Hey There

I am always interested to hear about peoples' stories and how the Lord saved them, especially if I am reading their work. Perhaps you are the same way. Below you will find my short testimony. To God be the glory.

Julie Cherry

Testimony

I had no real reason to be depressed, and that made me feel all the more guilty about it. I was twelve.

I grew up with two wonderful parents. We weren't ultra-wealthy, but I never wondered if there would be food on the table. My childhood was a blessed and a happy one. So why was I feeling so low - like life wasn't even worth living?

I kept all these feelings to myself. My desire not to hurt my family kept me from my darker thoughts. What little faith I possessed at the time helped me understand taht there was something more to life, I just wasn't quite sure what that was. I just kept plodding along with a smile on my face during the day and a heavy hopelessness in my heart as I went to sleep every night.

Towards the end of my middle school years, I overheard a conversation between my mother and my cousin. Mom was recounting a story about her mother, my grandma. Apparently, Grandma had gone through quite a depression too. She didn't feel like she could make sense of her Bible or even pray. But out of obedience and faithfulness to the Word, she committed to copying Scripture every night. She didn't try to "get anything out of it" or interpret it in any fancy way. She just meditated on the words and what they were saying as she copied. Grandma credits her time copying Scripture with helping to lift her out of her depression.

I figured it was worth a try. If it worked for Grandma, maybe it could work for me. So I started copying. Over the next year or two, I copied nearly the whole New Testament before entering high school. And reader, I have to tell you... it worked. It wasn't some sort of magic formula with a guarantee slapped on the label for a happier and healthier life. It worked because I fell in love.

I realized as I scratched word by word in my notebook just how much of God I had understood secondhand, and now here He was in living color on the pages - not as I had imagined Him, but as He really was, how He was revealing Himself to be. I don't know when I stopped asking questions regarding who I was or why I felt any certain way. I simply didn't care anymore in light of what I was seeing in my Bible. It was a slow burn, but I was enamored. By age fifteen, I can say with surety that I possessed a saving faith in the one true God.

I echo the sentiments of the prophet Isaiah when I say that God's Word accomplished the purpose in my life for which it was sent, and it continues to do so today. This is why I remain so passionate about teaching the Bible to anyone who will listen - youth groups, women's Bible studies, teenage girls at church - anyone who is open to join me at my kitchen table for a cup of tea. The Word of God was the life-changing regenerative tool in the Holy Spirit's hands in my life then, and it is still so now. I have experienced what the author of Hebrews calls the "living and active" nature of Scripture.

The Book

This book came about because I was doing what I have been doing for many years: teaching a women's Bible study. We happened to be studying a passage which included the topic of submission, among other things. Predictably, there were were questions. I didn't feel that I had enough time with the big group present to do the topic justice. So, I sat down over winter break from school to write up a more comprehensive resource.

I figured that I had taught it so many times, it might be worth writing down. I wanted something I could hand to one of my ladies and say, "Here is a bigger answer to the questions you brought up tonight. If you're up for it, maybe we can go out to coffee later to discuss it."

So I wrote it up and handed it to one of my church elders to proofread and give suggestions. I thought it might be a helpful packet or short book for the ladies in my church when the topic came up. But God had other plans. The document was passed on to Dave Jenkins at Servants of Grace, and the rest is history. Publishing a book had never been part of my life's plans, but isn't that so often the case when God works in our lives? This way, He rightly gets all the credit. My only hope and prayer is that this book would be a help to my sisters out there who have not yet seen the full picture of joy in what Scripture has to say to us about submission to Christ and to one another. To God alone be the glory.

For as the rain and snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth,

making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,

so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty,

but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

Isaiah 55:10-11