Hello wonderful readers! It is so hard to believe that the last week of November is finally upon us. It is especially hard when you live in the south and the daily temperature is about 65 degrees with blue sky and occasional sunshine and hardly anyone is wearing a winter jacket. Christmas is just around the corner. I love Christmas and I can't wait for everything that comes with it. I've already broken out the Christmas music and my obsession with Christmas lights is being completely satisfied.
But, it is still November which means that I have one more week of thankfulness blogging to do. :)
This week I am thankful for many, many things, but today I am going to talk about how thankful I am that I am a Christian. The Lord saved me when I was 16 years old while I was at summer camp in California. The Lord truly had to bring me to my lowest of lows before I finally gave up the fight and turned my life, my heart, my everything over to Him.
I grew up in a Christian home, it wasn't perfect, but I was incredibly blessed to have the loving, Godly parents that I had. I had gone to church my whole life and heard the same stories over and over again in Sunday School. My teenage years were filled with the classic rebellion and searching for my identity. In 8th grade I switched schools where I met the two people who would become my best friends in High School. During my sophomore year in High School the Lord saw fit to begin to take things from me that I thought defined who I was. I was left at the end of my sophomore year with no best friends, a very broken heart, and physical and spiritual exhaustion.
I began working my first job that summer and loved every minute of it. As I worked I began to get more and more excited about going to horse camp with my brother and one of our very close family friends. I was finally going to learn to ride and in my mind it would be my perfect escape. I would go to camp and come back completely different. I did not realize just how different I would truly become.
The first week of camp the speaker preached the simplest messages. He talked about the constantly repeated Sunday School stories that I had heard all of my life. This time, though, each story was different, it was real. Suddenly my heart burst at the understanding of my utter sinfulness. On July 31, 2009 I sat on the wooden fence outside of my cabin, which oddly enough was named after a town in Alaska, and poured my heart out to the Lord and begged for His forgiveness and grace. The Lord saved me that night and I have never been the same since that day.
Since then the Lord has continued to grow me. I have been through many trials over the past three years of my life as a Christian, but the Lord continues to prove Himself faithful every time despite my constant failure. I cannot be more thankful for what the Lord did for me on that day. I know that I still have so much more to learn as a Christian, but I love learning each new and exciting thing every day. So for now, I will continue to learn about my marvelous, unchanging God and keep calm and write on.
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