My journey as a Christian

One of the very first things that most of my friends learned about me when we were first becoming friends is this....I am a Christian. I've realized as I've gotten older that people tend to take Christianity in many ways....some believe its wonderful because they are believers and followers of Christ themselves, some think its awful because they either don't believe at all or they refuse to believe in a "being" that rules over the fate of their lives. There are also people who call Christianity nothing but a cult. That we Christians have surely been brainwashed by someone to believe what the Bible says. I feel truly sorry for those people, and I feel sorry for the athiests and those who choose to worship a false God just for the sake of "freedom". I don't know what your background is as a follower of my blog, and I'm not writing this particular blog to offend or upset anyone. I'm writing it so that you can hear my story and that in the hopes that you might be a Christian as well and might share yours in return. One thing that I've learned from my Mission group is that it can be life changing and uplifting to hear someone's story. How they were led to Christ and how their life has changed since accepting Christ. With all that said this is my story:

I grew up attending Green Meadows Baptist church with my grandparents. I went to Sunday school every Sunday morning while they were in the morning service. I joined the children's choir, and when I was older I joined the youth group. Every summer we went on various day trips, hiking, trips to the park to swim, we even went camping one year! I loved that church and I learned to love Jesus! I loved all the "Bible stories" we were taught on Sundays and all I knew was I wanted to accept Jesus.....whatever that meant. So every year when that time rolled around again in the youth, I would raise my hand as one of the one's who wanted to let Jesus into their heart. I think I probably "accepted Christ into my heart" at least 20 times from the age of 7 to about 13 or 14. This isn't nessacarily a bad thing, but looking back I know I didn't see the whole picture. I loved because I was taught to love through songs of worship....not because I knew how great God really was.

In middle school I stopped going to church because my grandparents moved and were searching for a new church. I still went to vacation Bible school in the summer at Green Meadows and I adored the youth minister because he was "totally cool", but sadly I still didn't get it.

The same can be said about my high school years. I rarely went to church unless it was with a friend who's house I had spent the night at over the weekends. I still prayed but that was it. Then during my senior year I heard a friend talking about a youth group called DCYC. It was a HUGE youth group made up of high school students (and some people in college) from 13 different churches in Davie County. I went to one of the rehearsals that following Sunday and fell in love with the group. I'm not sure if it was the fact that we got to travel for a week during the summer or if it was because of Jesus but I stayed in DCYC for 3 years and they were some of the greatest years of my life! God blessed me with some amazing friends during those years, and I'm grateful for the ones that I still have today! It also felt amazing going to different schools, retirement homes, and other churches in different states and sharing the Word with others. It made me happy one year when we went to a school and performed for a bunch of children who didn't know much about Jesus. When we finished our play they got up and ran to us wanting to know more. I left that place with tears of joy! For awhile I started attending the church we were based out of, but after a year I left because I felt the pastor cared more about what he wanted outta life instead of where God was leading him. Out of respect I won't name that church.

I didn't start going to church again until I was between the ages of 20-22. My mom had started attending Calvary Assemblies of God in Greensboro with the guy she was dating at the time. Even though this church was alot bigger than most of the churches I'd been to in the past, I grew passionate about it after one service. I loved the way the pastors preached, and I loved that they filled me with the passion I was starting to lack. I started to remember why I loved the Lord and I started doing independent Bible studies as well as joining their young adult Bible studies. My mom and I got baptised together at an evening service one night and even though I had some strange things happen to me that night I had never felt better! Right before the service that night I lost partial hearing in both my ears. All of a sudden during the beginning of our worship (while we were singing no less) I noticed the music suddenly sounded distant, as well as the voices around me. It seemed as if everyone had started whispering and the music faded away. But then all I could hear was a high pitched ringing....I tried popping my ears and sticking my fingers in them and it wouldn't go away. Then right before the baptisms were to begin, I was standing in line with everyone else when I felt a sharp pain in my finger. I looked down and realized my finger was gushing blood from a cut.....strange thing is there was nothing around for me to cut my finger on. I hate to admit I was terrified, but yet I was determined to not let anything come between me getting baptised. So I did it!! An hour after the service my hearing came back and the buzzing went away. A week or two later one of the head pastor's daughters decided to share her story with us, and she mentioned how all these bad things happened to her after she accepted Christ. Her story finally put my mind at ease  because it reminded me of this....

Whenever you give your life to Christ; Satan will try to do anything he can to stop you from following Christ and turning back to sin. He will try to scare you, manipulate you, and even cause bad things to happen in your life to lead you away from God. This is something I would deal with more several years down the road.

