please, Lord. And suddenly it became a whisper, and then I'm speaking in tongues.
And I feel like this Holy Spirit fire come down on me, this glow,
and I just knew the Holy Spirit had made his way into me.
And you read that in scripture. And I read that in scripture.
(31:49):
It was like a tongue of fire, literally, like that's what it was, it was amazing.
And I remember sharing that with you and your family rejoicing about it.
Share, I didn't actually want to share with my family because a little shy, I eventually did.
(32:10):
And that's how I was baptized and I was delivered.
So share with us now, what's your relationship now like with the Lord?
Being filled by the Holy Spirit and having a relationship with the creator of the universe.
Honestly, there's not a day that I don't get teary-eyed. It is humbling that he chose me.
(32:34):
Me not just me like he chooses people to be
his his he's calling
out to all of us actually but not someone that all
of us will come to him but the fact that he will want to
have me even though he doesn't even need me personal relationship with you it's
humbling that i get wisdom that i i know it's not coming from me or words that
(32:58):
come from me i've had moments where I've had encounters with young women that
words come out that I know it's not me,
and then they're crying and I know it's the
Lord touching their hearts or I get to pray over
somebody on the street and I know it's the Lord and my relationship with him
is it's a relationship it's a friendship he's my everything he's my father above
(33:24):
all he is my creator I'm very grateful to have him in my life.
I try to wake up in the mornings and spend time in prayer with him.
I try to seek him out now by myself, go into my secret place,
which is really my bedroom.
And I get so fueled with peace. I finally know what the armor of God is and
(33:45):
how to put it on because I didn't know how to put it on.
It was wisdom that came from him because I'm reading a Bible and I don't even
know what it really means to put on the armor of God. And then one day it just clicked.
And I'm just so eternally grateful for the way that he's worked in my life.
And honestly, I just feel that anybody could have a relationship with the Lord.
(34:09):
You just have to seek him out. And that's what the word says too.
Because he's calling. He is calling. He's calling.
And he desperately does want us to turn to him, to have that genuine and true
relationship that he himself as a creator, because we're made in His image,
both men and women, and He wants that relationship.
(34:30):
Definitely, and I'm not the type of person that is going to sit and go through the motions again.
I want to be the hands and feet of Jesus. I remember when I was little,
I told my mom, one day I'm going to be a missionary.
I reminded her that a little bit ago, and I don't even know if the Lord is calling
me to that, but I get to do ministry work now. I'm just really grateful for that.
(34:51):
And i do remember the lord telling me cindy
you were made to be a warrior you're meant
to defend my littlest ones and that's
really important to me and i was very young i was
about six years old when i heard that and i didn't know
why i just knew that was part of me but i was
using my strength for the wrong things and now
(35:12):
i am someone new everything was different from the moment i met met him when
he showed up at my history class things started to change and it was just seeds
planted by non-believers wow the lord even will use those people too definitely that's amazing,
and i remember you shared that with me but you that you were six years old you
(35:36):
were you were young you were small and you were in school in the playground
when you heard that the lord spoke spoke that into your heart.
So it seems like that he definitely, as the Heavenly Father,
was always near, always near his children, calling, always calling.
(35:57):
It's Jesus standing at the door knocking, waiting for us to open.
And so tell us, what advice would you give to those that think that maybe they
themselves are not good enough either to walk to the Lord or come to the Lord,
or their life is just so in such a rubble or messed up, and they just themselves
(36:19):
are having such a hard time finding value or their own worth that they themselves mean something.
Well, you do not have to be perfect to come to Jesus. I mean,
we have Moses, who I looked up to a lot because he was a murderer and the Lord forgave him,
(36:40):
and made him the leader of an entire nation.
We have people like the jailer. You know, he worked for the Romans.
He was definitely on the wrong side of history at that time.
I've seen tax collectors, you know, in the Bible get called to,
And nowadays we have that still happening.
(37:02):
You do not have to be perfect. You could, I mean, we are all sinners because
a perfect God has called us into peace and harmony and love in him.
And we refuse to at the beginning of time, but he sent his son, Jesus, to love on you.
He sent him to teach us and to lead us to die on the cross and rise again for
(37:23):
your salvation. So no matter what sacrifice the Jewish people did,
it could never be forgiven.
But Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice.
So you do not have to be perfect to come to him. He wants your brokenness.
He wants to carry it for you.
He said, come all you who are heavy laden.
Come to me for my yoke is easy.
