Before Jesus Changed My Life
My story starts like any other story. At the beginning. I was baptized as a baby in a Methodist church. Growing up, I would sometimes go to church with friends or to VBS with the neighbor across the street, and I LOVED it. When my older brother was about 14 years old, confirmation age, we started going to church more often, and I remember my heart feeling so full when we went to church and when I read the bible. I feel like I was following Jesus at this point in my life.
When it came to my turn for confirmation, I was ready to go. I started the class, but I was also involved in other things, and my heart was being pulled away from Jesus due to some turmoil between me getting confirmed and attending the other activities. I ended up going to another church and getting confirmed, but that was more of a formality or a life milestone that was expected of me. I wasn’t really confirming my faith at that point.
I feel like in my life before Jesus, I was always searching for more. I was happy but not fully content.
I grew up and moved out of my parents' house, got engaged and married, and had 3 kids. Growing up, my kids never really went to church except maybe occasionally with friends. I felt like I believed in God, but at this point, I didn’t know God. I didn’t think I needed to attend church to be a believer. I thought loving my family and enjoying life, saying I was a believer, meant I was a believer, but I never realized that I wasn’t feeling content.
As my kids grew older, two of them started attending church and youth group. Eventually, there were times that I would attend with them, and I started going pretty regularly over time. One Sunday when I was there, they started talking about their need to fill their nursery coordinator position. I feel like Jesus called to me at that point to become the nursery volunteer coordinator at the church we were attending, so I applied.
I went through the interview process, and I was one of the final two people that they were choosing from to get the position. I originally told them that I wasn’t sure I was the right person for the job because I didn’t feel like I knew Jesus well enough to teach younger children about him. I think God had his hand in this and was continuing to guide me back to him because the church employees convinced me I was the right person for the job.
I was the nursery coordinator for 5 years. I started to enjoy hearing the gospel more regularly, and I started enjoying sharing it with the younger kids. Unfortunately, I still was not a full believer, and I still did not feel Jesus in my heart, even after working at the church. When the time came for me to move on from the nursery coordinator position, my oldest son, Tyler, was already a pastor. Over time, I was being exposed to the Word more and more as I attended and became a member of a church where he was preaching. I began to actually listen to the things he and the other pastor were saying, and I opened my heart a little more. I grew to know some people who were close to God, and even my daughter, Loren, had accepted Jesus in her heart and married into a family of faithful followers. My daughter-in-law, Bailey, had also given birth to my first granddaughter Ameila at this time. Hearing all of their stories, and that they felt like I raised them as non-believers, made me sad. That was never my intent as a parent.
How Jesus Changed My Life
Seeing all of them feel Jesus in their hearts now, and hearing the innocent voice of a child I love ask to hear a story about Jesus or sing a song about Jesus, started to open my heart even more. All these things helped me to realize that I was feeling my faith grow.
Over the next year and a half, I felt moved and emotional when I came to church. During that time, is when I opened my heart to Jesus again. Sometimes I would sing songs and cry while I was singing. I was feeling Jesus move me and the Holy Spirit in me. Ezekiel 36: 26-27 say "I will give you my heart and put a new spirit in you. I will put my spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees."
Being at church and surrounded by my family helped me to finally feel the Holy Spirit within me again! I realized that my faith was what I was feeling, and Jesus’ love was what was making me feel emotional. Although it took me some time to get back to it and to realize it, I was feeling convicted! I asked for forgiveness for my past sins, felt his forgiveness, and finally felt contentment.
My Life After Jesus Saved Me
I am a crier. I am a happy, sad, frustrated, loving, and nervous crier. My crying at church was a happy, loving cry. I was realizing that my heart was feeling full and that it was feeling the love of Jesus that made it feel fully content. Not that I wasn’t loved in this world, but feeling his love helped me feel like I was complete.
Knowing and understanding the message of God and that Jesus died for all of our sins was what was missing when I didn’t even realize something was missing. I was not afraid to pray to him and ask for forgiveness for my past sins. I praise him for continually guiding me back to him. It took time, and I was stubborn and not always ready to hear him, but God was speaking to me.
I hadn’t felt drawn to read the Bible since I was in middle school, but in this last year, I felt drawn to it. I read almost daily, and I want to know the story. I feel more content and more ready to hear him when he is speaking to me. I know that I still have a lot to learn about the Gospel. I will always be asking for forgiveness of my sins, but I can confidently say that I feel more content with Jesus in my life.
I have already realized that even when things happen in my life that are difficult, without God, I may not have been able to navigate them without overwhelming anxiety. Having God to turn to and knowing that Jesus died for our sins has helped me to learn to navigate things gracefully. I have even been able to see my son Jacob grow in his faith recently. Seeing him turn to Jesus to forgive him for his sins, as my other two kids already have, and knowing he is ready to take communion and wanting to be baptized, has helped me to know that in the end, it is going to be ok. Hebrews 11:1. says "faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see." I am content knowing that it is in God's hands.