My Story

The pastor of the church I am attending challenged everyone to write out their story in 100 words or less. Usually, I think of myself as being a fairly succinct person when it comes to writing. I never was quite able to come up with enough thoughts to fill those 20 page papers in college. However, when it came to writing out my story I couldn't come close to keeping it under 100 words. Even after several cuts, it still comes to 355 words (according to Microsoft Word's word count). Thus, since I've already written it out and shared it in class today - I figured why not go ahead and post it up on my blog too. Here you go:

"The summer before my sophomore year of high school, my best friend took me to this new start-up church. I enjoyed it and started attending with her and her family. Soon, my sister tagged along with us, and eventually my parents followed suit. That fall my parents decided that we would join the church with my sister and I joining by profession of faith. It was only by the excitement of our youth minister that I caught on to what that meant. As the day of our baptism loomed closer, I realized that I had not really made a commitment to Christ. It was the night before my baptism alone in my room when everything I knew about Christ and God became real to me. I knew that God did not take lightly things done in His name, and it was with this realization of His power and my brokenness for what Christ had done for me that I prayed thanking Him for sending His Son on my behalf. Even though my family was based in Christianity, it was truly a work of God that my sister and I became Christians. He used my best friend to draw us to His church. Without that foundation early on in our adolescence I know the course of our lives could have been much different. My sister and I both struggled with daddy issues due to our father being a functional alcoholic. We could have easily ended up laying our self-worth at the feet of high school boys in an attempt to gain the affection we longed for – instead God stepped in and saved us. He changed our priorities and saved us from what could have been a self-destructive future. He also prepared us by surrounding us with a strong group of believers for when we would have to face the most devastating time of our lives – when our father’s alcoholism killed him. It was a long, dark and lonely time even with my faith in Christ, so I can only envision how much worse the outcome could have been if I did not have that faith to ground me."