My precious Gigi reminded me yesterday that is it our 20th spiritual birthday.
The week before her fourth birthday all three of us agreed together that we would ask Mommy and Daddy to pray with us to ask Jesus into our hearts. We had just learned about death and heaven first hand when Mama’s best friend Jeanna died. My memories are vague but I do have a cherished few of that time. I remember seeing Mrs Jeanna lying on her sofa very sick when we brought her flowers we had picked, and somehow the song “People Need the Lord” is connected with that memory. And then I have a picture in my mind of all of us kneeling around our bed with Daddy. But most clear in my mind is my baptism. The baptismal was high up behind the pulpit of the church and I remember looking out and seeing my grandmother in the audience, and dog paddling from the underwater stool to the steps. All three of us were baptized together.
That was the beginning of my walk with Jesus. I’ve often thanked God for the faith He’s given me, for I’ve never looked back or questioned my salvation. However, I don’t recall my own stretching of spiritual legs until about five years later when we were in Russia and I learned how to pray. My lessons of faith were daily taught in my heart regarding fear. There was so much to be afraid of, and until then I had known no fear for we had a sheltered childhood. We read together as a family daily from the Word of God, and saw answers to our prayers on a daily basis as well as miracles. My God is so very big! He showed us how faithful He is, and How great is His love for the very least on this earth, and I understood that when I was ten. However, I have always struggled with letting fear take root in my heart instead of faith. How easily I forget God! And how good He is to always lead me back into trusting His good will. I need Him more and more as I have three sons now to raise…and that is my greatest desire, that they come to be His children and to know His love. I have to trust my Saviour to be my sons’ Saviour too.
My sisters have each had a different walk with Jesus and they both have beautiful testimonies of God’s power in their lives. It is such a wonderful gift to have sisters be for life and eternity!
And I know that one day my Jesus will see fit to bring me to Him and right there will be my Daddy, and there is no fear in death. Jesus has walked with me for twenty years and has never forsaken me and I know He never will. Blessed be His holy name!