My Journey with the Lord: My First Church

Once I became a Christian, my friend explained to me the concept of church (why we go to church as well as emphasizing the importance of fellowship with other believers).  He invited me to come and visit his church, but I decided to attend the church my mom had been attending for the previous six months or so.

Even now, as I just paused for a moment remembering my first church experience as a believer, I can't help but smile.  I remember the smell and the color of the pews and the wonder of looking around me and watching other believers worship God together.  My very few previous experiences with "church" had made me feel like it was a formalized, dry routine that people had to go through to just "put in" their time to soothe their consciences or boost their self-esteem.  Church as a believer was a much, much different experience.

First, I remember the experience of singing praises to God and the wonder of listening to all of these voices around me wholeheartedly worshiping God together.  I remember turning and looking at a teenager standing on the other side of the aisle from me.  Her eyes were closed and she seemed to be singing directly to God.  I then focused in on an elderly couple in front of me.  Their heads were bowed as they sang, incredibly reverently.  This was unlike anything I had ever experienced.

And then the pastor approached the pulpit and began to pray and then preach.  I furtively glanced across the aisle at the teenage girl who had previously seemed so intimately connected to God.  She had an open notebook in her lap and was scribbling away as the pastor preached and I couldn't help but notice her Bible was all marked up with notes and underlined verses.  This all seemed so intriguing to me as a brand new believer.   I couldn't be intrigued for very long though because God pulled me to attention as the pastor continued to preach.  He was referencing chapters and verses in the Bible and the people around me were quickly flipping to the appropriate page.  Panic set in.  I had no idea where these chapters and verses were in the Bible.  I didn't know what books were in the Old Testament or the New Testament.  The prideful, little perfectionist in me reared her ugly head and I found myself embarrassed at my lack of knowledge.  Thankfully, just as my face started to flush pink, the pastor gently mentioned that if anyone was new to reading the Bible, the passage could be found on page ---.  Relief washed over me as I quickly flipped to the appropriate page. 

The preaching itself was another amazing, new experience for me.  The pastor took us through a select passage of Scripture, reading it and then explaining what was going on giving context to the reading.  He then ended with instructions on ways to apply what we had learned to our lives.  I gobbled this up, desperate to know more and more about this God who had chosen me and drawn me into a relationship with Him.  I was so grateful to be His child and I wanted to know more and more.

As the year progressed on and I continued going to church Sunday after Sunday, I started to become friends with other Christian girls.  By the spring of my junior year of high school, I joined a small group of girls and we met every Sunday evening to pray, study the Bible together, hold each other accountable and be mentored by a young mother in our church who graciously gave up her time to disciple us.   God used this small group to take my relationship with Him to a whole new level.  I greatly admired the young mother who led our small group and I watched her very closely, trying to emulate her relationship with the Lord. 

Through this small group, I became very close friends with another girl my age.  She was so passionate for the Lord and we spurred one another on to a deeper walk with the Lord all that summer between our junior and senior year of high school.

It was also during this year that the Lord began to give me a passion for missions.  I was so excited about this new relationship with Jesus that I wanted to share Him with everyone.  Although I scaled back and wasn't as pushy about my faith as I was in those first few months as a believer, my heart still would beat faster every time a missionary would come to our church and speak.  I found books that fed this passion during that first year as a believer.  Books like Shadow of the Almighty were incredibly instrumental in introducing me to the world of missionaries.  Also, my friend who had led me to Christ had many extended family members who were missionaries (his great-grandfather was martyred in Bolivia). And then, most importantly, my church continued to display a strong commitment to seeing the gospel spread which obviously had the biggest effect on me as we prayed Sunday after Sunday for specific missionaries and heard about their work.

As I grew in my faith in this first year as a believer, I looked forward to my time at church.  I couldn't wait to get there on Sunday mornings and to learn and grow and fellowship with people who shared a genuine relationship with the Lord.  It was so new and so amazing!!!

My Journey with the Lord: Salvation Story

So I last left you with my friend explaining to me about his relationship with the Lord and how his identity was found only in his Savior, Jesus Christ.   I wish I could say I remember vividly every single detail of this conversation...but I don't.  I vaguely remember my curiosity at the direction the conversation had taken (after all, I knew he was a Christian...and he knew I wasn't a Christian....why were we talking about this now, after all the time we had known each other?!)

That night we ended up at our local Barnes and Noble with open Bibles before us.  The first verse that stood out to me was in the Beatitudes, Matthew 5:3, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."  I latched onto this verse as the phrase "poor in spirit" echoed over and over in my head.  That night, God began to reveal to me my poverty of spirit.  One simple verse, that's all it took for the Holy Spirit to convict me.  All I could see as my friend read that verse out loud to me, and other verses throughout the Bible, was that all of my strivings truly were in vain, that no matter how brilliant I would try to be in theater, in academia, or how nice I was...all of that couldn't get me to heaven.    My poor friend tried to ask me questions about the passages we were reading and I know I must have responded a bit inanely...I couldn't help it, only that first part of Matthew 5:3 was churning in my mind. 

