Testimony
Who Kristi Is In Christ
By Kristi Watts
The 700 Club
CBN.com
– Laughter and my faith in God have always been hallmarks of my life. But a few years ago, I couldn’t seem to find either one of them.
I’m the youngest of five kids, and there was never a dull moment in our household. We didn’t need TV to entertain us; we had each other.
Marriage and family were and still are everything. After all, my parents have been married for almost 50 years. My grandparents and great grandparents were married for almost 60. So when it was my turn to walk down the aisle, there was no question in my mind that my life would follow suit.
But shortly after our sixth anniversary and the birth of our son, my husband chose to leave us. When I got a divorce, that rocked my world. It rocked me, because I felt like a failure.
It broke me and not only did it break me, but I was just consumed with shame. I’m looking at all these people around me. Everyone else is OK, and everyone else is married. So not only did I feel like a failure, I felt like, what kind of Christian am I? For the first time, I had to examine my life and say, “I’ve called myself a Christian since I was 5 years old, but what does that mean?” It’s like I’ve held onto the title, but there was no substance behind it.
As a woman and a Christian, I felt powerless. So I did what came naturally -- I tried to control the situation and fix it!
So that first year I focused on the outside. During my pregnancy, I gained 65 lbs. All energy was [used in] getting those pounds off! In one year I lost most of the weight, and I looked great, but I compare myself to this: when I was in third grade, we used to make these little eggs. You’d poke a hole in the top, poke a hole in the bottom, and you’d blow the egg yoke out. So from the outside, it looked like an egg. But if you put any pressure on it, it’s hollow and it will break. That’s who I was.
So if anybody looked at me on the outside, I looked great. I looked normal. I was fine. No one could tell that inside I was empty, broken and a mess.
I went to Texas, and I did this interview of this woman named Mary Forsythe. She was this big-time rich woman who had all this money. She had everything and ended up through a series of events going to prison.
I go into her house to do the interview. She brings me into the living room and begins to prophesy to me. She looks at me and says this: “Put your hands up. On one hand you’re divorced, single mom. You’re a failure. You’re a statistic. You’re weak. You’re nothing. On the other hand, you were made in the image of Christ. You are the head and not the tail. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. You are beautiful and God has a plan and purpose for you. Which one do you want to choose to be? Because you are choosing to be this one, and God wants you to know who you are in Him.” That changed my life.
Even though I was a Christian for almost all of my life, I realized I was weak. It’s like I behaved the way I thought a Christian should act, but I didn’t read the Bible enough to have that in-depth knowledge of how I should be in Christ.
So I asked to go on hiatus from The 700 Club. I still produced stories, but in my off hours, I spent more time getting to know God.
For the first time in my life, I wanted to know God, because all other times, I only read the Bible for what He could do for me, what I could get out of the Bible, what I could use from the Bible. I only wanted Jesus as a source, a tool. I wanted to know Him for what I could get from Him.
Then I said Lord, “This is Your word. Teach me. Show me. I need You to give me Your mind. If You say I have the mind of Christ, then that means that I should be able to read this and understand it. Lord, I want You to give me revelation. I want You to give me insight. I want to know You.”
When you read the Word of God, the Word is life. It penetrates your heart, your mind, your spirit. Those deep places that you don’t even know exist, those places that hurt, the Word began to heal.
It’s like the Lord, like clay, started to form me, shape me and mold me into who He wanted me to be.
I would not change anything that I’ve gone through, because for the first time in my life, I feel free. I feel free from other people’s expectations of me. I feel free from the titles and the obligations. I feel free.
It wasn’t until I went through all this stuff -- went through shame, went through feeling like a failure, went through my faithless walk, went through the divorce and all these things that I realized, ‘Lord, You set me free!’
How does He set me free? How does he set us free? By showing us who we’re not, and who HE is! And that’s what the Lord did for me.
Today when I laugh or smile, it comes from knowing who I am in Christ and who He is to me. It ’s not just a smile; it’s the joy of the Lord which truly is my strength.
Has this testimony touched your heart? Let Kristi know. Email The 700 Club.
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