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My story is similar to that of the blind man whose story is recorded in Mark 8:22-26. Jesus healed him in “stages”, first giving him partial sight so that men looked like trees walking, and then He gave the man clear vision. Like the blind man, I did not see clearly at first, but as Jesus continued to heal me, my spiritual vision, like the blind man’s, has moved from seeing fuzzy glimpses of truth to seeing clearly.
By the grace of God I was born in a Seventh-day Adventist Hospital to third generation Adventist parents. My parents are consistent church members, educated in Adventist colleges and loyal to the “truth”.
I was educated in Adventist schools from first grade through college. I was baptized into the Adventist church at age 11 following a grade school baptismal class. I loved being involved in Pathfinders, summer camp, and other church activities; I went Ingathering, and I knew my memory verses and Sabbath School lessons. I read The Bible Stories and Bedtime Stories by “Uncle Arthur” Maxwell. When I graduated from eighth grade, I received the Conflict Of the Ages series by Ellen White, which I reverently read. I was loyal and accepted my Adventist uniqueness as normal, and I was quite matter-of-fact in defending my Adventist differences to the curious.
Then, somewhere in the midst of all my loyal Adventist immersion, something changed. I became a teenager who could be best characterized as angry, rebellious, sullen, and disrespectful. The principal and others in my grade school prayed over me in an attempt to exorcise my anger and rebellious nature. Their intervention didn’t work, and with my parents and teachers at their wits’ ends, I was sent to an Adventist boarding school.
Today I would have probably been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder (ADD), but in our small, very conservative school, I was diagnosed as being devil-possessed. I was a major headache to my teachers who tried with restraint and most likely deference to my parents to deal gently with me.
During my academy years I was sensitive to spiritual things, and this sensitivity led me to write a paper in Bible doctrines class on justification by faith. My memory tells me I received a failing grade from a fundamentalist Adventist teacher, although I remember trying very hard to prove my points from E. G. White’s writings and feeling that there was something I wasn’t quite understanding. Now I know that the Holy Spirit was at work.
Shame was a major controlling emotion in my life. I couldn’t measure up to the good kids; I couldn’t sit still to study, and I was constantly on the edge between failure and success. I managed to get into college but was unable to succeed. Then I became a student missionary—and I found out I loved to travel.
The next year I married a third-generation Adventist who became a seminary student during the early 80’s. Those were years of dizzying revelations within Adventism: Des Ford proving the investigative judgment was unscriptural at Glacier View, Walter Rea and his book The White Lie in which he exposed Ellen White’s plagiarism, Jeffrey Paxton’s The Shaking of Adventism, and finally the Dallas Statement of Fundamental Beliefs (FBs) which cemented Ellen White as a “continuing and authoritative source of truth” (FB #18). My aspiring pastor-husband refused to sign the statement, and I agreed with him.
I could have very easily ended any relationship with Adventism at that time. I questioned EGW and everything else just on general principle out of rebellion and found myself in the very strange position of being a cultural Adventist for the sake of…what? That was the question I couldn’t answer.
Disintegrating life
During our non-pastoring years, I finished my bachelor of science degree in nursing and had two children. In the midst of life’s busyness, an acquaintance spent some time explaining the concept of Sabbath rest in Christ, and it was intriguing to me. Again I was nudged by the Holy Spirit to see.
My husband and I ended up in the safety net of pastoring. We moved to another conference away from family and familiarity and then took three successive positions in the mission field. Consequently, for over ten years I was away from mainstream Adventism, raising my three children in foreign countries and feeling very much alone. Our life was not what it seemed to be on the surface, and finally, tired of the hypocrisy in which I was living, I opted to leave my family. It is a heartbreaking and gut wrenching story that ended in divorce and separation from my children. When the Adventist church officials caught up with me, I was called on the telephone and told to write a letter to have my name removed from the membership books. I couldn’t even remember at which church I had last had my name on the membership list.
I wrote my letter asking to have my name removed, and as I think back, I realize that I didn’t feel anything—no sense of loss, nostalgia, or remorse. I was continuing to attend the Adventist church because I was living with my mother, but I felt no desire to rejoin the church.
I had by this time met a Christian man at work who kept talking to me about religion and asking me questions: was I reading my Bible? Had I read Pilgrims’ Progress? He gave me The Secret of the Vine and encouraged me to read it. I was slowly being introduced to Christian literature and biblical thinking at the same time I continued attending my mother’s church.
