It Happened When I Was 3-Years Old. What About You?

 

 When I was 3 years old, I lay in my bed in the dark and suddenly, I knew that I was a sinner and the world was a wrecked place. I also knew that Jesus was coming and that if He came that night, my parents would go to Heaven and I would go to Hell. I since have come to understand that God takes little ones to Heaven, no matter what, and this is not a debate on that issue, but the point for me here is that I understood with child-like faith, that I was lost.

I threw the covers back, trundled down the hall in my frilly nightgown, and approached my parents who sat up reading by lamplight in the living room, and I told them that I had asked Jesus to wash away my sins.  I was filled with a peace that would follow me into today.

I remember it vividly.

I had moved from a knowledge and understanding of religion into a relationship with God. I was presented with many opportunities to walk away as I grew. I faced all the many things that your average “church kid” faces that can cause them to go down a different path than the narrow one they started out on, but one thing remained. God was with me and I felt His presence in every trial, through every loss, at every decision point, and at every doubt.

I’m not stupid. I’ve studied religion more than your average person and I’ve had enough hardship to become a bitter jaded woman, but none of it is enough to remove from me the Truth that God is Who He says He is and that there is nowhere else for me to turn. My knowledge, my trails have only served as confirmation.

He is my Savior. My Friend. My Hope. My Trust. He has never failed me, and He never will.

Jesus loves me. This I know. For the Bible tells me so.

And so does my life. Every mountain, every valley speaks to me of His love for me. God and I are in it together, for always. Through a tumultuous childhood, through betrayals from friends, through chronic illnesses, trials that I will never speak of publicly, hard times in marriage, and through the death of my babies, God has been with me and He is for me.

My faith is not my crutch. It’s my everything.

My relationship with God is no fair-weather faith, but it remains child-like in its maturity. I know as surely now as I did as a 3-year-old, the meaning of life. May I honor Him for all He has done, for me.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

YOUR TURN! When did you come to saving faith in Jesus? I would love to hear YOUR testimony and it will encourage others too!

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