My Testimony

Part 1I remember lying in bed listening to a familiar rerun of a children’s ministry broadcast which was on the only local Christian radio station. I was in my clean, line-dried, white night-gown, which had been worn by my older sister laying next to me, and probably the one before her, as well as our eldest. When I was five years old, it was among the most familiar of many things to me on a nightly basis and as much so as going to church was each Sunday. Being so highly involved with the Church family, I knew from a young age what it meant to be a sinner and that I was one. I also knew that in order to go to heaven, I needed to accept Christ as my savior. As far back as I can remember, I can recall things which I now know as unusual like praying thanks before every meal and not partaking in many activities or cultural consistencies of the world. Because my family is large and more mature than I, I had this idea that I was an exception to having any need to personally invite the Lord into my life. I guess to my young mind, I felt that a definite prayer would not be necessary to become a Christ follower because I already prayed to God. I figured that since I was already a Christian (because I prayed, I believed in Jesus already which is how we are saved from our sin and become Christians) serving the Lord, it must have been that once I had said the “official” prayer, that it must be a state which you enter into afterword. My siblings and my parents were all so knowledgeable and seemed to live the life of Jesus without what I thought was really any difficulty or temptation; it must have been that this specific prayer would do that for me and that it could not be discovered otherwise.

That night that I was laying there, I got up the nerve to ask my sister if it was really true like I had been told  -and was being so once again at the urge of the broadcast- that I would not go to heaven if I didn’t ask Jesus to dwell in my heart (I say “got up the nerve” because although we were all very used to going to Church together and my family’s well being was completely formed to Christ, my sister and I were not used to conversing about God. She told me that was true, but once I asked her and realized when she said that she had already done that, that I needed to as well because I was the youngest so I knew all of the rest of my family would have already done this and of course the thought of being left alone was dreadfully unacceptable. Once this had occurred, I could not keep living my life on the other side. Not long after this particular night in the summer that I was five years old, I told my dad that I wanted to pray and ask Jesus into my life.