Young Love, Simple Love - Part 1

Been thinking about my faith journey, and it's a long conversation, so I'm going to break it into parts....there's a place I am trying to get to in the conversation, so if you feel like bearing with me....

Confessions of a Believer

I came to the Lord at a young age. It was during a Vacation Bible School that our church hosted during the summer. We gathered for songs, Bible stories, crafts and snacks, and each day there was an opportunity for us to ask Jesus to be the Lord of our Life. I remember the absolute “yes” in my young heart – I wanted Jesus in my life. I responded every day to the altar call, each day passionate to put my hand in His. A kind volunteer took me aside to explain that I only needed to respond one time, that was all it took, but I didn’t care – I wanted to say yes again!

I was an avid reader, so reading the Bible was a pleasure. My mother’s parents gave me my first Bible, a New American Standard version with a puffy brown cover with fancy gold lettering on it. I loved it! I read as much of it as I could. On Sundays I watched and listened in awe as people began to speak in tongues during the services. I was particularly impressed with the Pastors wife, Mrs. Barr. She was like a machine gun, just rattling out this strange yet wonderful language in quick succession….oh, how I wanted to speak in tongues! I read in the Bible about the Holy Spirit, and one quiet day I sat alone in our living room, a patch of sun surrounding me, my Bible on my lap when I asked the Holy Spirit to fill me up and give me this prayer language. I began to speak in tongues on that day, and all I did was ask. God was so good to my young and trusting heart!
Without comprehending what I was doing, I began to experience the flow of the Holy Spirit activated in my life. With my sister, we had “Bible studies” under the playground tree, inviting our friends to hear stories about Jesus. We prayed for a miracle multiplication of cookies in our class one day, (no child wants to be the one responsible for not having brought enough for everyone), and we ended up with leftovers! Several times we had the opportunity to share Jesus with friends on the sports bus, to answer their questions and pray with them. One friend grew up and gave her life wholeheartedly to the Lord. I ran into her in my early 30’s, and she was married to a Christian man and they were serving in youth ministry at their church. God is so good! So often I found myself being faced with people coming and sharing their hearts with me and I would have words of comfort of encouragement for them, even words of discernment or knowledge. This could happen in the cafeteria, on the school bus, at band concerts, after sports games….it was just a regular part of my life. I had no idea there was a name for what I was doing, there was no label, it was just the life flow of the Spirit of God flowing through my heart. I loved God and He loved me! .........more coming