Growing up in the church, you would think I would be quite knowledgeable about the Scriptures and the Lord. However only since having children, have I seriously learned about the Bible. You see although I grew up going to church and thinking I was a Christian, I wasn’t.

When I was in around the seventh grade I remember the assistant pastor of the church we attended coming to the house and sharing the gospel with my younger sister and me. He and another gentleman shared the typical gospel outline, such as the FAITH evangelism today. I remember nothing of it. Nevertheless, I do very clearly remember sitting there with them, my mother and sister. When the time came in the presentation to ask if I wanted to say the prayer there were a lot of thoughts running through my head.

What would they do if I said no?

What would my mother do?

Would I be in big trouble?

Do you think a person who is thinking like this is under the conviction of the gospel? I don’t. Although I prayed the prayer as instructed, rebellion was in my heart. I was congratulated on being saved and shortly thereafter followed through with baptism.

As a child of divorce, I found my “family” to be my church family more so than at home. I was involved in every activity, choir, acteens, missions and teaching camp. By the time, I was in high school I was the only member of my family attending church. I was the “good girl” of the family.

What I mean by a “good girl” is that I rarely was in trouble. Straight A’s, church attending, not “wild” and by all appearances a good Christian. Spurts of studying the Bible, trying to live like a good Christian, and serving in the church encompassed my free time. Yet I knew my heart was black as night, even though I would try to keep painting it white regularly. As long as I was not caught sinning I was fine, right?

Sometime near college graduation, I seriously was broken and asked Jesus into my heart. The only problem is that I was still convinced I needed Jesus plus my “good works.” You cannot will yourself to do well. The harder I tried to do well and not to sin, the less successful I was. My faith was in Jesus plus my deeds. I thought I could make Jesus love me by doing what is right. Every time I failed, I would tell myself “You just don’t believe enough, if only you would believe more, you would do better.”

When I had my first child, I learned more about love. It was actually possible to love and be loved without doing anything loveable. I loved my baby even when all I got was demands for food and diaper changes. I walked all night at times to sooth a crying baby, at times so tired I could hardly stand. I would die for this child that never gave any love back; only demanded more. That is where I learned the truth of:

Rom 5:8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. KJV

Then begin my quest to be the best mother I could be and to raise my child up in the “nurture and admonition of the Lord”. Focus on the Family’s James Dobson was a regular in my house by radio and book. Now I understand some serious problems with that ministry’s theology and specifically the focus on self-esteem. However, the Bible teaching and encouragement for my marriage and family was more than I had ever gotten in all my years of attending church. Southern Baptist churches just were not seriously teaching the Bible even back then.

As I have added years and children, I have also grown in my understanding of the Bible and in faith. During this time, my husband started teaching Sunday School and reading author’s such as Spurgeon. He soon found that the Southern Baptist literature was as he says “insipid.” He began writing his own Sunday School lessons and stocking the home with Bible study resources. After we got a computer, he soon got Bible software so we could quickly look up information and have easy access to multitudes of books. Those resources and listening to sermons on the radio, now the internet, have been our source of Biblical instruction.

I am now a wife, mom of five, home school mom, and homemaker who still strives to do what is right.

Not because I have to – because I want to.

I’m undeserving of love – but am loved anyway.

I deserve Hell – but have been given a hope in Heaven.

Saved not by works – but Grace.