I cried too.

Reading the Cardboard Testimonies.
Because, like many of you, I am gratefully familiar with that feeling, those emotions.
The ones that arise from His transforming power, His unfailing love, His tender mercies, His comfort in our times of deepest despair, His hope, His joy that emerges when there is no obvious reason to be joyful, His unyielding pursuit of our hearts, our minds, allegiance, our lives.....That is our God. He is so good. Indescribably so.
When I hear Bill Maher at the Oscars say we need to stop the horrible things we do because of our silly Gods, I think about the people who shared their stories on pieces of cardboard, and I wonder if those like him have stopped to truly consider the flip side to that coin.
If we take God out of the lives of His people, if we make them no longer free or able to live their lives in sold out commitment to Him, we will not only lose the terrible atrocities that do unfortunately take place at the hands of misguided religious zealots, but our world would lose immeasurable good that produces huge, life altering benefit to humankind as well. People passionate for justice, serving strangers, feeding the poor, clothing the needy, sacrificing in tangible ways so they will have more to give and share, being moved with compassion to the extent that they can not stand idly by, loving one another with the kind of love human beings can not muster on their own in response to the beckoning of a gracious God who has shown Himself in majestic splendor to them individually, which daily conforms their very essence. Without those motivations, the prompting of the Holy Spirit moving in the lives of His people, there would me much less good to go around and everyone would experience the effects of that tragic loss.
Those cardboard testimonies were beautiful, real, honest, vulnerable. I've been trying to think of what mine would say, and I'm not sure.
What I do know is this: In a world with plenty of suffering and pain, it is hard to imagine anyone suggesting that kind of glorious good be taken away, or people being shamed for rejoicing in their God who has given them everything to live for.