Sadly a year or so after getting baptised I stopped going to Calvary. I still loved that church, but the drive to Greensboro became a hassle. Then I got my job at Carowinds and started dating a guy who turned out to be an athiest. Instead of leaving him upon finding that out I fell madly in love with him and turned to a life of sin with him. The whole total of 18 mths we were together I never went to church. I prayed and sometimes read the Word, but my main focus in life was that boyfriend. When it came time to breakup for the 2nd time he tried to force me into breaking up with him by posting "Who in the f*** is this God guy" on his religion status on Facebook. That should have been all I needed to dump him for good but I still held on until he called it off in a nasty e-mail. Even though this was probably 4 years ago or so, I never forgave myself for not standing up better for God.

After that breakup I still didn't go to church but I dove back into independent Bible studies and prayer. Then one night a few years ago something happened to shake up my entire world. One night during the summer I was at home with my dad and brother. I had rented Sweeney Todd and was watching it. Halfway through the movie it started lightning off in the distance from our house. It was freaky but I thought it was cool because it suited the darkness of the movie. Then I started hearing a pinging noise. I turned on our porch light and started to look out our living room window. I saw hail flying horizontally across the sky and then everything went black. Our power went out and I felt something scratch me across my face. I stumbled blindly through our trailer hoping and praying things would be all over soon. I made it to my dad's room as he confirmed my biggest fear...we were hit by a tornado! Luckily we were all ok and our place though damaged was still ok to be lived in. One night a few weeks later my brother and I were on Facebook and I felt the desperate need to get in touch with an old friend from the youth group. So I messaged my friend Meghan. I met Meghan my last year of DCYC. I told her about everything going on and how the tornado made me want to reconnect with strong Christian friends. I met up with her and our friend Meridith a few days later. We sat at a McDonalds and talked for HOURS. Before we went our own ways that afternoon they invited me to go to church with them that Sunday. I said yes and thats how I was introduced to the church I attend now, 121.

121 is a non-denominational church. We believe religion is dead, but Jesus is not. Since I know blog is already well on its way to becoming a short novel I won't explain that now. Just know that it means our services and everything else we do within our church is based on the Word alone. After just one service I knew in my heart this was the type of church I'd been searching for....the church I need. We have 3 awesome pastors, and several Mission groups. I love my mission group because they have taught me alot over the past few years. They are an inspiration to me and I hope they all know it! Sadly my journey with 121 hasn't always been sunshine and lollipops. The 1st year I joined 121 I wanted to learn everything I could and join everything I could. I wanted to be part of the church's body because I loved watching this church seedling starting to grow into a plant. After some prayer and advice from close friends I decided I wanted to become a partner. I still to this day don't know if God was leading me to it, or if I wanted to do it out of my own selfish needs. Either way things were going well until I tried to figure out what my spiritual gift(s) was. I guess Satan realized I was really getting ready to take my faith to the next level because he hit me HARD! Once again I won't go into details since this blog is already super long, but if you'd ever like to hear that part of the story feel free to e-mail me....I have nothing to hide. Not only did he come up on me fast, but he hit me from every angle possible. He filled my head with thoughts of worry and doubt, he tried to tear me away from my family and friends, worst of all he came between me and the church. I haven't really shared this story with many people from my church because I tend to cry when I talk about it. I'm not scared to type it out because if I cry no one has to see.

Anyway I stopped attending church weekly because he really tried to steal my focus when I'd attend a service. It got hard for awhile to hear the gospel because he would scream evil words into my head during the service. It got to the point where after about 6 months I got tired of it and screamed out "Satan your words won't stop me from loving God anymore! I will worship him until I die!" After that I felt relief rush over me but part of me was still scared. Lucklily God put an amazing man by my side to take care of me. He's one of the only ones who knows the entire dark side of my journey as a Christian. There were nights I honestly thought I was going mad and he still stood by me. That tells me he's strong in his faith too and I should be honored to call him my future husband.

Things have gotten alot better over the past few months. After talking to a few close friends I realized Satan will always be there trying to surround us with fears and doubt. And what Pastor Blackwood's daughter said seems to be beyond true.....the further along you are in your walk with God, the harder he'll try and make you fall. When I think of that and everything that has happened to me in the past 2 years I can't help but smile because that tells me I must have been on the right path if Satan needed to attack me that strongly! I'm still not a partner, and I still miss church on occasion, but nowadays its normally because of traveling issues or illness. I know I don't read my Bible daily the way I should, and I probably don't pray as much as I should, but I've come to realize alot of Christians share that same problem. I'm human and sometimes its my nature to be lazy and not do the things I know I should and would enjoy if I did. Luckily Jesus is better than I am, and he wll makes up for the things I lack! The only fears I have nowadays are personal. I worry that I won't live up to God's expectations when it comes to my role of being a wife to Jamie. We want a biblical based marriage and I worry my stubborness will pull away from being a Godly woman. I guess only time will tell, but luckily Jesus will always be there whenever I'm not strong enough to do the right thing.

So far thats my story. I'm hoping the next time I update my story from a Christian's standpoint it will be even better. :) Until then God Bless each and everyone of you who actually took the time to read this entire blog! I hope my story inspires you for the better, and I'd love hearing thoughts and other people's stories if you're willing to share.
                          ~Shay~