About a year after I removed my name from the books, the Adventist pastor asked me if I wanted to be re-baptized. I said, “No.” I told him that I didn’t believe in the Adventist concept of continually being re-baptized. Someone I knew had been baptized eight times, and I thought it was ridiculous. When I thought about the Adventist belief that re-baptism symbolized a return to God’s grace, I would picture the story in John 8 where Jesus said to the woman caught in sin, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on, sin no more.”
Meanwhile I was trying to convince Ernie, the Christian man I had met at work, about the Sabbath and the state of the dead, but he was doing his homework. He found out things about Adventism that I had never heard before, and then he started using the “cult” word. Well, I had an answer for that; Walter Martin’s Kingdom of the Cults lets Adventism off the hook.
Healing
Meanwhile, God, who is in the business of healing us and who never stops half-way, gave me love for Ernie that led to our marriage in 2006. With my marriage to Ernie came a restoration of my relationships with my sons and release from Adventism that has been amazing in its intricacy.
Ernie was attending the church in which we were married (non-Adventist, of course). I was attending periodically but was always looking over my shoulder—waiting for lightning to strike, I suppose. Eventually we began attending the Sunday evening small group, and I began to notice the teaching. We were hearing just the Bible with no extra-biblical sources to confirm or explain it. I began to listen carefully and found I could believe what I was hearing.
In November, 2006, Life Assurance Ministries sent out a very large mailing to Adventist leaders, professionals, and other members, and the Proclamation! intended for my father ended up at my address on the same day we were leaving for a weekend visit with friends. During our three-hour drive, I read and re-read every word of that journal. I was intent and amazed at what I was reading. Ernie says that I kept repeating comments including, “I can’t believe it. I was taught so many lies!” and “Adventists teach a different gospel!” Many Adventist supporting pillars fell that day, but the Sabbath and soul sleep doctrines were very deeply ingrained.
I remember going online and printing out every previous issue of Proclamation!. I was starved, and I devoured most of every issue before I was sated. Then I started reading the books, Dale Ratzlaff’s Cultic Doctrine of Seventh-day Adventists, Sabbath in Christ, and all the others. I would like to say thank you to everyone involved in this ministry for your obedience to the working of the Holy Spirit in your lives.
One Sunday after I received the Proclamation! magazine, we were asked to host the visiting minister and his wife for lunch at our home. Imagine my surprise when I told him I had been raised an Adventist, and he told me he had done his master’s thesis on Adventism. I received a one hour lecture/sermon on the errors of Adventism as compared with Scripture. I had a sense of what the Ethiopian eunuch felt when Philip showed up (Acts 8:25-40).
In April, 2011, I was fired from my job and came home to tell Ernie. He had been listening to some Former Adventist Fellowship weekend audios, and needing distraction, I sat down to listen also. Within about five minutes, I heard Mark Martin say that if I hadn’t been baptized into Christ, I needed to do it. Without my even being aware of the sanctification being done in me, I realized that I could be obedient. This baptism was different from Adventist baptism; I wasn’t trying to re-enter God’s grace. Rather, I was declaring I trusted Him. God seems to get my attention in rather dramatic ways, and then, when Jesus calls me “Daughter” as He called the woman who touched His hem (Mk. 5:34), I know that my shame is healed, and I can go in peace.
In July, 2011, I was baptized into Christ, raised to walk in newness of life—and not into any specific church. What a concept! I am attending the church in which I was baptized; it is a Bible-believing and teaching church. Baptism solidified in my heart that Jesus has redeemed my life, and I have put my trust in His finished work for my salvation.
I have been at home for over a year. I’m able to spend more time with my mother now, and God is using this time to teach me to wait on Him. I have found a Bible Study Fellowship class, and I continue to search for and read recommended books. I can truly say that Jesus has fully healed my blindness at last. I no longer see partially, as if men are trees walking, but I see with the clarity that comes through knowledge that I am redeemed and saved forever with Christ. I look through eyes that see—and my gaze is filled with Jesus. †
Copyright 2012 Life Assurance Ministries, Inc., Casa Grande, Arizona, USA. All rights reserved. Revised October 2, 2012. Contact email: proclamation@gmail.com
Liz Church graduated from Andrews University in 1986 with a Bachelors degree in nursing. She also graduated from Millersville State University in 2009 with a Masters degree and is a CRNP. Liz has three adult sons from her first marriage and is currently married to Ernie. Liz and Ernie attend Fleetwood Bible Church in Fleetwood, PA. Liz enjoys gardening, cross-stitch, and reading the writings of biblicists. Liz is shown here giving her testimony at the Former Adventist Fellowship Conference last February in Redlands, California.
F A L L • 2 0 1 2
VOLUME 13, ISSUE 3
D E P A R T M E N T S
Stories of FAITH