(37:46):
And it truly has been. I can lay down my stress and worries to him.
He's there to help. help and he's there at all times and i'm telling you if
you just want to feel that type of love that unconditional love you will never find it but in jesus.
So don't be afraid to ask questions and ask someone for help and prayer.
(38:10):
If you've been jaded like I was by a church, the Lord is calling you today if
you're listening to this. I hope you are.
He really is calling you to relationship with him.
He's calling you to not wander any more than the wilderness,
to not feel like you're alone or that you have to be the one to make your successes
(38:33):
because it's not about you.
It's about this creator who wants to have a relationship with his children and
he wants you to be his and then spread that message across the world it's not
about well now as my christian and i'm saved and therefore that's my safe space.
(38:56):
Now i'm perfect and wonderful and i
gotta do my rituals and dress apart at all times sometimes
it's about how are you going to be the feet and
hands of jesus and how are you going to plant seeds for him and help him grow
his kingdom we are called to do that so please don't ever feel like i'm far
(39:16):
too gone that i can't come to the lord i've you know i've done yoga i've done,
things that people may not open their
eyes to but you're letting portals into your
life life drinking hanging with
the wrong people partying i never did drugs thank
god but it's hard to imagine that
(39:39):
that person was me now because when
i look back and all the pain and hurt no one
ever could fix that for me no amount of relationships that
i was going to have or the person that i was you know you couldn't fix me you
will never fix me but the lord could you will never find satisfaction like you
will in the Lord he's the only one we have a God-sized hole that needs to be
(40:03):
filled and it's not until you decide I'm gonna give you a shot,
I mean I don't have to prove to you the Lord is real he is real but I do have to tell you this.
He wants a relationship with you all you have to do is ask all you have to do
is say yes and then you can watch them work.
(40:26):
Thank you so much for your heart. Thank you so much for being vulnerable.
Thank you so much for truly sharing the mercy of the Lord has done and has shown in your life.
So I really appreciate that.
Thank you for doing this with me. All praise to God. Praise the Lord.
(40:49):
If you enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a review so we can continue to reach more people.
Music.
Hello i'm mark and i'm cindy and
we're the hosts of mercy on display a storytelling podcast about god's mercy
in people's lives from dating to marriage parenting to careers and everything
in between we hope you'll be inspired encouraged and grounded in god's purpose.
Music.
For your own life we're glad you're here thanks for joining us.
(00:38):
Hello friends hello everyone it's
good evening recording in the evening we are recording in
the evening today like night but you know super early morning super late night
that's right well today on today's podcast today's episode we are recording
cindy and her testimony so So I'm very excited for this. So I know it's going to be fruitful.
(01:03):
And I know that it will be encouraging, inspiring for everyone.
I hope for definitely for all of our listeners. Well, definitely glory to all, to God. Amen.
But yes, I'm excited and very nervous to share today.
I love to share this testimony with others, not for myself, but because it's for the Lord.
(01:27):
But it also puts me in
a very vulnerable place yet i think
this is going to be a story the
lord has written so that others can come to him especially those who are really
far from perfect like i am and how i was so i know this is for those who are
(01:51):
thinking oh man is there a god God,
is there really a Jesus that cares about me?
For those who are just running astray, that's really what this is about.
I would love to start from the beginning.
I personally think, Cindy, that your life is a miraculous story of the Lord.
(02:14):
Of showing His mercy, His grace upon your life.
And I know that others need to hear. here, if anyone that is struggling out
there with faith, whether having a difficult childhood or teenage years or adulthood,
I know that life could be difficult and tough, but I'm,
(02:38):
for our listeners to know that there is hope. There is hope in the Lord.
And I would like to ask you a question, starting from the beginning,
but really getting into the present years of what the Lord has done in your life.
Yeah, yeah. So we would love to start off with some questions for you.
(03:00):
Where are you from? Tell me a little bit about your family.
And did you grow up in a Christian household? household?
So I'm from El Salvador. I grew up in El Salvador until I was about nine years old.
I came to the U.S. with my mother, my father, and my brother.
We had a really difficult circumstance in El Salvador that led us to coming
(03:22):
here, but they really didn't intend to stay.
They thought they would be able to go back, and they couldn't.
Things were just very complicated, but But they had hope for us here after seeing
what it was like to live here.
My family has been Catholic for a very long time.
(03:42):
There's not a single person in my family who does not remember a time when they were not Catholic.
