My story of grace
I grew up without going to church and knew very little about Jesus except that he was born at Christmas and died on Good Friday when we could have hot cross buns. I sometimes wondered why it was called ‘Good Friday’ when he was killed that day.
I asked my mother why we are christened and she said it was to introduce us to God. This didn’t make sense to me because if there was a God and he didn’t know me already was he worth knowing. I was more confused. We learned some bible stories at school but to me they were like fairy tales and had no relevance to life.
During my teens I decided that the question ‘is there a God?’ was an important decision to make. I didn’t know that I could talk to people to help with my question because I didn’t know anyone who would know. Subsequently I decided that God doesn’t exist. This satisfied me for a long time. My whole life up until this point felt confusing, lonely and quite fearful of most things, but at least I’d sorted this one out (or so I thought). My mother had a dislike of confident people so I found the balance of being a confident adult who successful or ‘naughty’ for not being shy a difficult one.
This changed In my late thirties. When I met some people who really believed in God, this was new to me. They appeared to be normal except that they met together to pray regularly. I decided I should look into this again. I didn’t want to ask my friend about it in case I felt pressurized and couldn’t say ‘no’ if I decided that it wasn’t for me.
During the school summer holidays I was in touch with a group who were strong Christians and talked a lot about God and Jesus. They helped me to understand that Jesus was God’s son and that he willingly died so that I could be forgiven all my errors and mistakes in order to gain a forever life in Heaven with him, where there will be no more suffering. I couldn’t deny that I needed to reconsider and borrowed the book ‘9 o’clock in the morning’ by Dennis Bennett. It was a true story of how he learned to have a relationship with Jesus. I was completely convinced that this was the way forward that I wanted. I remember thinking, if I’ve got this wrong there is no harm done, but if it’s all true I’ve got everything to gain. I started to attend church and was giving the opportunity to accept Jesus way for my life. I felt a warm glow fill my body starting from my centre and expanding all over me, I then felt enormous joy of knowing something big had happened but not knowing anything about this new life. I could only learn from now on. I then bought a bible and started reading it for the first time in my life. I felt a new joy at being alive, even the grass and flowers were clearer in colour and more beautiful. I took my young daughter to the park and for the first time wasn’t afraid of her climbing on the climbing frame.
That was more than 40 yrs ago and I’m so glad I did it. My life changed dramatically. Life has brought difficulties for me that I wouldn’t have known how to have coped with without God showing me the best way to go about things. I have experienced Him guiding, protecting and making a way forward for me where even when I could see no way.
In the bible God says “I will never fail you. I will never abandon you.” (Hebrews 13:5) I’ve found that to be true especially at the most difficult times and I trust His promise to be with me always for the rest of my life.