Thankfully, my friend pressed on and drew me back.  He walked me through the Scriptures, pointing out to me various passages, explaining what sin is and how the wages of sin is death.    The enormity and weight of my sin was truly palpable and I longed so desperately for this heavenly Father’s love and acceptance as He opened my eyes to the  truth of His Word.  Then my friend took me to passages that were like a refreshing drink of cool water as I waded through the desert that was my sin.  Romans 6:23 stood out to me, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."  And then, as my sin seemed so overwhelming and yet I knew intellectually that I was being offered a gift, I was turned to 2 Corinthians "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."   I knew I wanted heaven.  I knew I didn’t want to live with this newly discovered awful weight.  I was tired.  Tired of trying so hard. Tired of being so angry. Tired of wanting something that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.  I wanted to be clothed in Christ's righteousness and be able to access this amazing God who offered such amazing freedom to me!  So that night, after my friend walked me through Romans 10:9-10, which says,

That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.

I knelt in Barnes and Noble parking lot and confessed that I was truly a sinner and in desperate need of a Savior.

Praying for the first time, I remember actually being nervous.  Not because of my company, or the fact that I was in a parking lot (please note: by parking lot, I mean a grassy area at the end of the parking lot) with cars whizzing by me, but because I had no idea what to say to this God I was just being introduced to.  Luckily my friend, college boy that he was, actually was sensitive to my discomfort and prayed with me which made it a bit easier.   

It wasn't until I was finally in my car, alone with the Lord, that I think everything finally clicked.  As I drove the 20 minutes back to my house, in the quietness of that drive, I confessed my sins to the Lord out loud as He brought them to mind.  I told God that I wanted to belong to Him, that I felt like I belonged to Him and that I wanted to know Him more.   I thanked Him for sending Jesus to die in my place for the penalty of my sins.  I thanked Him even more that because of Jesus' death and resurrection, I could now stand in His presence clothed in Christ's righteousness!  In my excitement, it was a bit difficult to fall asleep that night!

The next day once I finished fourth hour (it was the first week of school), I raced out to my car and practically flew the 25 minutes to the theater where I had an internship all that junior year of high school.  I scarfed down my sandwich and couldn't wait to read my Bible.  I'd had a Bible for about six months (since about the time my mom had started going to church), but it didn't make sense when I read it, so I had barely used it.  When I opened it up that day, I felt so excited.  I immediately turned to where my friend and I had left off in Matthew 5 and dug in.   

In the weeks that followed, I gobbled up Scripture as God continued to open up my eyes to the truth and beauty of His Word.  He revealed to me more and more of His character and what He has done for me and what He continues to do.  In those weeks that followed, God ultimately showed me what my heart had always been longing for:  Him.   I couldn't believe how supremely satisfying a relationship with God could be.  In my excitement and zeal, I started sharing with everyone and anyone I could.  One of the guys that had a locker near me at school, starting teasing me and everytime he'd see me, he's laughingly call out, "Save me Je-bas, save me" quoting a line Homer Simpson says in the TV show The Simpsons.  

As the year progressed on, I toned down in my overzealous sharing, but not in my relationship with the Lord.  I couldn't wait to get to church every Sunday and I treasured my daily Bible reading in the quiet greenroom during lunch at the theater.  I loved being a child of God and I couldn't wait to see where God was going to take me throughout the rest of my life as I walked with Him. 

My Journey with the Lord: Pre-Christian Story (Part 2)

The defining moment in my pre-Christian story took place in 1997.   It was at this point and time, when I was fourteen years old, that my mom and dad decided to separate. Although I was by no means shocked when they told my brother and myself, I still was at an incredibly awkward and rebellious age, so I didn't cope the best with this break-up of our family.  To say I was one angry, little teenager is a vast understatement.  My desperate quest for comfort began in earnest after my dad moved out and things with my family became very messy.  I was fourteen years old:   awkward, rebellious, and desperately searching for an identity and comfort anywhere I could find it.    I'm sure you can imagine where this is heading...

  Actually, here is where I can see the first, very evident, intervention by the Lord.  At this point in my life, at fourteen years old, incredibly rebellious, desperately looking for comfort...things could have gotten pretty ugly, pretty quickly.  But they didn't.  I was a freshman in high school and the first new friends I made were at band camp and they were upperclassman and all very positive, kind, and even a bit motherly toward me.  Every time I got down and depressed, they were there lifting me back up.  They didn't feed my sour moods, but instead, helped me to stay positive.  I also became friends with my drum major who, conveniently turned out to be a Christian.