The country has been Catholic for over 400 years, a large majority.
It's not until now that there's some evangelism going on.
And so my first encounter with the Lord really was when I was about eight seven
(04:03):
years old when my mom was invited to a Baptist church by her brother which was
a really big taboo my grandmother did not agree to it my mom did it anyways
you know with white little lies right she,
she would tell us you went to the store and we actually did we would go to the
store after church but we went to to this church and they asked me would you
(04:24):
like to accept the Lord in in your heart when I was in the little children's
Bible study class. And I said, yeah, I would.
And I just felt very emotional, very connected to the Lord that day.
So that kind of stayed in the back burner for a while, you know,
because between being eight years old and by the time that I was here in the U.S.
(04:46):
And things were complicated and difficult as an immigrant, I kind of forgot about that moment.
I was a Bible school teacher since I was, I think I was like 12 years old at
the very first Spanish-speaking Catholic church in Indiana, in southern Indiana.
And my family was a part of the founding members of that small church.
(05:10):
And I wanted to have a relationship with the Lord, but I didn't know how.
I felt like I constantly were spoon-fed the same stories over and over and over
again. Noah, Moses, all the greats, right?
And I saw them as these great men that we could never be, these great saints
that we could never be, that we had to look up to, to them, instead of looking at Jesus.
(05:35):
My parents, you know, they would read Psalms and Proverbs and they would talk
to us about wisdom, but none of it stuck.
I mean, I even went to Catholic school.
From the time I was in El Salvador, when I was going to private school,
because my parents made really good money, to coming to the U.S.
And they would work hard to get us into private Catholic school here.
(05:58):
There was only one year in my third grade that I did not go to a Catholic private school.
So I was being taught every single ritual, every single milestone that it was
to walk in the Catholic faith.
Yet I didn't have a relationship with the Lord. Fast forward to me being 21, 22 years old.
(06:18):
I find myself feeling so numb. I'm in college at this time. I'm meeting the wrong people.
Believe me, I've always grew up really sheltered. I mean, even my clothing had to be very modest.
My grades and schooling were the ultimate and top priority in life.
Not marriage, not being a wife, my school.
(06:41):
Same for my brother. We're both very competitive. We were competing against
each other. and he excelled in a lot of things and excelled in a different way in other things.
The relationship with the Lord wasn't a forefront in my family.
Yes, we went to church every single Sunday.
Yes, we served in church. We served in every summer event. We served in every holiday event.
(07:06):
We sang in choir. We were, I don't even remember, but I believe I was like Mary
multiple times for the play that they will host for Christmas.
But it felt so numbing.
I didn't really know the Lord, you know? So I remember questioning things in college.
(07:27):
I was studying at first biology. So I was a pre-med student and I was very fascinated
by science and very much question, were we really created by God?
I mean, evolution seemed to get it right and microbiology and zoology and organic
(07:47):
chemistry were all making kind of sense to me, I thought,
which is funny that now I say that, I'm like looking back, like,
yeah, but they all pointed to God, you know?
But I didn't see it. And so I left
that degree when I was a sophomore more
and decided I wanted to have a history and English degree that
I didn't want to be a doctor anymore I wanted to be a
(08:10):
lawyer so I remember at 21 22 now questioning do I really want to even be a
part of this church this whole religion thing seems just so bogus I don't even
want it I don't even know what I'm doing here I'm sitting I'm standing I'm kneeling
the pastor says the same thing over and over again.
And everybody says that they believe in the Lord, yet they're going to parties or drinking alcohol.
(08:35):
They're showing up to church hungover.
They're dressing in ways I even thought it was inappropriate,
you know, and putting value on expensive vehicles and the best house,
the biggest house and the most materialistic ways. And I thought,
(08:57):
I need something deeper. Yeah. So you really didn't see God in it.
I didn't. All these years you're in a Catholic upbringing, so you're going through
the rituals, you're going through the motions.
Solutions but there was sounds like
there was what was really missing is that
genuine connection with the lord a
(09:20):
relationship that maybe someone never sat
down introduced that to you or or mentioned that to you that you're able to
have a relationship with your creator and what that's really like taking those
steps giving your heart yeah yeah and so i remember thinking i mean why why
do I want to be a part of a community like this?
(09:41):
And there was a lot of gossiping. I mean, I don't like the gossiping.
It was just so hard for me to hear the way they would talk about each other.
