Christian’s testimony on how the Gospel transformed his life.

Hartland Fall Convocation 2018: Tech Transformation

<p>Christian’s testimony on how the Gospel transformed his life.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Hartland Institute of Health and Education

Christian Berdahl

Broken to Breakthrough

Gracious Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you for another Sabbath day, 1 Sabbath closer to heaven.

Father, I pray that you would bless us with your presence, you would feed us with your Holy Spirit, guide and lead us into truth.

And Father, I pray as I give my testimony tonight that you would hide me behind your cross because this testimony is about you it's not about me.

My testimony is entitled From Broken to Breakthrough a Journey of Faith, Hope and Victory And I'm going to start with scripture, even though being raised I didn't know what scripture was, but I'm going to start there because that's always the best place to start with God's people.

Revelation 12 11 you heard it earlier, and they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony and they loved not their lives unto the death.

And so this is talking about God's church that has faith in Christ and his all sufficient sacrifice and spilling of his blood on Calvary and they overcame by the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony as well and so it's my privilege to give you that tonight and to share what God has done for me Some of you may not know my testimony and I really want to encourage the young people that are here tonight.

It's interesting for me to say these words.

I love Jesus because I was not raised in a home where there was any Jesus.

In fact, frankly, I did not want God to be the answer in my life.

I had seen a lot of people that were what I would classify as just full-on hypocrites.

And so I wasn't interested in what I saw in and around the world and in and around Christendom when I was a boy.

In fact, I wasn't raised in a healthy home.

Even my birth was a tremendous event of stress.

My mother was 16 and she was a non-Christian.

Even though his father went to church, It was just his personal thing that he had, his own personal religion.

Both of my parents had siblings, but they were 18 plus years older than them, so they were raised basically as single children.

And so what my mother didn't know was that my father had started using drugs by the time he was 14 years old.

He started stealing prescription drugs out of medicine cabinets of his parents and his neighbors.

And by the time he was 17 years old, this is before my mother had even met him, he was already a daily drinker and he was an alcoholic at the ripe old age of 17.

Over the next 5 years, my 2 brothers, Aaron and Brandon, would be born.

And by the time I was 7, we had moved from place to place from East Coast to West Coast and all up and down California 13 times by the time I was 7.

My father couldn't keep a job because he was drunk or on drugs.

And when you don't pay the rent, you get kicked out.

And my mom did not work outside of the home.

And 1 night my drunk father was driving us home after a barbecue for the day where he had been drinking throughout the day.

He was swerving all over the road as he was attempting to get us home.

My mother was trying to wrestle the keys out of his hand before he got in the car and that didn't work.

And so we got home, I believe, by God's grace and God's grace alone, even though my mom and dad and nobody was asking for God in their lives.

When we got home, she said, enough is enough, and she said, that's it, I'm leaving.

We moved out and moved in with my aunt for a little while while my mom got a job and got on her feet.

And my biological father joined the military.

He now at this point was heavy in his addiction.

He was a drug addict and he was an alcoholic and he thought, I'll just get my life.

I lost my family and my kids now and I've got to get my life going in a better direction.

Unfortunately to his chagrin, his dismay, he found that drugs were just as rampant in the military back in the 70s as it was on the street.

And within 1 week, he was doing heroin with his commanding officer.

In fact, it was easy to source the drugs and alcohol.

And my mother put us in daycare while she was going to school.

And unfortunately, about 6 of us little boys were being sexually molested by the teenage son of the babysitter.

And this would be 1 of the first secrets that I would keep and not share with anybody.

In fact, I wouldn't even tell my mom until I was an adult.

I honestly wish I would have told somebody because I've often wondered how long that young teenager continued to do that with the other children.

You know, when someone's engaged in that kind of inappropriate activity, they twist the little minds around and make the children think that, you know, that you shouldn't tell anybody and if you tell somebody, you're going to get in trouble.

And I want to encourage the young people here tonight, especially the children.

Nobody should be touching you in your private parts ever.

Because unfortunately, this problem is everywhere in the world, including the church.

And we can't be naive to think that because we're in church that maybe our children are sick.

Because the reality is, the church is not a place that's filled with saints, it's a hospital for sin sick souls.

And so, I want you tonight or tomorrow, young people, young children, you have Uncle Christian's permission to ask your parents, what did he mean by my private parts?

Mom and dad, you need to educate your children because they're curious.

I taught my children when they were young about, not like major details, but I taught them some information because I wanted them to understand how these things work the way that God wanted them to understand it, amen?

Not how the other little kids were going to educate them, how the playground or school play yards going to educate them, but rather the way that God wants a parent, a godly parent to educate them.

And so it is our job to not be so worried about this.

And please, young people, go and ask your parents, what did he mean, what did Uncle Christian mean by that?

And parents, you better sit him down, you better tell him.

Because I'm 1 of those kids that was hurt.

Because my mother never told me, nobody should be doing this, nobody should ever touch you like that, and if they ever did, you come and tell me, because that's what these kids need to know.

These children need to know that if something happens like that, they can come to mom and dad or grandma or grandpa or the pastor and say, here's what's been going on, can you help me?

Now this is not really a light testimony.

But greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world.

And so I kept this secret, never told my mom, and I was thought back as a child and even as a teenager, as an adult, what if I had said something?

Perhaps I could have saved some children from a terrible situation.

It needs to be dealt with properly with the authorities and you haven't done anything wrong.

My mother got remarried to a man that seemed normal at first.

He was heavy handed right away and he took over the discipline right away.

Eventually, he became our family's worst nightmare.

He was violent, extremely abusive, and sinister.

The way the abuse was just, I'm not going to go into it tonight, physically, emotionally, mentally, it was tragic.

And the constant yelling and cursing and brow-beating and the belittling just became a way of life for us.

In short, I've been whipped, I've been beat, I've been tied up, neglected.

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Broken to Breakthrough

Transcript

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