Overcomer

So the husband asked me a question the other day and it's been on my mind ever since. I just haven't gotten it down until now.

He asked me "Have you had your salvation moment?"
And that moment immediately came to my mind.

But that isn't exactly what's been on my mind. What's been on my mind is how I had that moment when I was 18 and I thought I had a really solid testimony before then.

I grew up Southern Baptist Christian. We went to a very large and prominent church every single Sunday and Wednesday. We volunteered to make Wednesday night dinner. I was baptised when I was 8 and I actually had to insist on it before my parents would actually let me.
They wanted to know I knew what I was doing.

I am not a cookie cutter Christian and I actually ended up leaving that church because I found no real common ground with the other kids my age there and they didn't seem to want to help me find it. They also treated me one way in church and then wouldn't speak to me at school. I felt very alone.
Another reason I left was because I did not like that I felt that a majority of the congregation was going there because they were expected to be there and not because they loved God.
In another case, I was told when I was 12 years old that I couldn't come back to a church unless I wore a skirt, at a time when I didn't even own a skirt and couldn't afford a new one.

There is something profound about the feelings you get when you feel like you are not wanted in the one place you should be completely accepted.
I found a wonderful church later in life, but that's a different story.

Outside of church, I spent the better part of my grade school years being bullied. I was sexually abused by a female family friend. At 7 or so, I was diagnosed with clinical depression and at 10, I started having anxiety attacks (although I didn't know that's what they were yet.) I dealt with self harm and mild anorexia throughout high school.

I felt like a real trooper for staying faithful to God and not blaming him for the rejection I felt coming from "normal" Christians and the struggles I had been through.

The thing that has been on my mind is that it seems that every kid who grew up Christian seems to feel this way. That they have a deep relationship with Christ merely because they've grown up with Him always there.

It's different for people who come to Christ. They can point to an exact moment where they were not aware of Christ's presence in their life, but for those of us who grew up Christian, Christ was always there. We are taught from a young age to follow Him.
But there is a difference between knowing your parents and having a relationship with them.

Every single Christian has a salvation moment. A pinpoint moment that turns their relationship with Christ from just going to church and doing what you are told, to really having a close relationship with Him. A moment that brings you to your knees and everything you ever thought about your faith is turned and you wonder where you've been this whole time.
This can be the moment of your actual salvation, when you accept Jesus as your savior and move towards serving him, but for most Christians who grew up knowing Jesus it is the moment when you truly, truly realize what he has done for you and you begin to have a deep, engaged relationship with Him.

My salvation moment came in a little church in Bentonville, Arkansas and Bobby was actually a part of it.

The thing is that I firmly believed that my life was so hard because God was punishing me. I believed that I was sent to Earth to be punished for some thing I had done before I was born and I had to make it right.

Bobby was at a convention and I was babysitting his boys for the weekend. He wanted me to take his boys to church and so I did.
I hadn't been to actual church in about 3 or 4 years, even though that little voice in the back of my mind kept telling me I needed to get off my butt and find a church, and I dropped the boys off in their class and I sat down in the service.
I don't remember what they preached about but somewhere before the alter call I felt this over whelming knowledge that I was wrong.

I had been wrong this whole time about who I was and who God was and I was so overcome with relief and guilt, I started sobbing. I went up to the alter when they called and told God how sorry I was and how I didn't know. I didn't know how wrong I had been about Him and my life so far. I told Him how I realized that my life was a gift and not a punishment. That he wanted to save me, not punish me.

If you can't answer that question "Have you had your salvation moment?," you need to look at your relationship with Christ. Are you engaged? Is God a parent that you've been listening to, but aren't really having conversations with? Does that moment of true acceptance flash past your mind when you hear that question?

John 14:21 says "The person who has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father and I, too, will love him and reveal myself to him." (ISV)

~You might be down for a moment, feeling like it's hopeless, that's when He reminds you that you're an overcomer.~ Mandisa.