I loved the arts, and quickly found my niche transferring from music to the world of theater, and once again, found myself surrounded by Christians.  My first real boyfriend was a devoted Christian and a number of the people I interacted with on a regular basis (including his family and best friend) were devoted Christians as well.  But I still didn't know the Lord.  And as a result I sought my comfort and identity in the world of the theatre and treasured the escapism it provided.  If I wasn't at school, I could be found at our local community theatre.  I reveled in that world and thought that nothing mattered more than it.  I continued to look for comfort not only in the theatre, but in the relationships that world provided as well.

One night, after a particularly grueling rehearsal, I came out of the theatre with a friend of mine (read: my former, first real boyfriend).  We started talking about the stress of the night, my frustrations with my lack of perfection in theatre, with academics, etc.  I began ruminating on the futility of it all and philosophizing on whether or not this truly all mattered in the long run.   In my mind, I was just venting to a dear friend of mine, but the Lord had a different plan for this night.

After patiently listening to me, my friend began talking about his relationship with the Lord and how his identity and perfection itself was found in only one place, and that place was in his Savior, Jesus Christ.  I vaguely remember my curiousity at the direction the conversation had taken, and the earnestness with which he shared these thoughts...

To Be Continued

My Journey with the Lord: Pre-Christian Story (Part 1)

A week ago, Ciaran and I were back in our hometowns visiting family.  When Sunday morning rolled around, since we were staying with Ciaran's parents, we didn't feel like making the forty minute drive to my home church.  So we decided to visit the church that I attended when I first became a Christian (since it's about 1 minute from my in-laws' house).  It wasn't that monumental of a decision...actually it was made spur of the moment without much thought....yet that one visit did more to revitalize my affections for the Lord than anything so far this summer.  From the moment I walked in and took a seat in one of the pews, I felt like a brand new believer again.  I remembered how I treasured the stillness of the sanctuary, how close I felt to the Lord as I would open a Bible and read and learn things I had never known before.  How exciting my walk with the Lord was back then when it was all new!  As I've reflected on those feelings, the thought struck me that it might be fun to share my testimony over the next few weeks and where the Lord has led me as a believer so far.  As I combed through the archives of this blog I realized I've never actually shared my testimony in full.  And since  I'm quickly approaching my 11-year spiritual birthday, I thought this would be a fun way to round out the summer. 

Also, Ciaran and I are becoming members of the church we've been attending for the last 16 months at the end of August and part of the membership service includes sharing our testimonies with the congregation.  The testimony I'm going to share with the church is greatly condensed, as in 1/14 of what I will share here (basically just my salvation story), which makes this little blog project even more meaningful to me.  Reflecting on where the Lord has brought me so far always draws me closer to Him and reminds me of His faithfulness.

So without further ado, let's start with my pre-Christian story:

During my childhood, I considered myself to have been (for the most part) un-churched. My mother was raised Methodist and my father was raised Presbyterian.  I remember a short space of time when I was in early elementary school when we attended a Presbyterian church and then another short spell when we attended the Methodist church in my later elementary school years.  I also attended the Methodist church a few extra times throughout my childhood with my grandparents, but it was more out of adoration/devotion to them that I attended, rather than a desire to know God and worship Him.   

Even though I was for the most part, un-churched...I can see evidences of God introducing Himself to me and drawing me to Him all throughout my childhood.  I loved going to the community summer VBS (Vacation Bible School) that was offered in my hometown.  Four of the local churches would get together every summer and put this summer program on, but sadly, I only loved it for the opportunity it provided to catch up with a bunch of my classmates and sing songs and play fun games.  

I also had a number of children's Bibles and I remember playing "Sunday School" with my grandmother during the summer months.  My grandmother would read to me a Bible story and plan a craft project for me to do that went along with the Bible story in between working out in the garden or somewhere else around the farm.  I remember specifically thinking of the Bible as just a collection of "stories" and that the "stories" were meant to provide a moral lesson, much like the fables and short stories I would read in the books I got from the library.

Although, the two above-mentioned remembrances from my childhood hardly testify to knowing God personally and believing in His infallible Word, I do believe these few introductions to the Christian faith were the little seeds that were sown in my heart to introduce me to the God I now worship and adore today.

The defining moment in my pre-Christian story took place in 1997.   It was at this point and time, when I was fourteen years old, that my mom and dad decided to separate. Although I was by no means shocked when they told my brother and myself, I still was at an incredibly awkward and rebellious age, so I didn't cope the best with this break-up of our family.  To say I was one angry, little teenager is a vast understatement.  My desperate quest for comfort began in earnest after my dad moved out and things with my family became very messy.  I was fourteen years old:   awkward, rebellious, and desperately searching for an identity and comfort anywhere I could find it.    I'm sure you can imagine where this is heading...