God Said "Would you let me rebuild your life on MY ALTAR?"

Testimony by Michelle W. - Cookeville, TN

Tell us about who you use to be:

Utterly lost. This is the only way I can describe myself before encountering Jesus’s love & redemption. My story of coming to Christ is long and includes much more than salvation. It was like I was being suffocated by things I had done and participated in and things done to me, yet somehow He protected me before I ever knew Him. Before Christ my story includes everything from infant abandonment to horrific abuse to being drawn to the supernatural, exposure to witchcraft and making agreements with satan that if I could just feel something-anything- I would give myself over to him because I had tried religion (Mormonism) and it failed me. Depression and suicide. Striving and earning. Worthlessness. Rejection and anger. I wanted to die. The list of words that were etched into my heart could be unrolled like a scroll. At 16, the night before I was going to kill myself, I met Christ at a concert where the gospel was presented and I was saved. I ran to that alter! This is where my testimony moves from I to Him. 

There is so much more Jesus has done in my life than I could ever tell. He has physically healed me miraculously. He has healed my deep soul wounds. He has delivered me. He restored my marriage. I truly know Him as the One who came to heal the brokenhearted, set the captives free  and proclaim my freedom. He gave me my voice back to proclaim the good news to others. I am nothing like I once was, I can hardly remember that person. All of the trauma, all of the pain is gone and He has turned into a beautiful garden of life. I am a first generation Christian. My husband and I are raising a first generation kingdom family. We lead a home fellowship under the direction of Holy Spirit. Where I used to fear the judgment of God, I now welcome His correction. There is literally nothing that God has not changed in my life. One of the most beautiful things is God took the ashes of my life and He uses them to fertilize the things He wants to grow, truly ashes into beauty. I now take those once broken places and speak healing to others. I get in the mud with them, as my husband and I minister in inner healing and deliverance, I get the great privilege of taking others in their brokenness, shame and guilt right into the arms of Jesus. My life declaration is, all my life for Your glory. 

 Tell us what it means to be ALTARed:

I love the word ALTARed. But I guess it’s the word alter that stands out to me, primarily because you cannot go to the altar and not walk away altered. We cannot walk away from encountering Jesus and not be changed. Years ago at a low point in my life where I was faced with once again, through certain circumstances, with the overwhelming pain of being fatherless. it was there I had the first of many more encounters with the Lord. It was this first experience He showed me my life built on an altar. I saw it as a city, massive and intricate. I had the overwhelming awareness that it was built by my own hands. The stone altar was the foundation it was built on. Then in the vision, fire fell from above and consumed the entire thing. Literally destroying it to nothing but ashes. And the Lord said to me, “Will you let me rebuild your life on my altar?” with that question I was flooded with the awareness of what all of it meant, and I was driven to my knees in repentance. This was the first of many encounters with the Lord, a good number of them involving altars. The altar has always been a very powerful symbol in my life, one that He brings me back to often. I wrote a book sharing some of these experiences. But the most recent one was probably the most powerful. If you want to know that I’m happy to share it. Overall, the altar, to me, ties back in with my life declaration and His relentless pursuit of my heart.

Below is a link to Michelle's book:

Michelle W. - Cookeville, TN