My Story Part 1 ... I Once Was Lost ...

Growing up, my family did not go to church. My dad was a Christian, but had not been walking with God for many years, and my mom, still to this day, does not believe that Jesus is The Way. “Church” was just never something my family did. My parents worked Monday through Saturday, and Sunday was the only day they had to sleep in and rest.

I’ve been told that my uncle took me to church some when I was really young. I also had a baby sitter who took me to church. I vaguely remember sitting on the front pew with her one time. When I was about four or five, a church came to my daycare and took several of us kids to their VBS. There was also the summer after 3rd or 4th grade when I went to VBS with a friend. Other than those few memories, I have no recollection of church, or being taught much, if anything, about the Bible.

Since I didn’t attend church, and wasn’t taught the Bible at home, there were a lot of things most kids knew that I didn’t. For example: in 8th grade, two of my friends were talking about how our time off from school could not be called “Easter break” because Easter is a religious holiday. I had no clue. When I asked, they looked at each other a bit surprised, then explained to me that Easter is the celebration of Christ’s resurrection. It’s amazing that I lived in the heart of the Bible belt, and was 14 years old before I knew that Easter was NOT about: hunting eggs, bunnies, or chicks. You can never assume that people already know things like that … even in Oklahoma.

Throughout my school years I’d had a few friends invite me to church that I turned down their invitation. In 1st grade, a friend invited me to church and volunteered her dad to pick me up. I kind of wanted to go, but I lived just outside of town and didn’t want to be a burden so I said “no.”

From 8th grade all the way through high school, I had four Christian friends that each shared Christ with me in a different way. One invited me to church several times over the years and occasionally gave me tracts. Another invited me to church camp every year, and one year she gave me a tiny New Testament Bible. The third friend would kindly fill me in any time something from the Bible was talked about. She did this in a way that was helpful and didn’t embarrass me, or make me feel dumb because I didn’t already know it, and I really appreciated that! The last would sometimes give us all encouraging note cards with Scripture handwritten on them.

My freshman year of high school I went with all of those friends to First Priority. It was the first meeting of the new school year and the youth pastor that led it was encouraging the students, most of which were Christians, to reach out to their lost friends. I was completely offended. “How dare him refer to me as lost.” That just gave me an excuse not to go.

With the first two friends, I always rejected their invitations to church and church related activities. I was afraid to go to church, church camp, or anything else related. I thought I’d be judged and that I would stand out and everybody would know that I didn’t belong. I didn’t know how I was supposed to dress or act. So by our sophomore year I began to get annoyed and aggravated, the two or so times per year that they’d invite me. I thought, “I don’t need church. I make good grades. I obey my teachers and parents. I don’t party, drink, or sleep around … I am better than a lot of people I know who go to church. (I did not know then that church is not a place for perfect people. There are no such people. Jesus was the ONLY sinless person to ever step foot on the earth. Going to church does not even make you a Christian.) I was ignorant and looking for any excuse to not go to church.

My junior and senior year of high school, I had a fifth friend who’d occasionally invite me to church. She would say that she wanted me to go to heaven with her when I died. Again, I always said no. There was also a boy that I kind of liked, who really wanted me to go to church. To give myself an easy way out, I changed my work schedule, so that I worked on Wednesday nights, and I already worked every Sunday morning.

Something changed in me my last year of high school. For whatever reason, (God working in my heart and drawing me to Himself), I began reading that New Testament Bible that my friend had given me a year before. I’d also started secretly reading a Bible that my mom had in her nightstand drawer, which had just been given to her a few month earlier by a pastor. Her bedroom door didn’t lock so I moved the nightstand in front of the door to avoid getting caught reading the Bible. Obviously, that was ridiculous because it would’ve looked pretty suspicious had someone come home. And I wouldn’t have gotten in trouble or anything, but for whatever reason, I didn’t want anyone to know that I was reading the Bible.

Every book I have ever read starts at the front, so I started reading in Genesis. It was all pretty interesting! One day, I read about Noah. I was completely I awe to discover that the rainbow wasn’t something that randomly appears, but is a sign from God. Now, every time I see a rainbow, I am not only reminded of God’s promise to never flood the earth again, but I am also reminded of that time when I sat on the floor in my mom’s room, secretly reading God’s Word as He was drawing me to Himself.

Around this time, I had also started listening to K-LOVE. I am not much of a channel surfer, but one day I was going through different stations and stopped at 100.9. At the time I didn’t enjoy listening to that station because I didn’t know any of the songs, but I never changed the channel. In early November 2006, K-LOVE had a pledge drive. I didn’t find it annoying and really didn’t know what to think about it, though I did enjoy hearing people’s stories and even started supporting K-LOVE at ten dollars a month. It’s kind of funny that I was not a follower of Christ, yet I pledged to support a Christian radio station. (To this day, I love listening to the pledge drive and I love hearing people’s stories, especially how they came to believe in Jesus, and what God had taught them through their years. This is a big reason why I am sharing this post and the next one, about my story.)

So, I’d just started my senior year and I was reading the Bible in secret and listening to K-LOVE, I also secretly wanted to go to church. I even changed my work schedule back so that I’d be off on Wednesday nights in case somebody invited me to church. I was eventually so desperate to go to church that I may have went with a stranger if they’d asked me. Finally, in October of 2006, that fifth friend invited me to go to church with her at Bible Baptist Church. She usually only went to the Sunday morning service, so when one of the College & Careers Sunday school teacher’s wives had invited her to come to their class for Sunday school and on Wednesday nights, my friend asked if it’s be okay if I came even though I was in high school, and it was! I began going to church with her every Wednesday and Sunday night.

I really enjoyed going to church. It was nothing like I’d expected. There were some times that it could’ve been awkward, but God had placed the right people, with the right background, in the right places. Out of the leaders in the College & Careers class, I felt like there were several who understood me, my situation. One went to school with my dad and started going to church with her neighbor, but her parents did not go. Another didn’t start going to church until he was a freshman in high school and his parents didn’t go either. A third went to school and rode the same bus as my mom when she was younger, and he didn’t grow up in church either from what I can remember. These three were the main ones that I remember feeling like I had some kind of connection with just because of their own stories. I knew some of the other students in the class from work, but mainly enjoyed the class because of the love that the leaders showed me.

From November 12-15, the church planned Revival services, and I planned on going to every service. At that time, I’d known for a while that I needed salvation, but I didn’t really understand. It wasn’t real to me. On my way to church that Sunday night I thought, “I wonder if I’ll be saved tonight. It’s the 12th. It’s 3 days before my 18th birthday. These are both significant numbers in the Bible.” I don’t know why I thought that. I still didn’t really understand. I had also just decided that I wanted to be more involved in the church. To me, that meant singing the songs. On either Sunday or Monday night, we sang “Amazing Grace.” As we got to “… I once was lost, but now I’m found, was blind, but now I see…,” I stopped. I could not sing those lines. That would be a lie. I was lost. I was blind. At that moment I began to understand.

Monday night, the preacher told a story about a man who chose to sacrifice his son so that other people could live. I thought of my parents’ love for me. There is NO way that they’d let me die to save another person. For the very first time, I understood! I understood that God loved me! He sacrificed His Son to save me. I trusted Christ to be my Lord and Savior that night, November 13, 2006!

Here is a link to a version of that story written: http://www.snopes.com/glurge/drawbridge.asp

Here is the link to a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtKfpFchlB8

I wish you could hear the preacher tell the story while you imagine what is happening and the Holy Spirit is working on your heart and opening your eyes to see The Truth! Such a glorious day!