And I would hear people talking poorly about my mom when I knew my mom did her
best to love another. So for me, that was very hard to hear.
I left the church. I mean, I was going every Sunday.
(10:01):
I was Bible study, you know, Bible school teacher, and I left the church.
I just kind of stopped going and believing.
I was studying history, so I studied Hinduism, Buddhism.
When it came to Judaism, I thought that was way too close to Jesus,
(10:22):
so I don't want to go into that, but let me study Islam.
And I really got into Islam. I mean, I thought there's one God,
He's a creator. There's all these rules. I think this is it.
And I'm studying the history of it. I'm starting to learn Arabic.
I don't even tell anybody, but I declare myself a Muslim. There's this little
(10:44):
short, I guess, prayer or saying that you say in order to become a Muslim.
And I did it in my dorm room. I thought, okay, I'm going to say this.
I'm going to believe this. It's going to be my faith.
I'll have a lot of Middle Eastern friends. So going to dinners with them,
hanging out with them, which is funny because now looking back,
the way I criticize a Catholic community that I was part of,
(11:04):
and yet these friends of mine were smoking and drinking, it wasn't any better.
And so I thought, this is the way, you know, I have one God,
at least I'm not, and I was agnostic for a while, right?
Now, fast forward two years later, I'm believing in something.
I didn't even tell my parents.
(11:25):
They later told me they assumed something was going on.
But I started hanging out with just the wrong crowds, making bad choices.
There was a lot of brokenness that was happening in my life.
And part of that came when there was a student that attempted to sexually touch me.
(11:48):
I did not let it happen but
I remember praying to God and saying Lord
I need you and if
you and I didn't even say Lord I said God I need you I said God I
need you can you please help me and save me he did he saved me and I remember
having to go to counseling because I was in the class they were talking about
(12:09):
the importance of speaking up and not being afraid and reporting issues like
this. And I remember speaking up.
My university didn't do a good job, but later on, I learned all the procedures
and they didn't do a really good job of protecting me.
There was a protective order against this person. And I just,
I got counseling a few times and it helped a lot, but there was always like this fear.
(12:34):
And from that moment, I remember thinking, well, you know, God saved me.
God, he's there. He heard my prayer.
And I remember having a Middle Eastern class paired up the same semester with
a historiography class.
And the historiography class, you talk about primary, secondary types of resources in history.
(12:59):
And the teacher happens to mention that when a document has,
you know, more than two or three types of primary sources that you can point to,
then that's like, that's fact.
You know, this is, the more solid it is, the more solid evidence you have,
(13:21):
the more likely this happened and therefore it becomes a fact in history.
And I thought, oh, that's really cool. and I went over to my Middle Eastern
class and then they point out, oh yeah, Jesus, he was a real public figure.
He was here. We have all this evidence.
You know, obviously some people believe he was more than just a human,
(13:41):
but I was thinking, is Jesus showing up over here?
In your history class. In my history class. Yeah, and that's why I tell people
Jesus didn't show up in my history class.
So i thought okay that's pretty cool and it really touched me because it felt
so factual and i remind you i had studied science i said history i had studied you know other forms of.
(14:09):
Religions and i thought this is interesting that he's showing up and this is
evidence and my eyes I just felt like some scales were starting to come off.
And I remember driving home and feeling so broken still from everything that had happened.
And I turned on the radio and the song came on from Caleb.
(14:32):
And I don't remember exactly what it was, but I feel like that God put that
song on the radio on purpose.
Because on the way home, which took me about 30 minutes to drive home,
I started to cry and I said alright Jesus
if you're real maybe you're the good prophet that we Muslims believe in or maybe
(14:56):
you are the son of God whoever you are if you're real then I need you to show
yourself to me I need you to actually come into my life I'll give you another shot,
and I still had a lot of turbulence in my life I still was not,
Okay, at that time.
Fast forward to graduating college, going off to law school.
(15:24):
Still keeping in contact with my friends, but a lot of them are international,
so those people are not in my life.
But in law school, I kind of pair myself up with the same people, you know?
And I'm honestly struggling in school.
The first year was very overwhelming for me. I didn't exactly know how to study.
(15:45):
A lot of my friends have generational lawyers in their family,
so they knew what they were doing. I didn't.
And at this time, my mom had been praying for me this whole time she had been
praying for me to come back to the lord.
