One of the greatest blessings of my childhood was being brought up in a loving and caring home. My parents not only made me feel valued and cared for, but I also knew that they as Christians prayed for me and wanted me to know their Saviour, Jesus Christ, for myself.
I can’t remember a time when I didn’t believe in the existence of God. As a young child I assumed that I was a Christian because Mum and Dad were and because I was a generally well-behaved little girl (although my sister could tell plenty of stories to contradict that statement!).
I had friends in church and enjoyed going to the various meetings for children. It was at the age of about eight when God used one of those meetings to show me that having Christian parents and being ‘good’ didn’t mean that I was a Christian myself.
A missionary couple who had worked in the Congo (now Zaire) spoke at the mid-week children’s meeting. They described how many Sunday school children had been killed during the uprising in that country. Although this was a terrible thing to happen, they assured us that these children were now in heaven because they had been trusting the Lord Jesus to be their Saviour.
They went on to explain what it means to become a Christian. I had heard this message so many times before, but now it was as if God was speaking only to me. I realised that if I had been one of those children I wouldn’t have gone to heaven – because God is perfect he would not have allowed a sinful person like me into his heaven.
I understood for the first time that I couldn’t simply ‘inherit’ being a Christian from my mum and dad – I had to ask God for forgiveness myself and trust that he would forgive me because Jesus had died in my place, taking the punishment I deserved because he loved me so much. And that’s what I did that night.
Was I a changed little girl? Outwardly, probably not very much. But inwardly, yes I was – although I didn’t always find it easy to read my Bible and to pray, now I really wanted to and I wanted to live in a way that was pleasing to my heavenly Father.
Being a Christian affects every area of your life. God has blessed me in too many ways to mention here. He has never let me down, although I have often failed him and still do. He has kept, helped, and guided me through all the challenges that life brings – choosing a college, choosing a church, passing exams, failing exams, finding a job, being single when all your friends get married and have children, losing loved ones, discovering ways to serve him.
Jesus is my friend and my brother. He always keeps his promises, and although I don’t always understand why certain things happen in my life, I do know that they are all part of his perfect plan for my life and that they are for my good and his glory.
That God ever loved me at all becomes a more amazing fact as the years go by, but confirms what I discovered at the age of eight – that there is nothing about me that makes me worthy of his love. It is all because he first loved me, and loved me so much that he sent his Son to die in my place.
Because of this I know that one day I will meet those children of the Congo in heaven, and tell them how God used their story to bring me to himself.
