“Rest and acceptance once felt out of reach…” – Larry’s Testimony

Vikki Waters • November 4, 2017

I grew up in a fairly normal American Christian family being the youngest of five children. A couple of times a week as a family we went to a mainstream evangelical church. At the age of nine I was baptized because some of my friends were but I didn’t really understand what it meant. I believed that I was a Christian for many years to come but knew something was not right. During my college years I went in the opposite direction of God and religion for several years to the point of not believing in God any longer. At one point I realized my need for Jesus and began a personal relationship with Him who turned my life right side up and brought life, peace and joy.

For about the next 30 years I saw Jesus as good and Father God as good if I did good and not so good if I didn’t do good. Holy Spirit was the power and mystic side of God but I did not really understanding Him. I was involved in lots of types of ministry for God through those years but somehow felt that I always had to toe the line and work hard at being good to receive His favor and blessing.

Needless to say, my life turned into a life of rules and boundaries leaving the aspect of rest and complete acceptance out of reach and I certainly did not have an abundant life as Jesus talked about. My relationship with Him which started out so life changing and intimate had turned to a performance base relationship, unknowingly reaching for His favor which I never felt I attained or kept.

I am so grateful for my Christian heritage and all those who invested in my spiritual journey through the years. Yet I always seemed to know deep down that there was something more, that there had to be more than I was experiencing about God. While serving in India as missionaries with my wife and four children, we connected with and were ministered to by someone from Growing in Grace Ministry (GGM) in Chattanooga, TN.

Upon returning and staying stateside in 2009,  my personal journey began with GGM which was a path of enrichment and much needed inner healing. Since that time I have enjoyed a deeper, more intimate walk with the Lord while learning about the more of God as it relates to my identity in Him, spiritual gifts, receiving His love, blessing, healing, grace and the list goes on.

I see Father God as good all the time, Jesus as Lord and friend, and the Holy Spirit as He who empowers, comforts and guides. My life has truly shifted from a performance based relationship to a love relationship growing free of guilt, shame and condemnation. I am now growing in love, joy, gifting, intimacy and the more and more of God.

I attribute the spiritual enrichment of my life and my family’s to the life giving message and presence of God through GGM.

Searching for love in all the wrong places? It’s time to experience the Father’s love.

By Vikki Waters • September 20, 2021
Not long ago, I learned that when I was a baby, one of my primary caregivers regularly told me that my mother didn’t love me and that’s why she left me to go to work every day. Of course, when this was discovered, my parents found a new babysitter, but the invisible damage had already been done. Although I...

Child of God, Are You Driven By Performance Or Love?

By Vikki Waters • February 9, 2021
When I’d accepted Jesus into my heart, I’d allowed my driven personality and my wounds from the past to inform my faith, and I became a works-oriented Christian. Somehow, though I’d been wooed by God’s unconditional love, once I was in His Kingdom, I was driven by performance, not by love. This, I was discovering, was contrary to what the...

Are you weary? God’s Presence brings rest.

By Vikki Waters • July 10, 2020
God works because of love, not obligation, and it is this reality that He invites us into when He calls us co-heirs and rulers with Christ. Paul describes exactly this quality in the believers in Thessalonica: “We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in...

Introduced to peace and lasting joy through GGM — Meet Deb!

By Vikki Waters • October 24, 2017
When Deb Mileur said, “I do” to Jesus in 1988, she fell so in love with the Bible that she began sleeping with it under her pillow; she read it, highlighted it, memorized and taught it. In 2009, during a friend’s visit to India (where Deb and her family lived as missionaries), she learned about...

“I’ve experienced the breakthroughs firsthand…” – Meet Stephanie

By Vikki Waters • October 16, 2017
Stephanie Johns joined the prayer team at GGM in late 2015. Her introduction to GGM was at the suggestion of her daughters after the death of her husband in July 2013. She experienced firsthand the breakthroughs the ministry could help facilitate as that very day she took a huge leap forward in her grief journey....

“I’m so proud of the people who say “yes” to God and freedom!” — Meet GGM’s Anne Armstrong!

By Vikki Waters • October 11, 2017
Anne Armstrong unofficially joined the Growing in Grace Ministry (GGM) family in December of 2010 after receiving her first SOZO there.  Anne was referred to GGM by a former ministry team member after sharing her heart and struggles about feeling “stuck” in certain areas of her life. Even before finding healing for herself at GGM,...

From strict religion to a true relationship! – Sunda’s Story

By Vikki Waters • September 3, 2017
Before coming to Growing in Grace, my life was a mess. I was in pain, I was angry, I was confused and I only knew God through religion’s eyes. I was raised in a very conservative and strict religion and that is how I saw God. I always felt His eyes of displeasure on me...

You Don’t Have To Do This Alone

By Vikki Waters • June 30, 2017
About three and a half months into my husband Richard’s out-of-state job, I realized I had been internalizing my resentment about being alone. On the weekends, we focused on being together, but during the week I focused on keeping busy with ministry and activity. Inside, I felt depressed and tired. These feelings were an old default that I had become...

Let Down Your Walls

By Vikki Waters • June 22, 2017
Though Jesus had become my Savior, the walls barricading my heart remained. Some of them softened, but many of them were my closest allies. It’s hard, even for Jesus, to have a relationship with someone who has walls like I did. I only had so much capacity for His love. Because I didn’t believe He really loved me unless...

Does God Really Enjoy Me?

By Vikki Waters • June 13, 2017
We are new creations, filled with a new belonging and a new power—all because of Christ’s work in us. In Ephesians, Paul painted a beautiful picture of this: I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith....
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