She was telling me we're constantly calling me we
talked like five times a day i don't even know we're best
friends so she was always telling me like you need to
(16:06):
go to church please like find a church in your city you
need to go to church and i was like all right mom and i go
to one church and i'm thinking oh man not really
my type of church just a little too slow go to
a different church oh not this one and I go to another another church
and I thought oh this is good they have a woman priest
it's so radical you know like at this time I'm
(16:29):
declaring myself as a feminist I'm you know
still going to parties and
you know not doing not doing the
good things just picking bad choices just drinking and
just hanging with the wrong crowd and I'm going to this church where a a woman
is preaching and I'm thinking this is wonderful she's a priestess she's got
(16:51):
the whole garment everything on
I do meet this young guy who said he's Christian he's he's really not and,
unfortunately I end up in a dating violence situation where it's physically
emotionally mentally abusive yet at the same time I'm learning how to study
for law school so you know I'm I'm feeling like I love this person.
(17:18):
I'm feeling like I need also the help from this person. And I want to have a
relationship. So my psyche starts breaking down.
And long story short, I was able to escape the situation after about a,
like, I don't remember. I don't know, like eight months or so.
I had been isolated from my friends. My friends finally reached out to me because
(17:40):
they think something's going on.
At this point the police are involved he's
in a different country the courts are involved the school is involved there's
a whole thing there's a whole procedures i am so emotionally physically tired
from everything in working full-time going to school and i'm so weak and broken i remember,
(18:04):
I'm drinking one night, and my friend comes and talks to me.
And that was the last time I drank, by the way, by myself and in a really bad way.
But I remember thinking, oh, man, how am I going to get myself fixed?
I'm going to move forward.
(18:24):
I always talked about creating myself, and I don't even know what I'm doing anymore.
I had no help. I thought it was all up to me. This is my world.
You know, but I had started attending another church, and this other church
was non-denominational, and when I walked into that church, oh my goodness,
I felt so different, I didn't know what it was, I was just like, wow,
(18:50):
the praise, the people, they're lifting up their hands, they're praising the
Lord, the pastor's talking really well, and I don't exactly understand everything,
but I like what he's saying and i remember him
constantly repeating the words cindy it's not
about you or telling people it's not about you it's not
about you and i'm thinking why does he keep saying
(19:11):
that it's not about you like i my life is about me my brokenness is about me
my degree my career it's about me if i want to have a relationship with this
god why isn't that about me like i'm the the one that needs to be changed somehow.
I don't know how, but somehow.
And I did not understand what he kept saying. It's not about you.
(19:35):
But I was curious. So I was definitely curious what he meant by that.
So you're at this new church. And when did the Lord start taking even further
and larger steps towards you?
And how was it that transformations happened around this church,
around this time what changed sorry i
(19:57):
started asking tough questions of the pastor that
he didn't want to really answer not because
he wasn't being direct not because he didn't want me to concentrate on
political things because my mind was flooded with it he wanted
me to concentrate on jesus and so i would go to coffee with him and he would
talk to me about the bible i actually met a guy named mark it was not my husband
(20:20):
mark i'm talking to right now but I remember hearing his name and thinking that's
really special like that name means something but I don't know what and I remember
meeting my friend Anthony,
Anthony was this very jolly person.
And him and I were still I don't know,
He was new to the church, but he was not new to the faith. So we were in discipleship
(20:42):
class together. He was actually a mentor.
So I'm asking him all these types of questions, and I will ask him about his life.
And he actually was in jail, from my understanding, for several years.
And he came out, he was working, he was reformed. And he met his wife.
When she saw him, she said, the Lord told me you're going to be my husband.
(21:05):
And I thought, that's weird. And he said, yeah, that's what I thought too. And it was true.
And I thought, the Lord can pick your husbands out?
I mean, your wife, I mean, your spouse out? How does that work? That's interesting.
I just kind of fell in love and it just happened, you know?
So I remember going to discipleship class, asking really hard questions.
(21:28):
I remember I asked the pastor, what book should I read? And he said,
read Matthew, John, and Mark.
Like, read the Gospels. like you just need to and Luke you need to just read
those and that's a good beginning so I thought,
wonderful I want to start somewhere but somehow I ended up
in the book of Acts so before I got baptized
though I had a demonic encounter I was in my apartment by myself and I remember
(21:54):
I was praying and you had told me that I could hear the Lord and I thought the
Lord can And you could hear him, like, seek him out.
So I asked him if I could hear your voice. But when I said that,
I heard an audible voice that said, I'm coming for you tonight.
