By Request Only- My Testimony

I grew up in a household torn between two Gods. My father was a barely Baptist man who happened to fall in love with my mother who spent most of her time being Pagan (Celtic to be exact). It was a confusing place to start your religious life. Sometimes I was forced to attend Catholic Sunday school because it was the only option offered near where we lived. Sometimes I went to Baptist church with Grandma. Sometimes I went to Pagan Festivals with mom. I didn’t know what to believe really, but as I got older the Pagan’s had less rules so they seemed like the safer choice. I became active in that community but it never felt real enough to be mine.

I’ve always been a “good conflict” person. I like intellectual conversations, books with diagrams in them and anything that involves a strange combination of psychology, sociology and philosophy. I became one of those people who read every book on every religion I could get my hands on. By the time I was in my early twenties I had read the bible through twice and I had more Christian reference books than most Talbot Freshmen. I wasn’t looking for answers though; I was looking for ammunition for my next debate.

God was waiting for me. He waited through a horrible relationship and he waited while I let myself be abused and unused. He waited while I experienced lost and felt alone. He waited till one day he had everything lined up just right.

I had started a new job at a little company in Turlock. My co-worker’s all assumed I was Christian, I talked about volunteering, tithing (yes I tithed- the Church does a good job of getting money back into a community-whether you believe in God or not) and other activities that I took part in. I was the most Christian non-Christian they had ever met. I knew my sources, I could quote the bible…I just didn’t care.

Work put me into an office with another debater and our love of knowledge and healthy conflict lead to a fascination with all the books I owned and the start of swapping of Christian literature between friends. His concern for my lack of Jesus loving grace became the center of most of our personal conversations. Huge text books and little information pamphlets started finding their way home with me.

God’s sense of humor also began making it’s way into my life around the same time.

People started talking to me about God everywhere. Random strangers at the grocery store would start to tell me without provocation how great God was working in their life. I found myself at Walmart on a Wednesday night at about 10:30 to get cat food. Walking down the center aisle there was a book on the floor. I picked it up to put it back on the shelf. It was a bible, it was very colorful so I looked at the cover for a minute before, putting it back. Next to me a small elderly woman started talking to me about how beautiful the inside of the bible was. I talked for a few polite seconds and then left to get my shopping done. I dismissed her and the bible just as quickly as I put it back on the shelf. In the parking lot I was startled by a woman running at my car, the elderly woman brought me from her car a pink and black leather bible with her name and number written in it and a pamphlet on MVC. I made jokes at work the next day to my co-worker that God had sent me a stalker.


This co-worker was putting on a church event and sought my help with promotions (being as I have a degree in Public Relations) so I started helping with fliers and distributing information via web forums and the internet. Soon my Pagan friends were all going to the event to debate the speaker. I felt obligated to attend so I went to all three presentations (including two at church). After the church speaker I felt convicted about not talking to a couple people who had asked me to attend. I found myself the next weekend at MVC just to say thank you.

God launched himself into a second opportunity to let me know he was watching me. After the service a young man with a “walk this way” church sign chased me to the parking lot. He insisted that I had forgotten to take one and “EVERYONE” had one. In an effort to get him to let me leave I shoved the documentation and sign into my car. After parking in my parking lot back at home I found myself face to face with the woman from Walmart. As it turns out her granddaughter lived upstairs from me. Her granddaughter still talks to me every week about God, conveniently placed so close to me that she could talk to me from her balcony while I did my yard work on Saturday mornings.

Anyone who knows me knows I hate having clutter in my car. As soon as I was home I took the sign out of the car and tossed it inside my dining room where it (without my knowledge) slipped into my window behind the dining room table where I couldn’t see it. Within minutes the children across my apartment hallway came knocking on the door. They went to Awana’s earlier in the year but couldn’t find a ride to church on Wednesday nights; they wanted me to take them. For some unknown reason I agreed (again making God Stalker jokes). The next week I started driving them to church. Their mother only had one condition which was that I stay on the church campus while they were in class. I sat myself down at an outside table and started to read a huge textbook my co-worker had given me.
The co-worker who also volunteers at Awana’s made a point of drawing me to the attention of the senior pastor and college pastor. I found most Wednesday nights to include one of them (or sometimes all of them) talking to me about what part of my past made it so hard for me to accept that God loved me.

God began to stalk me with more vigor. My dreams were filled with conversations about him. My days were filled with conversations about him. My nights became filled with books about him but I just couldn’t take the first step. I felt broken but I was scared to feel whole.

Later that month my best friend died, on the exact day of his death my co-worker just happened to bring me a book on dealing with loss. We began to talk more seriously about my wounded heart and my selfish pride. I was terrified of God. God in my life had been a source of conflict and debate. It was eventually part of the end of my parent’s marriage (not equally yoked) and I was very human about not wanting to endanger my own self interests. He had written me letters before he died to be given to me after his death, each letter a beautiful testament that I should keep looking for God until I found him because he was waiting for me.

I went to a Monument meeting and I started talking to people my own age who also struggled with humanity and weakness in their own life. I started to see how Christians knew that they weren’t perfect but that God was. I started to understand that the person judging me was myself.

Then came the day it became clear. I began praying (at the request of the senior pastor) a few days earlier and found myself at a Saturday meeting at a woman’s shelter where I volunteered (at the time) as an abuse survivor speaker once every other month. I was speaking and I wasn’t reaching people. I, for the first time ever, was having trouble remembering what I wanted them to know. I said I needed fresh air. Walking out I started praying under my breath “Lord I need a sign that I need to go back in and do this” SMACK- I walked right into a giant glass wall. My eyes were open. And I began to laugh…and then cry. I picked myself back up and went back to my lecture. I spoke for the first time about doubt. About how much doubt plays a role in our self-conviction. I had convicted myself to be miserable and I didn’t want to do it anymore.

A thousand small things, in addition to, the few big things that God had done to show his presence all seemed so beautiful for some reason. Before that exact moment they felt annoying and forced. I went in seconds from agitated to excited. I found myself at home overwhelmed by a sense of urgency and hope. I called my one and only life long Christian friend and made her stop mid way through feeding a toddler to come help me except Christ as my savior. We giggled and wept on my floor while we prayed around a baby eating gold fish crackers and playing with the zipper on my sweatshirt.

Now months later I can look back and tell you exactly what made me want Grace. Now I can tell you it wasn’t the clear presence of God stalking me, or the intellectual proof of my co-worker, it wasn’t the emotional support of the MVC staff or the constant churning in my own soul. It was simply that I stopped making it complicated. In life I had made a complicated choice that I wasn’t worth being saved, I made it complicated and greedy, I viewed life as a burden and not a gift. I felt broken and the God shaped hole in my heart kept me motivated to do good things. I was scared that if I lost that part of me- the wanting, the desire for more- then I would lose who I was.

But that’s the thing about Grace that no one tells you. Grace is not a joy stealer, grace doesn’t take away your desire to live to your fullest potential. God’s love just changes what you view your fullest potential as. A few days prior to my accepting grace, was the day the senior pastor talked about Grace at church (which I had been attending every Sunday since the event I helped with). No one had explained grace to me in a way that made it sound so beautiful, complicated and compassionate. My wants changed so quickly. I went from wanted to feel motivated by my conviction to wanting to be motivated by his grace.