Born again - again
I gave my heart to Jesus in May of 1991 just a few weeks before my 21st birthday. I was brought up in church for the most part and had been to Sunday school and church camps and had been drawn to the things of God. I wanted to know that I was “saved” as a young girl and was even Baptized at the age of 12 or so. I was really scared of that hell I kept hearing about on Sunday mornings and I knew I was a pretty bad girl for some things I had done or at least thought about and if that tractor-trailer was to hit us on the way home and I didn’t go forward on that last verse of “Just as I am” I was doomed for sure. Please know that I am not making light here. I just want to give my testimony of how it happened for me just in case there is someone who I can help with my story.
I would walk down the aisle of that little church and kneel down and cry and pray that I could live like God wanted me to. I would get up and feel like somehow everything was supposed to be OK. Then I would go to school on Monday. I would cuss when the other kids cussed and cheat on assignments and be disrespectful to teachers. I did even worse things that I am ashamed to admit. My friends would bring a thermos of liquor and we would drink it at school. This was in junior high school!
I remember thinking that there must be something wrong with me because I was supposed to be saved and I heard it my whole life that once I was saved, I was always saved. It bothered me tremendously though that it was so easy for me to live like the devil so I was just sure that it didn’t take that time or the other time or the time after that. But the church folks assured me that I had walked down the aisle and said I was saved, so I was saved. I was looking at God as a fire escape of sorts and not someone you could have a relationship with. I just had heard that if you didn’t get saved you would be doomed to hell forever and if you did bad stuff the church would all come together and decide to excommunicate you. I was pretty deserving of both.
So I definitely knew right from wrong. I knew enough of the word of God to know that I was supposed to act this way and that way and not do this and certainly never do that. The problem was, I just couldn’t quite seem to act the way I was supposed to. If it was forbidden, I wanted it. If it would make the adults cringe, I felt like I had to say it. I didn’t even know why I was like that, but I was. I wanted to raise their eyebrows for some reason. I wanted to challenge them, but yet I wanted to be in line too. It was a strange time in my life. I wanted to be a good girl but I just couldn’t.
So I totally rebelled. Head strong doesn’t even quite describe me from around the age of 14-20. I have apologized to my parents many times for all I put them through during those years. Believe you me, I have rued the days and my heart has ached to think of the hurt and disappointment I caused them.
It wasn’t until I had walked down some rough, wrong roads as a teenager and young adult that I began to look for real answers. I knew “the church” was supposed to be the fix it all but I had honestly never been exposed to the true love of Christ. I had heard about his fury and I had heard about his judgement and consequences but I didn’t know about his unconditional love. I figured he was ready to zap me out of here at any given moment so I decided it was best to stay numb to that through alcohol and partying. I remembered some songs like the ones I would walk down the aisle to. Something about, “just as I am without one plea but that thy blood was shed for me, oh lamb of God I come, I come. What did that mean anyway? Sheep, God, blood? I was so confused.
I started seeing a “Christian” counselor. Surely they would have the answers. (They didn’t.)
I had a boyfriend at the time that had this incredibly loving family. It was weird. I was used to everybody fussing and fighting and putting each other down most of the time. These folks seemed to love each other and there was something really peculiar about my boyfriends sister. She was happy. She smiled all the time and was nice. She was a church going girl too. She had to know that I was a heathen cause me and her brother were not exactly up for Sunday school every week cause he was playing music in the bars and I was well acquainted with “happy hour”. In spite of that she treated me so nice. She didn’t look down her nose at me like the girls I used to go to church with did. His mom was the same way. They just loved on me like I was someone special. Strange family but I really liked being around them for some reason. I heard them talking about Jesus and how they loved Jesus and how they loved people and wanted to help them.
I went back to my “Christian” counselor. I told her I knew I was lost and needed a savior. I can’t remember exactly what she said to me but it was something along the lines of God is who we make him to be in our mind and some other bull jive like that. I left there that day and got on Hwy 52 headed back to my job in King. As I drove down that highway I was overwhelmed with something I had never felt before. I know now that it was the spirit of God. I began to pray and tell God that if he was real would he please come into my heart and change my life. I knew right then and there that something happened. Something bigger than anything I could have ever imagined happened. I knew I was different. I knew it had taken this time!
I was bubbling with God’s love. I felt him love on me for the first time. I was down right giddy. I found a co-worker that was like a second mom to me. She had worried over me and the way I was living and had tried to be a mentor to me. I told her that Jesus had just come into my heart. She told me that I had better not be playing around. I assured her that I wasn’t. She seemed happy but yet skeptical. She knew the Lord but she seemed to take the “we shall see” attitude toward my conversion. See she did. I was never the same after that day.
I said all that to say this:
I recently found out that my children aren’t perfect. I know you all knew that all along but it has taken me a while to get there.
Caleb has been under my careful and watchful eye (he’s grounded) since some things he posted on Twitter came to light over the weekend. He is seventeen and is best buds with my junior high school best friend’s son. His friend (son of my best friend during junior high) sent him a text tonight that said, “My mom said that she and your mom used to drink and smoke and that everybody has done it at some time or another.” I was like darn you Shannon Scott. My kids think that all I ever did was going to church and eat cake. You know the whole, don’t drink, don’t chew, don’t run with those that do kind of thing.
It was time to get real. I suppose I had truly forgotten that I was teenager. I just remember wanting to save my kids all that heartache. I wanted to shelter them and teach them better and they would never make wrong choices. Surely since I was a Christian when I gave birth to them they should be born Christians and walk with the Lord all the days of their life and never taste of evil in any way. Wrong again dear sis.
The truth of the matter is I think I have become “the church” to them. The moralistic, legalistic, gotta do it this way cause it’s the right way kind of mom. I ask for forgiveness.
The day I prayed that prayer in that little white 1989 Ford Probe on Highway 52 between Winston-Salem and King, I was a wreck. I was a messed up young girl that had seen just a glimpse of God’s love through some folks that lived that out in their every day life and not just on Sunday. When I said, “God if you are real..” He didn’t tell me to stop drinking, to stop smoking, to stop cussing. He didn’t. He just loved on me. He wrapped me in His love! He came into my dark world and brought me into light. He didn’t first tell me how bad I had messed it up and that I should have known better because I had been taught better. He didn’t. He just loved on me.
All the years that I have passed it has been hard for me to realize that I don’t have to do a diddly dadburn thing to earn God’s love. In fact, there isn’t anything I can do to earn it. He just does. I have recently been flooded with just how much he does love me and I want others to know how much He loves them too. I am remembering how giddy I was with feeling God’s love for the first time and now that I have walked with him for some years and I am learning to fall in love with Him all over again. We are His bride after all and a bride should be crazy about her husband. I am giddy, crazy in love with Jesus and pray that I can be that strange acting sister that shows Gods love to someone else to the point it draws them to Him.
