A Testimony of Salvation from Tara Meldrum

This is the testimony of a young mum of 3 little ones who attends a Bible study I hold in my home. She has a heart to learn and an insatiable hunger for the Word of God.

I know that Salvation is granted the moment we give our lives to Christ, repent of our sin and the process of sanctification begins. But I also believe that it is a journey. We all, as Christians, are on this journey and as we are given more light and more leading, we grow in our Christian walk and mature in our faith.

I am so glad that God extends his grace and mercy to us as we run the race he sets before us. He is patient with us, and his longsuffering is unfathomable.

Please pray for Tara as she seeks to grow in the knowledge of the Lord and walk in his ways.

2 Peter 3:18 But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.

 

I grew up going to church with mum, I remember thinking it was boring but would go as mum would go.

I remember drawing pictures of what I thought at the time it meant of God being everywhere.

I remember as I got older watching the people putting their hands in the air during worship and wishing I was as close to God or comfortable enough to praise him like they did.

At 14 years of age I gave my life to Jesus.

It was an altar call from a pastor we knew well who was preaching that day at Mataranka church. I felt I could hear what he was saying and believed in my heart that Jesus was the King and Lord and had died for my sins.

But my life following that day has been a journey.

I wasn’t living the way a young Christian should be. I was drinking, I had a boyfriend, I was skipping school etc.

I remember desiring to follow some of Gods ways, even though I hadn’t read the Bible at all at that point I knew in my heart the right way but the push of peer pressure and what “teenagers” do was more in my face at the time.

I remember putting my name down to be a youth leader I did it once and couldn’t go again. Knowing in my heart I wasn’t living a life that I would be proud of.

Throughout my life I’ve always known God is with me and I would attend church throughout working out bush and coming home between my adventures after high school had finished.

I would often attend the KYB (know your bible) study group with my mum and listened intently at the ladies wisdom and knowledge of the bible and their own life experiences.

After a stint working contract mustering in where I began searching to draw near to God I read the ‘purpose driven life’ and it made me hungry to know God better.

Anyway I started working at a community called Wadeye at an aged care facility. I wasn’t attending church there and there were no bible studies that I knew of but I did bring my bible. I tried to read it but found it overwhelming; where to start, how to read it?

I was house sitting at some point and had found a book about Yoga and started practicing the movements; I soon felt like I needed to do it everyday as it felt great for my body.

After leaving Wadeye and travelling down the east coast I worked in Mona Vale, Sydney. I was doing yoga and attending some yoga classes. I noticed I started to get paranoid thinking around that time. I was also working alone and felt isolated.

I attended church there Infrequently.

In 2014 I decided I would travel to Canada to meet with an old time friend.

I developed psychosis 3 months into my working holiday visa and had to be admitted to the mental health ward for two weeks.

I was also practicing yoga and reading the Bible weeks before my psychosis. I believe personally as my experience one aspect that lead me to my first psychosis was Yoga for God is a jealous God and he loves his people, as well as being isolated again working long hours on a horse ranch.

I have details to this time in the ward which strongly convince me of Gods goodness and grace and mercy. I was preaching Jesus to people boldly whilst in my manic episodes.

I can’t explain how, as I believe it testifies to God being able to use our life experiences that don’t make allot of sense to us.

There was one young man in particular who started to have his own journey with Jesus at the same time as I in the ward. There’s was also a Gay young man who would rebuttal my impassioned statements about Jesus. But in the end as the medication began to work I went back to my normal self and what looked like from the outside I was giving up, he said “never give up on what you believe” I could’ve hugged him and still think fondly of that.

I found work at the Boab in Katherine after being brought home by my mum, I had given up on reading the Bible at that stage. After my psychosis I was discouraged as to why it happened.

One day an aboriginal man walks into the Boab and approaches the counter to tell me “to start reading the Bible, it’s a pretty interesting book” I was shocked he knew.

So I travelled to Broome Bible in hand but still unable to read it.

I’m 2016 I met my now husband in Broome.

My mum told me over the phone one day that I should start attending a church there, so I did. Broome baptist church.

My then boyfriend, now husband Ari and I would attend together frequently as he was also searching for the God he had grown up with. I remember sitting in the pews cuddling.

And we were HUNGRY for Gods word. There was the beatitudes, anger in your heart, lust in your heart. These were some of the sermons I remember clearly.

It started to make a bit more sense, how the old and New Testament related and I began to have a desire to really live for God. So I wanted to be married. So in 2018 after a bit of a bumpy ride we got married in Broome. But a year before then we did a road trip from Melbourne to Broome in his Impala. I brought my bible of course and I had also bought one for Ari along the way in Esperance.

Along a stretch of road, I decided I’m gonna just do it, read the bible starting at Genesis. So I read and was amazed at the accounts and understood then where Israel derived and the tribes of Israel whose sons they were; Jacob, and that there were his people. It was beginning to piece together.

But after we got married, we moved to Katherine and have had three babies. With another psychosis, postpartum. Plenty of giving up things and learning the ropes in a young marriage and being parents!!

We were attending Katherine Baptist church with Alice and Ernie Mitchell who had also been the ones to marry Ari and I in Broome, we felt shepherded by them as they helped us a lot in the early stages of our marriage and helped to build our house, And I got baptised in 2021 in the Katherine Low level. I knew it was time.

We have continued to attend church and develop friendships amongst the believers in Katherine. My husband often comes home with stories of meeting travelling Christian’s. Nearly Every day I read my Bible now and I’m amazed; it truly is the living word, it’s always teaching and directing, and rebuking and encouraging and filling my mind with truth. I love the bible now.

So, after a few more years and a few more trials and a few more parts of my life surrendered I am where I am today, as the bible puts it I still have dross in the Crucible. But Gods refining fire and love isn’t done with me; and I look ahead and know I am being transformed more and more into Jesus’ likeness. Praise God!

And during the whole journey he never let me go; he his patient and he loves me and he is true and he never stops loving us and drawing us to him no matter where we are at!

Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

1 Corinthians 15:52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

2 Corinthians 3:18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.