born again testimony of Eloise Gardenier

October 1992 – The old adage, one picture is worth a thousand words, can apply to this testimony. In this case however, it is two pictures that tell the story even if they are nothing more than an outward appearance and only reflection of what took place on my inside.

I was a walking dead person; body, soul and spirit and it was reflected in my face or COUNTENANCE. Isaiah 3:8-9 says; “For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen: because their tongue and their doings are against the Lord, to provoke the eyes of His glory. The show of their COUNTENANCE doth witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. Woe unto their soul! for they have rewarded evil unto themselves.” A portion of Ezekiel 27:35 says; “… they shall be troubled in their COUNTENANCE.”

My life had become as Jerusalem; ruined, and as Judah; fallen! This was because my tongue and my doings were against the Lord, and due to this I had brought shame to his glory without even knowing it. I hadn’t blatantly blasphemed God or spoken against him. In fact I seldom even took his name in vain. In my doings I never tried to work against anything I suspected God was involved in. For most of my life I was an ardent churchgoer and always believed that there was a God and that Jesus Christ was his Son.

I guess one might be able to say, many of my offenses were because of my ignorance of the true character of God, and what He really requires of us. Many of the things the world teaches us to believe are righteous are directly opposite to the way God sees it. These beliefs affected my actions. However, I was still guilty for not finding out the truth.

I knew in my heart that some things were not pleasing to God, yet with others I had no idea they were offensive to Him. Through my words and my actions, or sometimes omissions, I did in fact bring shame to his glory. So through years of living in this way, my COUNTENANCE became troubled.

By 1973, at the age of forty seven, I had already been divorced a number of years. I was frustrated and felt a complete failure in my compulsion to play both mother and father to my five children (especially the three that were still living with me). My only daughter had moved to Pittsburgh and to say that I missed her companionship is a great understatement.

Just as I myself, so all of my children were in varying degrees, oppressed; physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Much of it was due to the break down and eventual breaking up of the family as well as the lost state I was in. I felt completely helpless to do anything much for them, mainly, I suppose, because I was helpless! They had inherited many of their problems from both me, and their fathers.

I was an emotional alcoholic, physically ill, and totally without hope. As is almost always the case, I had not faced the truth of just how serious my condition was. I spent a great deal of time trying to work things out “MY WAY”, charging much to rotten luck, making excuses for myself, and blaming most of my problems on others. The rest of my time I spent in deep depression. Bad Luck?

In both Psalms 42:11 and 43:5 the psalmist cries out, “Why are thou cast down, 0 my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me?” Proverbs 15:13 says; “A merry heart maketh a cheerful COUNTENANCE: but by the sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken.”

Then in Job 33:21-23 we find this; “His flesh is consumed away, that it cannot be seen; and his bones that were not seen stick out. Yea, his soul draweth near unto the grave, and his life to the destroyers. If there be a messenger with him, an interpreter, one among a thousand, to show unto man & uprightness:”

As these passages describe, my heart my spirit was broken, my flesh was consumed away, my bones stuck out and my soul drew near unto the grave and my life to the destroyers. This was so much the case that on several occasions I was on the very brink of taking my own life.

Then one day, in the midst of my despair, this thought came to me, “No one could have this much “BAD LUCK”, I must be doing something wrong.” As soon as that revelation came to me, I began to see things much differently than I ever had before. I was beginning to see that any changes in my life had to begin with reality especially my attitude. I started to suspect that it wasn’t only the things I had done wrong, but that there were things I had neglected to do that I should be doing. This feeling became more and more nagging.

In 1 Timothy 2:5 we find the answer to the condition in which I had found myself. “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus:”

Finally I cried out to God for help from the depths of my heart and being! I became willing to surrender my will to his. God heard my impassioned plea, and had Jesus, that one mediator; introduce himself to me in a very personal way. When I had exhausted all other places to turn for help, when through the sorrow in my heart, my spirit was broken; I called to him as never before. As the cries went out in the beginning of Psalms 42, 43, and Job 33, so did I also call to the only place left for me …… up!

