My Testimony
Pastor Kevin Gold
Morning Service
Sunday, July 19th, 2026
What is a testimony? As Christian believers we all have one. This is not an official Webster’s Dictionary definition but what came to my mind when I thought about that question. It is our story of how God got our attention and acted upon our lives to save us from the grasp of Satan, and his power over this world and ultimately eternity in hell, and how He drew us back to Himself and to living for Him and ultimately to eternity in Heaven. And then how he has continued to work in our lives through the influence of other people, and events and circumstances to move us toward the design and plans He had made for us before our lives ever began.
I love Psalm 139. It really puts our finite lives into perspective with our infinite, all powerful, all knowing God and the vastness of His creation. Let’s read verses 1-16
“O Lord you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord. You hem me in, behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there; if I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me, and the light become night around me”, even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”
Before you or I ever took our very first breath on this planet, the God of the universe had already begun infusing his DNA and His handiwork into our very being and stitching us together individually, as well as weaving us together corporately, into His master plan. He knew each of us intimately and completely. His fingerprints are all over us. He knows every moment and every circumstance from beginning through all eternity complete with purpose and plan. But then right after that first breath the devil went to work trying to interfere with and destroy everything that God had put in motion. The bottom line is God gives us free will to decide whether we are going to follow, Him or the devil but at the same time He doesn’t give up on His pursuit of us or the plans He has for us. As I continue on, I will be using the phrase “ it boggles my mind” at least a few times because sometimes it’s all I can say when I contemplate our God and all that He Is and does. Things such as Eternity, Infinity, hemming us in before and behind before we even began the journey. How He knows every detail of every life yesterday, today and for as long as we all shall live. Our God is amazing and mindboggling. I want to share with you how all of this played out in my life. It was in July of 1960 when I made my entry into the world, before then growing up here in Tuolumne as the 3rd of an eventual 6 children. We had a big, very close and very loving family that looked much like a church based family except for the fact that we didn’t attend a church. There was Christian influence going back on each parental side, and yet church wasn’t a part of our picture. However God had plans to change all of that and this is how he got it started. When I was in about 6th grade I can remember waking up in the middle of the night and my mind was overwhelmed with deep thoughts, having to do with things like living and dying and eternity. Such as the thought of dying and then there being nothing else, no returning to life for ever and ever. I couldn’t get my head around it. Here is the thing, when we fall asleep, we experience a temporary disconnect but then we wake up and have a reconnect with life again, but to think of not reconnecting, not having life, for ever and ever and where a billion years would just be the beginning of that forever. Also another thought was running through my head of the possibility of a God with no beginning and no end, whose existence went on for eternity in both directions and that too just blew my mind. I knew that I needed to find some answers. We just happened to live a block away from the Tuolumne Methodist Church and on Sunday mornings I could easily see the cars and people coming and going, to and from the church service. Also I knew a couple of boys from school, Kreg Elkins and Stan Kellogg who both went to that church, and so I decided that I would just go up to them at school and ask if I could go to church with them. I know that this is not how it usually goes down. Usually it is the kids from church inviting the other kids to come to church with them, but this worked out just fine and soon I was involved in the church service and Sunday school and MYF, which was the youth group, and summer camp at Redwood Christian Camp in Santa Cruz.
I am sure all of you know what happens when you throw a rock into a pond. It sets off a chain reaction of a whole bunch of waves that bounce off of each other and begin to intersect and interact with each other and that is like what God does in our lives when we give ourselves over to Him and let Him do His amazing work in us. He sets off a chain reaction involving people and experiences and circumstances that could only happen because of Him and through Him and once again it boggles our minds. What I am going to be telling you about as I continue on is some of those very things that God wove into my life to bring me closer to Him and to where He wanted and needed me to be, including the relationship that I have with my wife Kathy. My intention is really not to overwhelm you with details about my life but rather to give glory and honor to the God who does incredible things in working out the details of each and every life that is entrusted to Him. And my desire is that each one of you will be inspired to consider and reflect upon your own life story, all the things God has done in you through the impact of people, and circumstances and events and how He continues to refine and work it all out. I encourage you to share that testimony in whatever way possible to those around you, as a means to impact their lives, their relationship with God and possibly even their eternal wellbeing. The thing is, since we are all here today in God’s House of Worship it is a good sign that He is at work in each and every one of us. The next major event in my story came in 7th grade when God brought a boy by the name of Scott Berner into my life and my testimony. Scott and his family had just moved to Tuolumne and we ended up both being in the same class at Summerville Elementary together. Another important detail about Scott is that his family had for a long time been devoted members of a Lutheran church and he too was a Christian. We soon realized how much we had in common, which put in motion an awesome, life long friendship that was built on growing in Christ and encouraging each other in that journey and I will be telling you more about Scott in a minute.