And it gave me chills. Just, oh, it was an awful feeling.
(22:19):
And you questioned me about that. And your question was, you know,
are you supposed to have that much fear or dread when hearing the Lord's voice?
And the answer was no. No, when God speaks to you, you know,
it could be overwhelming, but there would be peace and there shouldn't be any fear.
(22:40):
Yeah, and it gave me so much fear I started to cry. And then I see my cat eyes acting weird.
I had a cat that, it's my parents, but I had it for the semester because I felt
really lonely living by myself.
And this cat starts acting weird, looking at me like intensely.
And I don't like the way he's looking at me. and I go out into the kitchen.
(23:01):
He's actually on the cabinets.
He's looking at me like he wants to hunt me. And I'm like, what in the world?
So I lock him into the, I think I remember like drawing him in or like throwing him into the bathroom.
I was like, all right, you stay there. I locked the bathroom door and I went
into the room to pray because it was just a weird feeling from this cat.
And as I'm praying, I hear a bang on my door.
(23:24):
The cat had opened the bathroom door that was locked and gotten out.
And he was throwing himself against the door. It was awful.
It was, oh, I still like, ugh, get chills from that. It was so terrifying.
And my mom calls a friend and her friend's nearby.
And my mom is three hours away, but they're driving here to try to get me because
(23:47):
I'm crying and telling them what's going on.
And so they get to me.
I think we went back to their hometown
town and we leave the cat by itself in my
apartment next day we come back
they take the cat with them the pastors
(24:08):
come over they're talking to me and my pastor says hey the reason that you're
being attacked or this is happening it's because you don't believe who you really
are who the lord says you are in him your identity you don't believe you're
the truths about you you and the Lord.
And I wasn't sure about that. I don't think I was very satisfied with his answer, but it made me wonder.
(24:30):
And this was before baptism. This was before baptism. This was before I was
truly called to the Lord.
And from that moment, I end up reading the Bible and going into the book of Acts.
So I started reading Acts, and I remember sitting in my apartment on my couch.
Actually, I was on the floor with the coffee, table
(24:54):
my bible on the coffee table and i remember reading through
the book of acts and somehow the pages felt like they were coming alive and
i see stories of people getting baptized and hearing the gospel and their lives
being transformed but the first person that i'm interested in is paul the lord
specifically talks to him a person with so much hate in his heart.
(25:16):
He calls him Lord when the Lord talks to him and he's blind.
And his scales come off his eyes and he's a new person. So Saul becomes Paul.
And I'm thinking, wow, the Lord changed that man. I've never read the story before.
And I read about Lydia and about the jailer.
And there's all these people coming to baptism and just being awake, awoken.
(25:43):
And I'm thinking, I want to be like one of those people.
I would like to be like them.
And I, at this point, I have been going through some recovery.
And I actually end up meeting Mark, meeting you on Facebook.
(26:04):
You were my friend and you would talk to me about the Lord.
We would FaceTime and you would talk about him. I remember still having a lot of anxiety.
You will pray with me about it. And that was the only thing that would calm me down.
And at this point, I'm feeling that the Lord is calling me to Him.
So I am reading Acts. I'm talking to you as my friend.
(26:27):
I'm talking to my pastor, and I tell him, I think the Lord wants me to get baptized,
but I've been Catholic. I was baptized as a child. What do I do?
What do I do? He tells me, you get your baptized.
Yeah. Wow. Wow.
So I didn't want to tell you that I was getting baptized.
(26:50):
Right. And I kept it to myself. I was going through classes.
They took a video series of me as well, just why the Lord was calling me. I was very emotional.
And I remember you sharing that with me. And I saw the amount of work that the
Lord was doing in your heart.
(27:10):
And like you said, He was really working in your heart, taking those steps towards you.
And it has been such a transformation for you as you shared that with me.
And that has been such a beautiful journey at this time that the Lord was just
speaking to you through Scripture and the Scripture really coming alive.
(27:36):
So that was so wonderful to hear. And with all of that, that it wasn't anything
that you needed to do for me because I believe that we were dating already at
that time, at that moment.
So it was your personal walk with the Lord,
a relationship that you were having with God of learning about the Lord and
(27:59):
taking that step, that step of faith with the Lord into that covenant.
So it was very personal for you. Yeah, and I mean, definitely,
I didn't want to tell you because I knew it was about me and God.
Because I didn't, I mean, the Lord had told me about you already by this time.
