Here is my updated testimony. I am going back through my old blogs and updating them as I am building the habit of blogging. I promised back in 2019, when I originally posted my testimony, that I would update it when I got a chance since I had only written up until 2018. Here I am in 2023 just now getting to it. Needless to say, this is going to be a large update. A lot has happened since 2018. Hopefully, it is interesting enough that its length won’t matter. That said, this will be broken into multiple parts to keep this under book length. I’ll link part two down when it becomes available.
Before Christ
I grew up as a Pastor’s son in a family that loves Jesus. My parents love God and were/are fantastic role models. I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior when I was three, but that was only because I was afraid of going to hell. And to be honest, I don’t think it was ever genuine. Sure, I prayed the prayer, and I even believed in God, but I never truly followed Him. But I’ll say more on that later.
Most everyone knows that there seems to be only two types of Pastor’s kids. One is the kid who tries to do what their parents say and, generally speaking, tries to be respectful of them. The other one is the kid who is rebellious, but the parents don’t normally know what is going on. I was the former. I tried to be respectful of my parents, follow their commands, and be a good son. A lot of what that meant was that I needed to read the Bible and learn more about God. Unfortunately, there was a problem. The issue that arose from this is that I didn’t really have a desire to know the Bible or God. I was just trying to be a good son. What do you think happened the second I got out on my own? I completely stopped reading the Bible, going to church, and pursuing God in general.
As I just mentioned, when I left my parent’s house to go into the Navy, I immediately lost the desire to even attempt to read God’s Word. I had no desire whatsoever to continue in my relationship with the Lord. This was because one of the biggest reasons that I had been in His Word at all up to that point was the fact that it was something my parents wanted me to do. I stopped going to church, and I stopped pursuing my Father. I desired to live my own life, and because of that, I walked far from God. I still claimed to be a Christian, but it was more along the lines of “I am better than you” than actually following God. The best way I can describe where I was is by quoting James 2:19 “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that–and shudder.” I always have believed that there is one God and that the God of the Bible is that God, but my life did not show this. I wanted to live life my own way.
I had started watching porn when I was in high school and continued to do so after high school. The amount of porn I watched grew exponentially when I left my parents’ house. It got to the point that I viewed women as little more than sex objects. Not only that but, as is the way with porn (and many other sins/addictions), it is a very slippery slope. Soon “normal” porn was no longer good enough for me. Thus, it didn’t take long to start looking at more and more depraved stuff. This eventually led me to decide that porn and masturbation simply wasn’t enough. I needed to have sex. So, I tried out Tinder, but I was never able to get anything to go further than the app itself. You see, I didn’t want a relationship so I wouldn’t just meet up to get to know someone. What I wanted was just straight-up sex. The problem was that I couldn’t talk dirty or put myself out there in the way that is required to have a hookup. This would require me to act in a way that I never have. I am an introvert at heart. And remember, I still considered myself a Christian with a “better than you” mentality. When that idea fell through, I turned to a much easier (though much less legal) way of getting sex. I paid for a prostitute. Not just one either. I had finally gotten what I wanted. I had had sex a couple of times, and since that was what I desired, I should be happy, right? That could not have been further from the truth. The first time, I did enjoy myself. To this day I don’t actually have negative memories about that first time (I have reasons for why I believe this is, but it includes details that I feel like don’t need to be included here. I’m not opposed to discussing it, but I would rather do so when I have time to truly make myself understood). Despite my memories and feelings about that first time, what I did was wrong, and I do my best not to dwell on it. Yet I don’t feel the same regret that I did for the successive times. After that first time, I would feel the desire to have sex, would go do it, and then hate myself for doing it. I was like a drug addict who hates the drug but just can’t stop going back for more when the need to get high strikes. Every time I would tell myself that it was the last time, but every time I heard a little voice saying it would be better the next time. So, I kept going.
During this time, I rapidly gained ranks in my Navy career and was over halfway up the enlisted totem pole by the time I was 19 years old. I was an E-5 which means that I oversaw a “work center” which is about 8 people. My rapid rise can easily be associated with my love of intelligence. The Navy has a test that you have to take which is the single greatest influence on whether or not you get to advance. I gain knowledge extremely easily. That basically meant that I was able to advance every time I had the opportunity. This added a weird dynamic in that I was put in charge of people nearly a decade older than me in some cases. I was a fair and liked leader for the most part, but I wasn’t much of a leader. I spent more time just being someone in the group than I did actually leading the group. I hated having to do trainings and other public speaking type events. People would come to me for training because I knew a lot, but if it was a group larger than 2 or 3 people, I really struggled with it.
All of this happened in the first three years of my Navy career.
Enter Jenn. Again.
It is at this point that Jenn came back into my life. But before we get there, we need to back up a bit. I met Jenn when I worked at Trails End Ranch in Ekalaka Montana back in 2012. We had liked each other but, due to my impending military service, I didn’t want to pursue any kind of relationship with her. And let’s be honest, I can be extremely obstinate. People were pushing me towards her. I pushed back. Hard. There is more to that story, but I am trying to keep this under book length, so I shall stop there. One day, in late 2016, my military contact had reached the three-fourths mark, and I received a text. My grandma sent me a text saying, “One of your old girlfriends still has feelings for you.” I was pretty confused at first. I had never had a girlfriend. But, after doing some thinking on it, it only made sense that she was talking about Jenn. So, like the true romantic that I am, I messaged her on Facebook. To be completely fair to myself though, it was the only way I knew how to get in contact with her. You may remember that I didn’t want a relationship while I was in the military, so what changed? Well, originally the plan had been to do a full 20 years of service but, despite some awesome possibilities for my job, I decided that I was going to get out at the end of my four-year contract. Thus, I was thinking about a possible relationship since I was almost done with the Navy. Very soon after contacting Jenn, I suggested that we should exchange testimonies since there were some pretty serious things that she needed to be aware of about me. It was the first time in my life that I had ever given my full story. Well, most of it. I told her that I had only purchased the services of one prostitute while I was deployed to Bahrain, which obviously wasn’t true. If you have read my book, particularly the chapter on forgiveness, you will know more about how that eventually came out. Additionally, I didn’t tell her that I had completely walked away from the Lord. In fact, I still made it seem like I was pursuing God. I didn’t want her to know that I had walked away because I knew that she was still seeking Him. What is interesting though is that the day I had decided to let her back in my life was the day I quit watching porn. The thought of having a relationship with a real woman was the kick I needed to leave that life behind. Though, as you will see in part two of my testimony, it hasn’t been without its struggles.
