The church that the Lord has led me to is absolutely unbelievable!!
Wait... let me start at the beginning:
From the time I can remember I was interested in
who God was. I remember going to Baptist church as a child - mom & dad didn't go, but they had the bus come and pick us up and take us to church. I sang the songs with the other children, "Yes, Jesus Loves Me", "Jesus Loves the Little Children", and so on, however; I never
felt like Jesus loved me. I knew that I was just
supposed to accept his love as fact and not ask questions about it, because when I
would ask questions to the Sunday School teacher I was brushed off. I vaguely remember being baptized at that church, but I'm certain I had no real grasp of what that baptism meant.
The time came when my sister and I stopped going to that Baptist church.
Apparently the
church contacted our mother and questioned her about us never having money to put into the collection plate. My mom tried to explain that we didn't always have the extra money to give, and the church let her know they were not babysitters - thus ending our church going. I still have my Bible, though, from that Baptist church, with my child's writing within it.
After that I went to catholic mass a few times with a school friend of mine, and attended a Four-Square church briefly as well. Then my mom started studying with Jehovah's Witnesses. See, Mom was a home health aide nurse, and one of her patients,
Nonny, was a Jehovah's Witness.
Nonny's daughter, Darlene began a Bible study with mom, and mom started taking Kelli and I with her.
The Jehovah's Witnesses convinced us all that they're belief system was "the truth". The fact that they themselves call their religion "the truth" helps in this belief. I then made a friend in school who was also a Jehovah's Witness and we quickly became BEST friends and I was with her all the time. I became quite educated in what Jehovah's Witnesses believe. I attended meetings with her and her parents, participated in them. This church doesn't allow women to wear pants to the meetings. We always had to wear a skirt, even when going door to door with them. I don't think I ever really took the time to think about whether or not I
truly believed what they believed or not. I was just hanging out with Lacie and loved her and her parents so much, and I figured if mom believed this was the truth, then it probably was and as long as I did all the church stuff with them, Lacie and I were allowed to be together almost constantly. (
side note: my mother never did get involved in the meetings or the details of being a Jehovah's Witness, mainly due to the fact that she didn't want to quit smoking or give up Christmas).
Then, after my 8
th grade graduation, my parents moved us quite a distance away. Lacie and I stayed in contact for a bit, visited a couple of times, and then I made a decision that ruined our friendship for a few years... but I
digress.
During my
high school years I was almost completely uninterested in God, Jesus, religion, or my salvation. I was a heavy drinker, drug abuser, sex crazed, out of control teenager. Still, I had a friend who was Mormon, others who were non-denominational, a couple who were into Satanism, another who was
Wiccan. I dabbled a little into the dark realm by studying a little witchcraft and satanism, but quickly realized neither were for me. Still, something I enjoyed with
each of my friends, regardless of their faith, were the discussions we'd have about creation vs. evolution. Is there a Heaven or an after life? The world, the meaning of life, etc. etc. etc.
Those high school years were rough ones. I'm lucky to have survived, and praise God I did. I moved to Las Vegas in 2000, about a year after I graduated high school, and I met my husband, Pat. We met my 2nd day there, spent the whole day together, I spent the night at his apartment, and I never left. We've literally been together since the day we met.
While living in Las Vegas we met two amazing Mormon missionaries. Elder Struck and Elder Cenatiempo - what great guys. Pat and I though were high on love, we were often low on cash, and these missionaries would help us with food orders from the church, and taught us about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Some of what they taught made sense and other things did not. Nonetheless, I loved them and met some wonderful ladies at the church and made some friends there so I started going to the Mormon church briefly. This was another church where dressing up was expected. I was baptized at some point after Pat and I got married, but I was not entirely happy or comfortable with it. For some reason I went ahead and did it but when doing so I knew that I wasn't 100% honest about some things with them like I should have been. I allowed them to baptize me under false pretenses and it wasn't long after that that I stopped going to the Mormon church.
Together, Pat and I met an awesome woman named Carolyn (she was our downstairs neighbor). Carolyn was a Born-again Christian and proudly let us know about it. I didn't understand what "born-again" meant, versus just a "regular" Christian - but she educated me a lot about what she believed and what it meant to be Born-again. For a long time Pat and I would go and visit her. We'd have dinner together, talk about the Lord, and smoke cigarettes LOL. One night, after having dinner with her, she led Pat and I, together, through the sinners prayer and we were saved that night, together in her living room. I had said that prayer before (a couple of times actually at different churches) - but this was special to have shared that prayer with my husband.
All this time and still I never felt as if I
understood who Jesus was. I knew the stories. I read so much scripture in the course of my life that I felt that I
should have a better grasp on what was the truth and who Jesus was and so on. But I didn't.
So fast forward to Phoenix, AZ. In the past couple of years I tried studying with the Jehovah's Witnesses again, and it didn't work out well. They were pushing me to quit smoking, and I just plain didn't want to. As an adult, I remember everything I learned previously, however; I learned new things too. Or perhaps the same things I already knew, but now saw in a different light. Either way, I had too many doubts to continue, what I was being taught just didn't sound right to me - something that for so long I was told was "the truth" and that I thought WAS "the truth" no longer sounded right... and I didn't think this WAS the TRUTH!! So, my spiritual quest continued.
