Some people have this radical and intense experience with Jesus. It all happens at once and it transforms their lives forever within minutes.
Not so much the case for me.
My very first experience with true Christ and Christianity was in an emergency room, in the midst of total whirlwind and chaos. (You can find that story in my testimony.)
Yet the message delivered with an ever so quiet whisper: “Pick up the Bible. Read it.”
And that’s how it started. Baby steps from there. Yet a determination to read at least a paragraph a day.
I had no idea what I’d find in that book. Or how it would change my life.
All I knew was to keep reading.
Fast forward a year or so. After reading the Bible every single day, it was getting more and more difficult to avoid the “church” thing that kept being mentioned. For some inexplainable reason I….didn’t think I needed the church. Nor did I understand why it seemed sooooo important.
Quite frankly, many – if not most – of them seemed in one way or another, corrupted. What was the point?
Look, I believe in Him & have Faith, I’m saved. I diligently read His word every single day with my son. I watch stuff online. I don’t need to go to places to worship God.
Or do I?
Really. What more could I possibly want or desire?
There was just this tiny teeny bit of a catch…
See, I had this growing urge to get baptized. (Now, many many moons later, I’d probably call that “urge” a conviction. But that’s another story for another time.)
And to get to do just that I needed to.. You got it: find a church.
There’s a local Lutheran church around the corner from where I currently live. Tried that and…no.
Kept searching and through step of, what can only be, His guidance, I found one. Local, English speaking baptist community. Good enough.
First time I attended I went for one single purpose alone – to get baptized.
That was the goal. That was the only reason I was there. In my mind I didn’t need to be preached to, hear the gospel yet again. And even if worship is nice, I can sing along at home. I already had a Bible which I diligently read. And an interwebz full of preachers. I just wanted the baptism, easy right?
But I came to church only to realize….it was so much more.
As I sat and listened, it dawned on me.
The church didn’t need me.
But I certainly needed the church.
I need the worship and the sermon. It is not the same as watching anything online.
And what I had no clue that I had missed out on was the church community.
See, I cannot do any of it on my own. Because….well, first off, by nature, I’m a sinner.
According to His word, we are to love our neighbor as ourselves.
Hmmmm….
He said that for a reason, you know.
Imagine what it’d be like to worship and pray on your own. No one to hear you. Or share with.
All the time….
See, the reasons I’m so very thankful for our church community are many. But mostly because it keeps me on the road that eventually leads back home 🤍
Little did I know that the sisterhood I would find in that church was to become a life saver. Heck, I no idea how priceless a true sisterhood can be.
The kind of “hood”, if you like, that you can truly cry with without embarrassment, laugh til the stomach hurts, have deep and meaningful conversations about life and Christ, and, of course, pray with 🕊️
My whole life is so much richer and better because I found my brothers and sisters in Christ. Turns out there’s quite a few of them around. And they care.
They truly care.
Five years later, I might still be a baby Christian. And I might not have had a deep one-on-one convo with the man Himself.
But I’ve had enough encounters and miracles and blessings happen, that I know He’s for real. (And, spoiler alert, so is the enemy.)
And to answer your burning question, yes. I did finally get baptized 😉🕊️
His ways are surely mysterious and some of them we’ll never understand. But I got to officially give my life to my redeemer and savior, Christ Jesus 🙌🕊️
And I received so much more, Praise the Lord 🙌🕊️
“not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.”
Hebrews 10:25