My testimony for my baptism

Hey everyone, Thankyou very much for coming today, it means a lot to have so many family and friends celebrating with me today, which is a very important part of my life. Ok, so now is the part of the morning where I talk about myself. Great.
I have attended church all of my life but, it has not always been a voluntary choice and strangely enough have not always enjoyed it. I had an interesting childhood, with many ups and downs. Both sides of parents and grandparents were always very supportive and taught good morals and beliefs. I have had great grandparents alive for all of my life which has also been really great. My early childhood however is not full of happy-slappy-Christian memories and I often struggled with anger, rage and depression. Money was not always easy to come by, but my problems may well have started with my dad being away from home at a crucial time in my childhood. He was a very good figure in my childhood and I have fond and funny memories of fixing broken cars, oily fingered, with him. The fact that I loved him so much however did not make it easier for me to spend so much time so far away from him. At an early age I suffered a lot of anger, was very lonely and struggled with authority figures. Because of this, I suffered a lot of depression escalating to suicidal thoughts and self-harm. At this point I was also becoming a problem at school and spent many a lunchtime in principles supervision. At that point I felt I did not have many friends. I did. But I felt like I didn't. I was quickly spiraling out of control and I thought that nothing could help.
It was then that God met with me, first through My good friend Ben Randel who I spent many a day skateboarding and getting into 'boys will be boys' trouble with. I had found a friend who I could relate to. Even better, he lived down my street and went to my church. It was around this time that I gave my life to Christ and in true cheesy Christian movie style, I started to see my life as half full, not half empty. But things did actually start to get better. I made more friends at school, I made up relationships with my mum and dad, who I was angry with, and after a few years, my dad moved back home and worked from Southampton. My life was really turned around. I started to have more of a positive impact on my friends and family and for the first time was able to have very deep and meaningful conversations with my family and friends.
It wasn't just my situations that changed. I changed as a person. I started not to be so angry and stopped using such bad language and generally stopped being so violent. (apart from with my brother and sisters... but thats what they're there for...)
BUT for me, being a Christian is not about listening to Cliff Richard, Nor is it about wearing sandles over socks. Nor listening to radio four while going twenty six miles an hour down the motorway with an annoyingly large caravan. Being a Christian and being baptised is about me publicly saying that I believe what is written in the bible. Its about saying that Jesus died for me so that I could be free and its about saying that I accept and want to tell other people about the freedom that it brings.
I no this isn't the emmys, but I would just like to thank a couple of people.
My whole family in general, for being really supportive,John and Joan Ansell (my nan and grandad) for praying with and for meMy mum and dad, for being great-godly parents Ben Randal for basically leading me to Christ without really know itMy brother, for all the hours we sat playing final fantasy together.Alex, for a number of very important conversationsAnd finally, Thankyou again for coming everyone it is great to have so much support.