I have been brought up in a Christian home and I always thought I was a Christian because we always said grace, read the Bible and prayed every evening. I grew up going to church and it was just something I did every Sunday. I had friends there so it was a fun place to go. When dad started his training to be a vicar I thought it was a really important job but I didn’t know why. When we moved to Peterlee and dad was a curate I learnt it wasn’t as exciting as I thought it was going to be. When I saw him in church on Sundays it was strange because I didn’t know how to act in front of him.
When we moved to Gotham there was nothing for children but everyone was really nice at church and at school and I felt a bit like royalty. I still thought I was a Christian and I still did all the things I’d done before at home but by the time I got to year 6 I stopped doing family Bible study and it was the start of a time when I became a bit more stubborn and I was telling God to “shove off!”. I wanted to be on my own and away from my family because I saw that they were different to me and other people. They all had a kind of aura and a sense to them that I didn’t have and my private Bible study became a time of just doing what I wanted.
One Oakes Camp when I was in dorm time, my dorm leader asked if anyone wanted to give their life to Jesus to stay behind afterwards. I stayed behind with Sophie and we asked her to pray for us to give our lives to Jesus. I’d seen other people do it and there was a kind of realising that I should do it and it was a time for me to ask forgiveness but nothing changed. I knew I was willing to give my life for him even though it didn’t happen at that moment. Until one Saturday morning. The day after I came back from Oakes, before I woke up everything changed.
I don’t know what to call it but it was something like a nightmare and a vision together of seeing myself in a mirror. What I saw was really horrible and I cried out to Jesus to help me and save me. Immediately after that, once I’d called his name I woke up and I was crying and hot and bothered like I had just been physically in that room. Nobody had heard my scream so I was all alone in my bedroom which to me said that because I cried out his name from my heart the door had opened and that was the moment I knew I had accepted him. I felt traumatised by it so I asked Val over a text message if she’d ever felt like that, but I never told her what had happened. Instead of her sending a text she came round. With my mum and Val we talked about it and prayed about it and I felt a lot better and calmer and I understood more what it meant at that time.
But now looking back at my experience I understand more and I know that I have become a Christian. I know that God sent his precious son to save me by dying on the cross. All my sins have been forgiven and washed away and I feel that I have felt God’s love for me and I know:
- He answers my prayers
- He loves me so very much
- He’s more than just a fairytale and he’s my Saviour.
I feel different. I know there is something that’s changed in me. I feel more settled in myself and generally happier and I feel I’m back with my family and one of them again and not different any more. Because all this is very new and I’m writing this only a couple of days after the event, I can’t say much about what has happened afterwards. Before all this I felt as though I was in a storm but now the storm has passed and my life is no longer dull because I have accepted Jesus into it because I know he is “the way, the truth and the life”. I’m excited by the future now he is in my life.