We'll get to that in a different episode here.
(28:21):
But I definitely knew that I did not want to do this for anyone but myself and the Lord.
The Lord had called, He Himself had called me to Him.
And that's what it was about. and you also had shared with me that there was
this Holy Spirit that I kept reading about people mentioned it but didn't know really how it worked.
(28:43):
How the Lord sent his Spirit that this was a gift and I remember you saying
when the Holy Spirit comes down you can ask for a gift and I speak in tongues
and I thought that's weird in my Catholic faith they told me speaking in tongues is something demonic,
I thought, why would I want that? But okay, and I'm reading about it and thinking,
(29:05):
oh, well, I guess he's right. They're speaking in tongues.
This is different. I didn't really know, you know?
And you were sharing so much about your family, about the stories you shared in the first episode.
It impacted me in so many ways that all of them were seeds that the Lord was
planting in my heart, ready for them to grow.
He was watering them. With every person I met, with every passage I read, he was watering me.
(29:31):
He was delivering me for things from alcohol, from the friendships I had built,
from, you know, wanting to be of the world, little by little.
So I come to baptism day, I get baptized.
It is the best day of my life. I mean, the pastor told me, Cindy,
you are not going to feel any different.
(29:52):
Like, don't think that you're going to be dunked and you come out glowing in
glitter or something, you know.
I'm crying when he asked me if I want to accept the Lord Jesus as my Savior
and I'm baptized by the Father and the Holy Spirit.
And he dunks me and I come back out and I'm feeling this fiery fire.
(30:15):
Embers in the middle of my chest and this joy oh it was the best day of my life and so I remember,
going to get changed and I'm in the changing room I'm feeling something and
I'm like the pastor said that I may not even feel anything but I'm feeling something
so I said you know Lord this is true that when Mark is saying that if I can
(30:41):
pray for a gift and it could be tongues lungs,
then Lord, I'm going to pray.
And so I prayed for three days and I felt like there's something was coming up like a whisper.
Something was bubbling inside of me and yet there was little tiny flames.
And I remember sitting in my apartment in the carpet by my bed and the window,
(31:05):
and I just knelt on the ground and I was very emotional.
And I kept praying, Lord, Lord, I believe in you.
I know that if you truly can give me this Holy Spirit that Mark talks about,
that I can have this gift of speaking in tongues, Lord, then I ask for it, Lord.
(31:28):
Please, Lord. And suddenly it became a whisper, and then I'm speaking in tongues.
And I feel like this Holy Spirit fire come down on me, this glow,
and I just knew the Holy Spirit had made his way into me.
And you read that in scripture. And I read that in scripture.
(31:49):
It was like a tongue of fire, literally, like that's what it was, it was amazing.
And I remember sharing that with you and your family rejoicing about it.
Share, I didn't actually want to share with my family because a little shy, I eventually did.
(32:10):
And that's how I was baptized and I was delivered.
So share with us now, what's your relationship now like with the Lord?
Being filled by the Holy Spirit and having a relationship with the creator of the universe.
Honestly, there's not a day that I don't get teary-eyed. It is humbling that he chose me.
(32:34):
Me not just me like he chooses people to be
his his he's calling
out to all of us actually but not someone that all
of us will come to him but the fact that he will want to
have me even though he doesn't even need me personal relationship with you it's
humbling that i get wisdom that i i know it's not coming from me or words that
(32:58):
come from me i've had moments where I've had encounters with young women that
words come out that I know it's not me,
and then they're crying and I know it's the
Lord touching their hearts or I get to pray over
somebody on the street and I know it's the Lord and my relationship with him
is it's a relationship it's a friendship he's my everything he's my father above
(33:24):
all he is my creator I'm very grateful to have him in my life.
I try to wake up in the mornings and spend time in prayer with him.
I try to seek him out now by myself, go into my secret place,
which is really my bedroom.
And I get so fueled with peace. I finally know what the armor of God is and
(33:45):
how to put it on because I didn't know how to put it on.
It was wisdom that came from him because I'm reading a Bible and I don't even
know what it really means to put on the armor of God. And then one day it just clicked.
And I'm just so eternally grateful for the way that he's worked in my life.
And honestly, I just feel that anybody could have a relationship with the Lord.
(34:09):
You just have to seek him out. And that's what the word says too.
Because he's calling. He is calling. He's calling.
And he desperately does want us to turn to him, to have that genuine and true
relationship that he himself as a creator, because we're made in His image,
both men and women, and He wants that relationship.
