A personal testimony, Part 2

I'd love to be able to tell you that the rest of the story is a happy one. (If this is your first time here, it'd be better if you read here and here first.) The fact is I should have grown in Christ from that moment of being His. I did do the "duties" of a Christian: I prayed, I read the Bible, I attended services "every time the doors were open". So what was the problem? I did it for all the wrong reason, all the wrong motivation. I did it all for myself and I still relied upon myself. So, what naturally followed? I fell flat on my face. I started living in a way that was worse than before I was saved. I identified myself with the world and its ways. There were times I rededicated my life to Jesus, but it was never a real change. I eventually grew bored with church, and stopped attending altogether. From this point, I eventually started wanting things for my life that were no good. God in His great patience let it go on like this for quite awhile. And then His Sovereign hand moved. I lost my father in January 2009. I lost my job of 8 years the following October. If there is one point I would call rock bottom in my life, this was it. I had come to the end of myself. And it's here that we hear God the clearest. My wife, who by the way, never stopped praying through all of the dark times, got me to come to church on some random Sunday in November. Maybe I was really listening to the preacher this time, I honestly don't know. What I do remember is this: God clearly spoke to me, in an audible mind voice. I'm quite skeptical about a lot of the eerie sounding things people talk about, but this is what happened. The voice I heard was my father's, but it was the Father speaking, "Come back to Me, come back to Me, come back to Me..." I have only been able to describe it one way. It was like I was running away with a rubber band around me. That rubber band was what tied me to God. When I answered this call, it was like the rubber band snapped me back to a closeness to Him I hadn't felt since the first. I recall it like it was yesterday. I turned to my wife and said, "I'm going to start coming back to church," knowing full well it was so much more than that. There was no ceremony, no coming forward. I was ready to live it for real, and I knew I would only be able to show it with His Hand upon me. I've heard it said this way, and there is no better way for me to put it: I got saved when I was 16, but I didn't start living for God until I was 32. It's God who deserves all the glory; it is He who keeps me on the path; it is He who picks me up when I fall; it is He who allows me to serve Him along the way.