Next, God would bring Chris Kisling into my life story. He was also from a family that had long attended church, mostly Sierra Bible. He had attended Twain Harte Elementary and we knew of each other through sports however we had never actually met in person but God was about to do something about that. It was when I was a sophomore and Chris was a freshman and we were on the JV football team together. One night after practice Chris called to ask if I would be interested in going with him the following week to Young Life, which if you are not familiar with it is a high school Christian outreach. I did go with him and before long he and I and also Scott were all going there together and God was building in the 3 of us an amazing bond of faith and accountability that not only remained strong in us throughout high school but is still going strong to this very day. By the was, it was at Young Life that I first got to know Wade Travis and now God has reconnected and renewed our friendship right here at Tuolumne Community Baptist Church. And of course, I better not forget about Kathy. The 2 of us had gone to school together our whole lives, first at Summerville Elementary and then Summerville High School, with her being 1 year behind me, and yet we had never gotten to know each other. That is until the spring of my junior year. I was on the track team along with my friend Chris and Kathy was on the tennis team, along with Scott. One day the tennis team just happened to be up at the track doing some running, and that day something caused me to see Kathy in a way that I never had before, and it wasn’t just how cute she looked in her tennis outfit. It was as though something or actually someone was telling us it was about time to get to know each other better, which is exactly what we did. We started talking and then went on a date to the movies and I even asked her to go to the prom with me and then…. we didn’t go out on another date for almost another 10 years and neither of us really know the reason why. We were still good friends, and we still talked a lot, and even did some lifeguarding together. Looking back now, we do realize that God was at work in both of us, creating a foundation, and preparing us for so much more, which we will also get back to in a bit.
I graduated from high school in 1978 as did Scott, and both Kathy and Chris graduated in 1979. God opened the door for me to go to college at U.O.P in Stockton where I decided to go into their school of pharmacy to become a pharmacist and at that time thinking it would be my only career going forward after I graduated, but again God had even bigger plans. Being able to go to school in Stockton also had an additional benefit in that it was close enough for me to easily come home, which I did almost every weekend. I was very close to my big and still growing family here in Tuolumne and I didn’t want to miss out on anything. I also still had strong connections to my original home church, Tuolumne Methodist, where I continued to attend services and participate in youth activities as often as I could, and it turned out that God had some other plans for me there also that I didn’t yet know about . God was growing me and molding my life in a way that only He can do. The truth is, if we stay plugged into Him, we then allow Him to remain strong and powerful in us and to keep shining His light through us as well as continue to have our backs. I could also see the Bible training being met with real life applications. There I was a small town boy, who had lived a very sheltered life now living in a big city on a college campus where it was often easy to see just how much power and influence that the devil has on people’s lives.
1 Peter 5:.8 tells us “Be self controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”
This scripture was brought to life for me during one of the weekends that I did decide to stay on campus. I had just returned to my dorm late in the evening and I passed by a room with the door open and it was packed full of people swaying to this eerie music like they were in a trance and doing who know what kind of self medicating, and it really scared me. The next thing I can remember is being back in my room with my bible opened to a place where God had led me to open to, and I don’t remember what chapter and verse it was now but I do remember that what I was reading was making sense to me like never before in my life. And I knew that the same God who had spoken to me in that overnight session way back when I was in elementary school was right there with me in that dorm room and that He is infinitely more powerful than anything that the devil could ever throw at me or do to me. That same God was also getting ready to start bringing together all those pieces that He had been introducing into my life. Which now brings us back to my friend Scott. After high school he had gone to Portland to attend Concordia Lutheran College and wanting to become a pastor. Part of his training required an internship where he would be working under the leadership of another pastor, and it just so happened that he was hooked up with a connection to do this internship under my pastor, Clarence Wager at the Tuolumne Methodist Church and no it wasn’t me that was the source of the connection, I knew in my heart that it was God inspired. He was doing another of His God things.
Scott’s goal was to develop a youth group program over the summer and the first I knew about it was when he called me to ask if I would be interested in helping him with it, and so we revived some of our old Young Life days with a whole new group of high school students. After summer was over, Scott went back to Portland where he did become a Lutheran Pastor and I committed to continuing on with leading the youth group to the best of my abilities and eventually even had the opportunity to fill in on a couple of messages for Pastor Clarence.
During that time I was getting close to finishing up my pharmacy program which required me to do an internship as well, which brought me back in touch with my other friend Chris Kisling. After high school he had moved to Fresno where he was attending a small Christian college by the name of Fresno Pacific. I was assigned to do my internship at a pharmacy in Kingsburg, a small town about 20 miles south of Fresno and during that time I was able to stay with Chris during the week and still continue to come home on the weekends to lead the youth group at the Methodist Church on Sundays. I truly believe that the time I had there with Chris was a divine appointment from God for the two of us to encourage each other and to keep us going strong in our Christian walks. A few years later I would have Chris be the best man in our wedding and our friendship in Christ still remains strong to this day.
