I grew up in a Christian home (with some dysfunction) but did not have a relationship with God. I went to church and even went to a Christian college my first semester but was not a Christian. After a very traumatic event in my first semester, I was baptized because I thought that is what I should do to ease those around me from worry and I thought it couldn’t hurt. I quickly turned away from God and now I know I didn’t have an obedient heart and I wasn’t trusting in Christ but was trusting in myself. The baptism wasn’t a symbol of being raised to new life then because I wasn’t truly saved. I very quickly entered a lifestyle of ruin and rampant sin after that.  I stayed in that place for about 13 years. Every sin I could do against my body and mind I did. (Abortion, drugs, unhealthy relationships, and on and on). I was not convicted that I was sinning at the time but I did know my life was a mess and I kept trying to figure it out and fix it myself. I had a lot of anger and showed it often at work and to my husband. I was seeking answers and using new age philosophy of the cosmos and energy and connectivity to try to find answers. I wasn’t looking to God.

In the midst of all my chaos God did send me a kind and patient man that I married. We did not seek God in our marriage. I was getting farther and farther away from God and the idea of God. I had no guide to follow on how to be a good wife and I became a horrible one. After just a few short years my marriage was on the verge of ruin, due to my selfishness and anger and control. We weren’t successful with having a child yet. I had problems at work and legal problems personally, (DUI). I was battling temptations, and the list goes on. Everything was crumbling down around me. On a lonely night in 2010, after having a conversation with my husband about whether we were going to work things out or call it quits in our marriage, I finally got on my knees and called out to God. I look back now and see so many times He was coming for me. He had planted the gospel seed in my heart when I heard of it as a teenager and it was finally bearing fruit. He was working in me. He was getting me ready for this moment when all I could physically do, because the weight of my wretchedness, was kneel down and give myself to Him. I cried a lot of tears of confession and repentance. I was now aware of all the sin I had in my life in the past and present. I thanked God for what he had done and for not giving up on me.

The first year God saved me was filled with a lot of prayer and a lot of mistakes. I learned quickly I needed His guidance to live this life. I needed Christ to live this life! I wasn’t attending church yet, I didn’t know scripture, my husband isn’t a believer, and so I just prayed. I quietly grew my relationship with God. God was always faithful to me in those first years and He continues to be. Within that first year we conceived our daughter against all the barriers that were stacked against us in the area of fertility. It was a special time for me in growing my relationship with God in those years and it was something I did privately in the beginning. For the most part my friends weren’t Christians. I didn’t want to be a poor example to them of what a Christian was. I was still carrying shame from many areas of my past. I now know that attitude was incorrect. No one is a “good” Christian.

I have learned God’s Word always delivers what we need. He is ALWAYS right! I keep finding that again and again and again. He has given me a church I love and new Christian friends to encourage me. (I’m still attending that church today seven years later).  I don’t feel the anger toward my husband I used to, I feel blessed. My marriage is good and God is continually showing me how to be the wife I need to be. My call to be a Christian wife isn’t conditional on my husband believing in God. Now I want to obey God instead of fight and argue with the idea of God. Now I want to confess and repent instead of blame everyone else for what my sin did in my life. Now I want to follow Jesus instead of try to lead and control my own life. I fail at this of course, I sin daily. But God continues to bless me with Himself. He is my biggest blessing. God continues to be everything He’s always said He is going to be. I am a sinner. But more importantly I am forgiven. I am clean. Because Jesus died for me and washed all of that wretchedness away.

The following video is of my baptism on December 1st 2013, along with 3 other brothers and sisters in Christ!

 

<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/82325777″>Harvest Baptisms December 1st, 2013</a> from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/hickoryharvest”>Harvest Bible Chapel – Hickory</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a&gt;.</p>