The remainder of those Scriptures expresses some of what happened for me when I was desperate enough to lay down my pride and receive his mercy.

Psalm 42:11 and 43:5 say the same thing; ” … hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise Him, who is the health of my COUNTENANCE”.

Job 33:24-29; “Then He is gracious unto him and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom. His flesh shall be fresher than a child’s: He shall return to the days of his youth: He shall pray unto God, and He will be favorable unto him: and shall see his face with joy: for He will render unto man His righteousness. He looketh upon men, and if any say, I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it profited me not: He will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life shall see the light. LO, ALL THESE THINGS WORKETH GOD OFTENTIMES WITH MAN.”

Praise God! I became one of those men. Jesus gave me a “new life”, and soon my COUNTENANCE began to change.

After becoming truly acquainted with who Jesus is, and that He had died for me personally, one of the first revelations I had was that I had truly sinned, (in ways I hadn’t even considered sin, not only sins of the flesh, but the worst sins of the heart) and perverted that which was right, and that it indeed had profited me not.

I also soon realized that only through Jesus would I now be delivered from going into the pit, and that the light of real truth was beginning to shine into my life. Luke 11:34 promises us this; “The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light, but when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness.” As I got hold of my “new life”, and I came to know about God’s ways, I could say: “Thou hast made known to me the ways of life; thou shalt make me full of joy with thy COUNTENANCE.” Acts 2:28

Only a week after meeting Jesus as my personal Saviour, while alone in my own bedroom one Saturday night, (while reading my father’s marked Bible, given to me at his death 17 years earlier), I met Him once more as the donor of another of His wonderful gifts. I met Him as the baptizer of the Holy Ghost and fire.

Once my heart was circumcised by my Saviour and my God, I wanted any gift that was available to me. I had no doctrinal stumbling blocks about the “baptism in the Holy Spirit”, so with enthusiasm, and childlike faith I asked for it when a person held my hands and prayed in her heavenly prayer language (tongues). For me this gift was as simple as God’s promise in Ezekiel 36:26 & 27; “A merry heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.” In Luke 1:11-13 we find; “If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he shall ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye then being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children; how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?”

Old Things Passed Away
After having been born-again and filled with the Holy Ghost I did soon begin to see that; “The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the Lord is sure, enlightening the eyes.” Psalm 19:8

So for me personally I believe for others also, our COUNTENANCE, FACE, EYES, our very appearance depends upon our relationship with our Lord.

What we read in 2 Corinthians 5:17 truly came to pass in my life. “Therefore if any man be in Christ he is a “new creature” old things are passed away behold, all things are become new.”  So these pictures reflect what happened on the inside when I let Jesus come into my life and heart. He filled up that empty feeling that had always remained no matter what, even though I had continually sought new solutions and new relationships to fill the void. As Christ filled my emptiness and one by one began to make all things about me new, my very COUNTENANCE began to change.

Some time later my husband and I were water baptized by other believers, in a lake near Worcester, Mass. There we publicly attested to our complete faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior. We confessed and acted out our desire to die to self and be buried with Christ that we might be risen with Him. (Romans 6:4 and Colossians 2:12)

That same “new life” is available to “whosoever” will. (John 3) Whosoever will truly give his or her will up to God’s will. Although this is my story of God’s mercy on me, I am urged to borrow from Paul in 2 Corinthians 4:56; “For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord and ourselves your servants for Jesus sake.” (Of myself I could never have done anything to become a “new creature”. I could never have changed, never have earned it.) The only part I had was in yielding my will to the will of God. I had to give up!.. (My plans and ideas).

I forever praise the Lord; “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of knowledge of the glory of God in the flesh of Jesus Christ.”

My final Scripture of encouragement is; “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affections on things above not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God” Colossians 3:1-3 And our blessed hope is; “When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory.”

HALLELUJAH!

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