God recently gave me a special surprise blessing, which I like to call a Godwink, right in the middle of the time when I was getting ready for this message. I hadn’t had the chance to talk to Chris in quite a while and then one night as Kathy and I were watching some television, we got this call on our land line, which we seldom even use any more. It was Chris and his wife calling us just to check in and see how everything was going and I know that it was God telling us that He is still right here in the middle of it all and He is still taking care of everything.
I graduated from pharmacy school in 1983 and moved back to Tuolumne, and thankfully passed my state boards to allow me to get my pharmacist license. Then I thought how awesome and convenient it would be if I could buy the Tuolumne
Drug Store and then:
1. Be able to walk to work if I wanted to
2. Easily be able to continue on with the youth ministry at the Tuolumne Methodist Church
Amazingly the owner of the drug store was interested in selling and then through a joint venture with my family I was able to secure a loan and make it a reality. It was also during this time that God said it’s about time to bring Kathy back into your life. After high school, she had moved to southern California to live with her aunt and uncle and to go to a nearby college, however life circumstances and providence had brought her back to Tuolumne.
Let’s pause for a second for another quick shout out to our amazing God and to His power and His ability to affect each and every person who loves Him, believes in Him and entrusts their life to Him. And a reminder of how He weaves us together and how He hems us all in behind and before, as well as from every side, angle, vector, while at the same time accounting for every change in detail, life circumstance, detours because of limitations or for our propensity to keep on sinning, or turn our backs on Him or even walk away from Him. He knows every final outcome before it ever happens. Here are a couple more very fitting scripture verses:
Romans 8:28 “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.”
Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
So Kathy was back at home living with her parents. She knew that I was working at the Tuolumne Drug store and more importantly that I was leading the youth group at the Methodist Church. One day her mom needed to come in to pick up a prescription and she asked Kathy if she wanted to come with her, which gave Kathy and I an opportunity to talk. She wanted to know more about the youth group and said that she would be interested in helping out with it if that would be a possibility. Coincidentally I had recently bought some raffle tickets and then won a prize of a dinner for two at the Villa D’Oro in Twain Harte and so I asked Kathy if she would be interested in talking more about it over dinner, but here was the thing. Kathy went on to tell me how her life situation was a lot deeper than I had realized. After coming back home she had been married to a man who had subjected her to horrible abuse and infidelity and at this point she was in the final stages of divorce proceedings. She was looking forward to putting behind her the ugliness of her recent past and coming full circle back to a Christ centered life. She was a Christian and had grown up going to church and had even spent a few years going to the same Lutheran church as, are your ready for this, Scott Berner. Recently she had been going to a Presbyterian church with her mom and had received some wise counsel to dive into serving Christ and to work on her relationship with Him. She sensed in her heart that He was telling her that a good place to start would be with the youth group. This was a great example of our God and His mysterious and awesome ways in which He works, by simultaneously healing and restoring Kathy while at the same time bringing new hope into her future. We did later go to that dinner at Villa D’oro and God did pick up where He had left off with our relationship 10 years earlier and gave us that next elusive next date. God is so good, even when we are basically clueless. As the relationship grew stronger it didn’t take long for the kids in the youth group catch on and they were more than happy to help us plan for our Wedding, which took place on August 2nd of 1986. The drug store was a whole different story. There was a reason that the previous owner had been eager to sell. He saw something that I completely had missed.
Long’s Drug Store had just opened up about 6 miles down the road at the Junction Shopping Center and they would prove to be brutal competition and after 5 years we had what you might call a friendly merger with them buying out my inventory and records and me being hired on as a pharmacist. It may seem like the wholedrug store venture was a total mistake with the hardships it brought and theperceived failure and yet we could once again see God right there with us in the fire and His fingerprints all over our lives.
1. That is where God reunited Kathy and I
2. It worked great for us in conjunction with continuing and expanding the youthgroup
3. It served as the connection to bring another important component into our ministry and into our lives.
It was through the drug store that we first met Liz Tower who at that time was a customer there and was also a single mom with 2 little girls. She and Kathy became good friends and we found out she was a Christian and wanted to bring her girls to the youth group and then soon that she also wanted to help us out with it. She had connections with a lot of kids and also had a van, two important assets for youth work. She would pull up to the church and kids would just keep piling out. She would also soon meet and marry Gary Grazioli, who also would factor into the story. You might be wondering how all this is important to our testimony and the answer is that it leads us directly into next week, when we will continue on into the formation and foundations of Tuolumne Community Baptist Mission, which then became Tuolumne Community Baptist Church.