Personal Narrative: How Christianity Changed My Life

I was watching a Christian bishop on the television. He preaching about begin pressured, worrying about things, and living in depression. While I was watching the bishop preaching my sister took the television remote and she changed the channel to watch pretty little liars without asking me if she could change it. I was annoyed at her because she was careless. I raised my voice at her, I asked her why did she changed it. I really wanted to hear what the bishop saying, so I told her I’m suffering from this and maybe she watch it for herself. I asked her if she could please put it back. My mom was sitting next to me and she told my sister to put the channel I was watching back on.

Have you ever not liked doing something your parents wanted you to do? Well I use to, but it changed my life! When I was in sixth grade my mom use to make me go to church, and I did not like it. I remember after church was over I would come out in a bad mood because I did not want to go to church and it would ruin my mom’s day! Then we tried a new church, and it CHANGED my life!

battle with cancer, I tried killing myself cause I thought that God was punishing me for

I had been a “Christian” for years, being raised in a Christian home it was just the thing to do. However this meant nothing to me at the time I was a Christian because everyone else was. So after a long time and the struggles I went through, I was so far gone and away from what God had planned for my life that it looked like there was no hope. This is when something happened to me something incredible God restored my life and brought me home, out of my sin. Now this didn’t happen over night it was a process which took a matter of months, but it started the night I fell on my knees and realized I had been living a lie and that I was not a Christ follower, I knew the stuff but never applied it to my life and let it change my life.

Growing up with one Christian parent and one atheist parent confronted me early on with hard decisions surrounding faith. Faith, to me, became choosing between two parents more so than understanding my core beliefs and making the hard choices. I gave my life to Christ for the first time at a very young age in Sunday school; however, the pivotal point in my walk was during my freshman year. Up until that year, the only Christians I had direct contact with all simply went to church on Sundays and often were drunk or in another arguement as soon as Sunday night. The first time I saw someone act like a follower of Christ and not just proclaim to be was through my soccer coach. This coach never went around telling people that he was a believer,

I began to understand God’s significance bit by bit but continued to struggle with understanding people’s passion for a distant figurehead. For the next seven months I sporadically attended numerous talks, prayer groups, and events in order to figure out what a faith life meant. I slowly began a prayer relationship with God, started reading my Bible, and attempted to open my mind to a higher meaning. At this point I believed. I saw His love and power work in so many new friends, I learned so much about myself and what I was meant to become, and I understood why His Church had continued for so

I have long believed that God was a tale, a story, a Santa Claus or maybe worse, that he did not even exist. Now, I have drastically changed my mind and I strongly believe that He exists, guides, helps, and cares for those who have followed and supported him. By believe I mean, to accept as true or real, to credit with veracity, to expect or suppose, to have firm confidence, to have trust, and overall, to have faith, something special and unique which make us free. That is the way as believe in Him now…

I grew up in a Christian home where my faith really shaped who I am, my ideas, and...how I view the world and life. There’s one lesson in particular that...is an ongoing process and it’s kind of a struggle sometimes to remind myself of but I thought it’d be really cool to share it with you today.

This past summer I accepted Christ into my life after a long time of not really understanding what was happening and why I felt like God wasn’t there for me. I felt like God wasn’t there for me until it finally clicked at beach retreat that I wasn’t saved and that night as I listened to my youth pastor I actually understood what he was saying and I accepted Christ into my life that night. I finally understood that God was leading me to him the whole time and that God had a plan for me and my life and that I no longer had to be in control of my life because God knew what he was doing with me all along. Since I have trusted God he has shown me some amazing things and through ministry in Second Baptist I have realized that I want to be a part in God changing someone else’s life like he has changed mine. I feel that God has been preparing me for my church's spring break mission trip to San Pedro, Dominican Republic through ministry in church on Sunday teen bible study as well as the Elevate service, Wednesday night Live, and Spartans for Christ at my school.

I was raised in an Apostolic Pentecostal church. Not a Sunday, Wednesday, worship practice, decorating meeting, or special event was missed. Each year I was a part of the drama team and reenacted the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ for hundreds of people. I received the gift of speaking in tongues when I was seven, and was baptized a few months after. Every Bible story was carved into memory, verses memorized so adamant I was part of the competitive Bible Quizzing team. Suddenly when I was eleven, my family made the decision to leave the only place I’d ever encountered the presence of God. We then moved away from the city and were left with no church to turn to. It wasn’t until I started attending Oasis church that I reclaimed

Ever since I was in 3rd grade, God has guided me to live the way he intentionally put me on Earth for and to share his word. In grade school, my friends and I were on the playground at Maple Glen Elementary School. We were on the playground on a sunny, warm day with the black tar mulch, and I approached my friend who was climbing on the rock climbing wall. I said hello and continued to tell her about God. I explained how he watches over us, and how he cares for us because we are his children. She had many questions as to how this was possible because she has a mom and dad on Earth. I explained those were her earthly parents, but she has an eternal father in heaven. She said that it was kind of confusing, especially because of how young we were. She went to

The thing that I have probably enjoyed the most as a deacon is the role of teaching, both in a formal Sunday setting and everyday informality. Theology and thinking about God has always been at the heart of my spirituality. I can always find myself available with a complicated answer to a simple question. My questions as a Christian came at an early age. I wanted to truly understand where I came from and why I was created. Searching for a spiritual place in my life has always intrigued me and I always had a gnawing feeling in my gut that my purpose was greater than myself.

After my parent’s divorce we moved to Newton. It was so much more different than what I had experienced up to that point in my life. Previously I had only been exposed to a viewpoint about the workings of the world and it’s inhabitants. From the start of my life I had been told that all people knew in their hearts that there was a god. Those who claimed they didn’t know there was a god were simply denying the lord’s power in order to continue sinning. However, as I spent time in this new place I immediately learned that not everyone had the same strict ideas about the world. Through many years I went on with the same ideas I had always held. All this changed when one friend of mine was willing to challenge my ideas.

That is when it hit me. This is real, this whole ‘God Thing’ is real. I was a witness to a man called by God to create a space and an opportunity to reach what would be thousands of kids and get them to know who our God is. That is when my life changed, I wanted to do that. Fast forward through high school and to the season of young adult life beginning. I got a call from a friend of mine that was in desperate need for a female counselor for her Christian church camp and if they couldn’t find someone camp would be canceled. My hesitation was high, this is something I had no experience with, to be honest I didn’t really care for middle school kids and a full week is a long time. Something was pulling at my heart telling me that I was needed and this is where I was supposed to be. I went and that was the next step of my faith journey that I needed to take in order to keep moving forward to find the call God had put on my life. So there I was with 50 middle school children for one whole week in one of the most beautiful places in existence and I knew that I had found a new home. God had placed me there to plant roots for what was to come. Camp gave me an open door to what is now my church home in the Methodist community. I severed three years with mid-high camp and then life happened. I found my husband and we began a family. God placed the church in my life when he did, I believe, to have

I too have a story. I accepted Christ at a very young age, and know that I genuinely believed all that my 4-year-old mind could believe about Jesus. I was growing up knowing that I knew what I knew. I was the positive child with the positive nature who loved to make others smile. I made it a point to be a “doer” and not a “watcher.” I was active in my church because I wanted to be there; I participated in everything I could from the “regular” activities to the youth camps and retreats. My youth groups always went to camps and retreats and each time always had those “transformation stories” - incredible stories of how God had convicted the hearts of those around me. These were not sweet four-year-old stories but stories of changing the stone-cold hearts of drug addicts into youth ministers or worldwide missionaries, the