After I had asked her out, we had a long-distance relationship in which we saw each other four times in total before getting married (if you don’t count skype calls as “seeing” each other). I was in Virginia, and she was in South Dakota. The only times we actually saw each other in person were the three times I was able to take leave prior to deployment, and once when I went on terminal leave after deployment. The first time we both met in Billings MT, which is where I am from. The second time, we went to Christmas at her family’s house in Minnesota where I asked her dad for his blessing to ask Jenn to marry me. The third time we saw each other was a couple of weeks prior to me deploying for the last time. We met in Billings again and got engaged. This all happened in roughly six months.
Coming to Christ
During deployment, I had a fair amount of time to think, and I realized something. I was engaged to a Christian woman, who believes a major lie about me. We were engaged and she still didn’t know that I wasn’t following Christ. Despite the fact that I wasn’t pursuing God, I knew that it would be a very bad idea for us to get married with her believing a lie about me. Additionally, as someone who grew up in the church as a pastor’s kid, I knew the idea of the verse “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers.” This applied to our situation. I knew that I wasn’t following God and Jenn was. Therefore, I realized that I needed to make a change. I simply started reading God’s Word again. God took that and instilled in me a need to get to know Him. For the first time in my life, I had an actual desire to read the Bible and to try to get to know God. It was amazing. I learned more about God and the Bible in 2017 than I had learned in the entire 21 years prior. All because I was truly pursuing God for the first time. I have found immense joy in getting to know my Savior. Thus, despite being “saved” at the age of three, I don’t believe that I was actually saved until I was 21. This is because I didn’t pursue God and had a heart change until this time.
About a year before I started pursuing God again, my mom asked me if I had ever thought about going into ministry or going to Bible College, and I told her, “No. That isn’t where God wants me to be.” Notice that I still tried to look like a person who was following God. Anyway, once I started seeking God, I began asking Him what He wanted me to do with my life. Ironically, He showed me that I was going to be in ministry. I figured that if I was going to be in ministry, I probably should look into Bible College. Therefore, I started looking into Bible Colleges which eventually led me to Moody Bible Institute because my cousin Trey was going there. I was looking through the majors and saw one, and immediately thought that that was it. The major was Missionary Aviation Technologies-Flight. For the first time in my life, I actually wanted to do more school (I hated high school). Anyway, I thought and prayed about it for a while, and decided that this was where I was supposed to be. After I had done all of this thinking and praying, I sent my fiancé an email (I was on deployment at the time, so email was my only means of communication with her). Up until this point, I had been planning on going into law enforcement of some kind. So, she received a, rather large, email that included an apology for lying to her, the good news that I was following God, and an “oh, by the way, God is calling me into ministry.” Apparently, I thought it was a good idea to think it through on my own first, and then just tell her what has been happening. How wrong I was. Needless to say, she took it about as well as can be expected. Luckily for me, it didn’t scare her off.
There is obviously so much more that I have to learn about God, and I still have issues with remembering to communicate with Him. That said, things that have bothered me for some time about the church, are starting to make sense now. I have also found that the church is not always very biblically sound, which prompted me to write Parables and Teachings Understanding God’s Truth. I had always taken most things that were said in church as biblical. An example of this is how Christians put too much focus on good works. During my studies, I have found that this is actually a false gospel. Don’t get me wrong, doing good work is something that Christians should do, but it is not the start. It is more important to have a relationship with God than it is to do good deeds. That being said, good deeds should come out of our relationship with God.
It has been amazing seeing the work God has done in our lives as we have pursued Him. Going to Moody was one of the worst financial decisions we could have made, but we have never had need. Things have been very tight several times, but we always had enough to get by thanks to gifts or mistakes that I have made. Yes, a mistake or two did end up coming in clutch though I guarantee it was God and not the mistake itself. An example of this was that I injured my knee badly enough that I was told that I wouldn’t be able to work over the summer, and three days later my disability from the VA came through. I had that application in for over half a year. This meant that we would be able to live through the summer without me working. Things have happened that shouldn’t have without God intervening. For example, getting to Moody and getting married to Jenn wouldn’t have happened without God making a way (at least not until much later than we were anticipating). I was on deployment when I chose to go to Moody, and my commanding officer repeatedly told me that I wasn’t going to be able to get off of the ship while on deployment. One day in July I was told that I would be leaving the ship in two days. Which meant that I was able to start school on time and get married. I made it back to Billings the night before our wedding. Talk about cutting it close. Things like that have fallen into place too well to be a coincidence. I have now completed my first year of college and start my specialized training this fall (2018).
This is an updated version of part one of my testimony. As you may have noticed, this ends in 2018 and I left it written as though I am unaware of what happens next. Part two will address roughly the next four years of my life (mid/late 2018 through early 2023 and some plans for the future). A lot has happened in those four years.
As always if you have any questions feel free to contact me at ljandersonbooks@outlook.com or comment below. To never miss a new post, follow me on Facebook and Twitter.
L. J. Anderson - Author and Blogger 
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