The Power to Transform

The Pastor stood after the Praise and Worship session, and all the noise died down. He smiled and turned to the young lady seated in the front row.
“Come, Ndidi, tell us your story.”
Ndidi was hesitant. She started attending fellowship meetings two weeks before and didn’t know if she could open up about her past life. She stood, unsure, but when she remembered the power of her transformation, she stepped forward and stood before all.
“Good evening,” She said, smiling at how confident she felt.
“I am a second year, Banking and Finance undergrad in the School of Business. I will start with my childhood. I was a sheltered child. My parents didn’t have many of us and tried to shield their children from the evil they witnessed daily. I grew up shy and introverted, not doing the kind of things my friends and age mates did. I lived this way until my last year in secondary school. After my final exams, I did the unthinkable. I attended an all-night party without the knowledge of my parents and got away with it.
“This secret life continued when I gained admission into this school. From my first year until about a month ago, I attended several parties with my friends, smoked cigarettes, and drank alcohol. Though I knew my habits were terrible, I felt like I had escaped from a high-security prison. I was free to live as I chose.
“Something happened to me last month. A guy I wanted to date asked me instead to give my life to Jesus, and I obliged, laughing at myself. I repeated the words after him, to make him happy, and joked to my friends about my funny act afterward. It was all fun and games to me, but God heard me that night. You see, though on the external I joked, I asked myself as I said the words, if it was possible to change? God heard the question, and unknown to me, set out to answer it.
“A week after I made a joke of becoming Christ’s, the Police arrested my partying group on our way back to school from a gig. We didn’t observe the curfew regulations the government put in place. After bail the next morning, I went straight to bed, still drunk, and unable to attend lectures. While I slept or tried to, tired of my life, my roommate played a Christian tape on her radio. I didn’t listen, but it kept playing and disturbing my peace. When I tuned in, all I heard were the lyrics. The songs touched my heart, and after a while, I played the tape repeatedly.
“The words in the songs spoke to me about me. The spoke about a love stronger and more powerful than all my sins and problems. They spoke about salvation, redemption, a greater life. By the next week, I could sing the songs on my own and took the words to heart, believing them. A week after that, I had the power and conviction to say no to every event, party, and bad habit my friends proposed to get me out of my room. They worried about me, called me names, and laughed at my changed life, but all that didn’t shake me. I knew a greater power than I’d ever known, was at work, and boy was it fast.”
The people listening laughed, and Ndidi smiled back.
“I stand here at the Pastor’s insistence to tell everybody listening that God hears, and He knows what we are going through. It took Him two weeks, and I gave up a lifestyle built in almost two years. I don’t smoke anymore, and neither do I drink alcohol. I have no interest in going to parties either. All I seek is the one who changed me because I know He just started His good work.”
Ndidi stopped and looked at the Pastor with a smile. He nodded as he stood and joined her.
“Ndidi is still as amazed as most of us who knew her in the past are, at God’s immense power. He swept in and transformed her from the inside, and He is still doing His work. Her story is a reminder to the people who think God has stopped working in their lives. For the ones who think His ears have gone deaf and his hands are too short to save. Ndidi didn’t know our Father heard her the day she yielded her life, but He listened and answered her inner cry for change. God is still answering the cries of our hearts, working all things out according to the counsel of His will. Be encouraged brethren, and continue to believe. We will see God’s glory in our lives.” He turned to Ndidi. “Thank you, Ndidi. God bless you for this testimony.”
Ndidi nodded and went back to her seat. Nobody else was aware of the tears that fell from the eyes of another young lady, a friend of hers, whose life had been touched by her testimony. She believed God could also change her as He had done Ndidi. Nobody else but God, as usual, heard her cry.

Till next time, be transformed!!!