(34:30):
Definitely, and I'm not the type of person that is going to sit and go through the motions again.
I want to be the hands and feet of Jesus. I remember when I was little,
I told my mom, one day I'm going to be a missionary.
I reminded her that a little bit ago, and I don't even know if the Lord is calling
me to that, but I get to do ministry work now. I'm just really grateful for that.
(34:51):
And i do remember the lord telling me cindy
you were made to be a warrior you're meant
to defend my littlest ones and that's
really important to me and i was very young i was
about six years old when i heard that and i didn't know
why i just knew that was part of me but i was
using my strength for the wrong things and now
(35:12):
i am someone new everything was different from the moment i met met him when
he showed up at my history class things started to change and it was just seeds
planted by non-believers wow the lord even will use those people too definitely that's amazing,
and i remember you shared that with me but you that you were six years old you
(35:36):
were you were young you were small and you were in school in the playground
when you heard that the lord spoke spoke that into your heart.
So it seems like that he definitely, as the Heavenly Father,
was always near, always near his children, calling, always calling.
(35:57):
It's Jesus standing at the door knocking, waiting for us to open.
And so tell us, what advice would you give to those that think that maybe they
themselves are not good enough either to walk to the Lord or come to the Lord,
or their life is just so in such a rubble or messed up, and they just themselves
(36:19):
are having such a hard time finding value or their own worth that they themselves mean something.
Well, you do not have to be perfect to come to Jesus. I mean,
we have Moses, who I looked up to a lot because he was a murderer and the Lord forgave him,
(36:40):
and made him the leader of an entire nation.
We have people like the jailer. You know, he worked for the Romans.
He was definitely on the wrong side of history at that time.
I've seen tax collectors, you know, in the Bible get called to,
And nowadays we have that still happening.
(37:02):
You do not have to be perfect. You could, I mean, we are all sinners because
a perfect God has called us into peace and harmony and love in him.
And we refuse to at the beginning of time, but he sent his son, Jesus, to love on you.
He sent him to teach us and to lead us to die on the cross and rise again for
(37:23):
your salvation. So no matter what sacrifice the Jewish people did,
it could never be forgiven.
But Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice.
So you do not have to be perfect to come to him. He wants your brokenness.
He wants to carry it for you.
He said, come all you who are heavy laden.
Come to me for my yoke is easy.
(37:46):
And it truly has been. I can lay down my stress and worries to him.
He's there to help. help and he's there at all times and i'm telling you if
you just want to feel that type of love that unconditional love you will never find it but in jesus.
So don't be afraid to ask questions and ask someone for help and prayer.
(38:10):
If you've been jaded like I was by a church, the Lord is calling you today if
you're listening to this. I hope you are.
He really is calling you to relationship with him.
He's calling you to not wander any more than the wilderness,
to not feel like you're alone or that you have to be the one to make your successes
(38:33):
because it's not about you.
It's about this creator who wants to have a relationship with his children and
he wants you to be his and then spread that message across the world it's not
about well now as my christian and i'm saved and therefore that's my safe space.
(38:56):
Now i'm perfect and wonderful and i
gotta do my rituals and dress apart at all times sometimes
it's about how are you going to be the feet and
hands of jesus and how are you going to plant seeds for him and help him grow
his kingdom we are called to do that so please don't ever feel like i'm far
(39:16):
too gone that i can't come to the lord i've you know i've done yoga i've done,
things that people may not open their
eyes to but you're letting portals into your
life life drinking hanging with
the wrong people partying i never did drugs thank
god but it's hard to imagine that
(39:39):
that person was me now because when
i look back and all the pain and hurt no one
ever could fix that for me no amount of relationships that
i was going to have or the person that i was you know you couldn't fix me you
will never fix me but the lord could you will never find satisfaction like you
will in the Lord he's the only one we have a God-sized hole that needs to be
(40:03):
filled and it's not until you decide I'm gonna give you a shot,
I mean I don't have to prove to you the Lord is real he is real but I do have to tell you this.
He wants a relationship with you all you have to do is ask all you have to do
is say yes and then you can watch them work.
(40:26):
Thank you so much for your heart. Thank you so much for being vulnerable.
Thank you so much for truly sharing the mercy of the Lord has done and has shown in your life.
So I really appreciate that.
Thank you for doing this with me. All praise to God. Praise the Lord.
(40:49):
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