Ten Years, One Decade

Tomorrow will mark my 10 year spiritual birthday! Ten years ago, as a freshman in college, I realized my need for a Savior. I had been attending church for several years, and thought I was a Christian. I felt I was doing everything "right" and "good". However, the Christmas of 1997 started a one-month process for me. I attended a conference in Orlando, FL over the Christmas break through a Christian organization on campus. One of the sessions I went to was called "clarifying your testimony" and the speaker handed out a worksheet with questions to help us start to put together the story of how we came to know Christ as Savior. As I was filling out the worksheet, there were several questions I just didn't feel like I could answer. And it started me thinking. Fast forward a couple of weeks and I'm back on campus. Well, the Christian organizations on campus each have a weekly meeting and at both, people would give their testimony. The testimonies sounded very similar to mine, at least up to a point. I had made a profession of faith when I was in 6th grade, but I don't think I fully understood what it meant to make a profession of faith. So, at the end of one of those meetings, I asked a girl from down the hall if I could talk to her later. When I went to her room I said to her, "I don't know if I'm a Christian." She helped me to understand that through Christ, I can have full assurance of my faith. But she also helped me to understand that some people who claim to know the Lord do not know Him (Matthew 7:21-22). That evening I realized that while I had professed to be a believer, I only had a head knowledge of Him. I had been doing many things in my life that I thought were good, but I realized that I had never surrendered my heart to Christ. So, that evening (Jan 21, 1998), I went into the bathroom in my dorm : ) and prayed that Christ would save me from my own sin and selfishness and help me to live a life that is glorifying to Him.

And now ten years later, I can look back on that year and see the great foundation in Christ that I was able to lay through the ministry I was involved in on campus. Here are some highlights (because you know how much I like lists) of the past ten years of my spiritual journey:

• A calling to do Christian counseling
• A mission trip to Daytona Beach, FL for 8 weeks (where I worked as a maid in a hotel and lived in a hotel room with three other girls)
• Leading a freshmen Bible study my junior year of college
• Serving on the leadership team of the BSU my senior year of college
• Attending seminary for 3 1/2 years in Texas
• Serving in many capacities in various churches (nursery, AWANA, teaching Sunday School)
• Mission trip to Guatemala summer of 2007

The Lord has blessed me in so many ways and seen me through so many life changes. He directs my path and leads me in the way that He knows is best for me. For that I am grateful, because who knows where I would be if it were up to me!!!