Well, we hired this woman at work, and she was a very special kind of person. Her name is Cindy and although I never got to know her very well at work, we did like one another and would exchange pleasantries and small talk on a regular basis.
I remember her telling me a story about a tooth issue she had. The dentist was sure he'd have to pull her tooth, that it couldn't be saved - and Cindy yelled out about the healing hands of Christ and that her tooth WOULD be saved by the glory and power of the Lord. I guess the dentist was amused by her boldness, or her words, or maybe just her faith general... but lo and behold, her tooth
was saved LOL. I remember her telling me that little story and her raising her voice when she was telling me what she had told the dentist, and all I could do was smile and think to myself, "Wow! This chick is for real. She really does have power from God, and not just to heal herself but probably to do
many great things in His name." Cindy was always pretty open with me about her being a Christian, even though I'd never shared with her anything about myself with her... and I was
so attracted to the fire in her spirit, I wanted that fire too... but what could I do?
Then one day earlier this year Cindy put in her two week notice to quit. She and her husband were moving to Florida. "Oh my God," I thought, "I never got a chance to really talk to her." I knew that I HAD to talk to her about Jesus. At the time I didn't know how I knew this, or why I knew this, I just knew it (I now realize that the Holy Spirit was guiding me to her all along, I was just too scared to listen. At this point the Spirit let me know I'd better do something to talk to her or it'd be too late once she left).
Finally, I don't know if it was the day before she was moving or a couple of days, or what - I know it wasn't long before she was leaving though - I wrote her a letter. In as brief a note as I could write, I gave her a quick history of my life and told her briefly about the spiritual quest I had been on my whole life.
I am now so, SO blessed and so grateful to have her in my life. Since that letter her and I have been so close, you would think we've been friends for years and years. Funny, we still have never hung out together. Our relationship went from that letter to phone calls... many, many phone calls over the past few months.
Again, with Cindy, I said the sinners prayer and for the first time in my life I felt that I was truly saved. I began my walk with Jesus that night by opening my Bible and reading it. I started with the New Testament and have read a little bit more almost every night since then. I am almost done with the New Testament.
All of a sudden, I started having some very strange health issues. Things that I never had before in my life. I've began a diet. I've only lost 19 pounds so far, but I'm still going strong. I quit smoking. I'm working on not cussing. I still have a lot of work to do, but I am making very positive changes in my life and doing it without the help of diet aides, or nicotine gum, or anything else other than Jesus and his Holy Spirit.
I started feeling like I wanted to go to church, but I didn't know where to go. I went a couple of times with a friend from work to his church, a Pentacostal church, and I loved it. It was very comfortable, where it was acceptable to wear skirts or pants or jeans - dress shoes or tennis shoes or sandals... and the people there were very nice, and I could definately feel the spirit there. It's so far away, though, that I'd only gone twice. I was still hoping to find a good church that I enjoyed going to close to home.
Then, another friend from work, Izell, invited me to his church: Life Connection Chruch. I went there yesterday for the first time and I can not
wait to go again. I got there before Izell did and after being greeted at the door, I went inside where there were more people hanging around and chatting. I went inside some double doors and entered a very dimly lit room where a rock band was playing and singing praises to God. There were chairs around the room, but most everyone was standing, arms in the air, singing along with this band. Some people were jumping, others clapping, everyone was filled with the spirit - you could FEEL it everywhere. Thank God they put the words up on a screen so I could sing along too. I loved it. I loved everything about my first time at this unusual church. There were people dressed up, others (and most) were in jeans, t-shirts, tennis shoes. People with tattoos, piercings - it didn't matter, we were all there to give glory to the Lord. We were all there to praise God and to have fellowship with other believers... I've never been anywhere like this.
After the music, the Pastor got on stage and sacrament was passed out. Afterward he asked that the crowd join into groups of two or three and to pray outloud for anyone and anything that needed praying about. This kid next to me, probably 16 years old, turned to me and we joined our hands together and he began to pray. His prayer was simple but heartfelt. The entire room was erupted in prayer. Just voices upon voices of prayer to God and it was SO POWERFUL. I could feel the Holy Spirit welling up inside of me. Taking over me so entirely that I literally had to sit down for fear that I was going to fall down. It was incredible.
I thouroughly enjoyed listening to the Pastor preach. I can't wait to hear more of what he has to say. He is honest, true, humorous, he is
real - yes, I can tell these things after just one visit. Cindy told me that I would know when the Holy Spirit moved me. That I would be able to tell whether or not a church was the right church or whether a preacher was guided by the Lord or any number of things by how the Spirit moved me... well, I
know that Life Connection Church is the real deal and I couldn't be more excited that my spiritual quest has led me to it.
I am so grateful to have been led to this church. I will definately be back there next Sunday, and I can't wait!
