Hmmm about me. I'm 23 yrs old, married to a wonderful man. Currently living in Illinois. I am originally from Calgary, Alberta (Canada). My husband and I moved to Illinois in June of 1999 to become youth pastors of a church. Only God knows whats in our future, but as Long as Jesus is in control, I'm looking forward to the future.
I grew up in a christian home. My parents became christians sometime before I was born I believe. Growing up in a christian home, I found, had its advantages and its disadvantages. I will tell you one thing though-- is that we all need to search for Christ for ourselves no matter what our background may be. Growing up in a christian atmosphere one may tend to think that I pretty much had it laid out in front of me... and I guess that is some what true but not completely. I needed to see for myself that it was real, not just because that's what my parents had taught me.
For that reason, growing up in this type of belief system I found it hard to know if God was really real... or was it some sort of moral system my parents bought into. Of course when I was little, it's easy to believe in a God that's real... that's why in God's word it tells us to have a faith of a child... totally accepting and believeing without doubt. But as I grew into a teenager I started to analyze it all. After a while I didn't prove it nor did I disprove it, I just let it "sit in the closet and collect dust" and started to just live my life as I chose to live it. I wasn't super bad to begin with, just "abandoned" my faith and thinking nothing of it.
For most of my "younger life" my family didn't attend church. They believed in God, and accepted him into their hearts, but didn't go to church for the longest time... you'd have to ask them why though. So the only outside christian fellowship I was getting was at the christian school I attended. It did give me good christian values and taught me about the Lord, but like I said I was SEEKING for the reality in God not just what I was LEARNING about God.
My early teenage years were really rough on me. Like in most every group of young people in a classroom, they picked one person or a couple of people to be the butt of everyones jokes.. to basically be the one that everyone picks on and no one befriends. Well.. I was that person. No particular reason really, I think it was more because I was so shy and easy to embarass. What ever the reason, it was hard and I hurt during those few years. I became bitter and tried to kill myself several times. Even though I didn't see it then, I know now that God had His hand on me that whole time, and that he brought me through that mess. And I also know that if He hadn't filled my heart with forgiveness and love that I would have gone through with suicide and would not be here to tell you the story today.
When I was almost 15, a good friend came back into my life. She encouraged me to come to a youth group. At this time my heart was still so hard from everything that had happened that I was reluctant to go, but she wasn't going to take "no" for an answer. So I agreed to go, inside my heart I was planning on giving that youth pastor a run for his money with me. I was going to be as rotten as I could be. I was tired of not being "liked" so if I pushed them away first I figured, you know, that it wouldn't hurt me as much. Nothing happened as I planned. Pastor Craig was the nicest guy I had ever met. He was easy to talk to, open and took an interest in my life. I think though that God didn't just use him to soften my heart... because at the youth event everyone was so nice to me, I felt so much a part of everything. It was that night that many walls came down for me, and I started to find the God that I had left behind a few years ago.
After that night I started to attend regularly and started to grow in God very quickly. Those same people who picked on me even saw the change in me, and backed off. We never became friends, but they were sorry in their own way for what they put me through, and I was able to forgive them by the grace of God.
I wasn't alwasy the perfect gal. I did the straight on for God thing for about the next two years, then I started to run out of steam. Although I now knew there was a God and had him in my heart and fully believed in him I backslid several times. Went through a couple of boyfriends... did the drinking thing... pretty much typical "not so bad" bad stuff. To make a long story shorter then I can actually go.. (ha ha) it wasn't until I met my would soon be husband when I was 18, when I started to attend church again regularly instead of in sparatic spurts. We also went through some nasty things together.. backsliding and all that yucky stuff.. we did that for about two years. In our third year of dating we both finally got serious with God. We got engaged then married... from there things have been rocky in life, but God has gotten us through everything. He brought us into the ministry as youth pastors... starting us out in Illinois. It was a difficult act of faith moving from Canada to the USA but we are here, and God is blessing us tremendously.
I hope that this encourages someone who is seeking God to keep looking. I promise you he's there. I found that although it's hard (in ourselves) to actually know if God is real if we have no "bad life" to compare the change to.. if we keep seeking we will find him. We don't need to experience the bad to believe in the good... we just need to seek after the good and let God show it to us.
