My Story, Part One

As soon as I heard him say, "Write your story..." my brain clicked into writing mode. 

I forced myself to listen to the rest of the sermon, but part of my brain kept insisting on going back to a time so long ago.

It was a little scary how clearly I still saw the details, like they had been slipped into a file and kept crisp and clean, just waiting to be pulled back out at a moment's notice.

The words kept forming themselves; my brain composing unwritten words like it so often does, and it was a battle to keep focused...

A few moments later, after the service, my daughter and I waited to speak to one of our pastors. He had asked to talk to her after church because he wanted her help with something. Soon those waiting for him ahead of us had their turn and it was our time. He kindly and graciously apologized for keeping us waiting and smiled down at her. To my surprise, he gestured to the stairs that led up to the stage and said, "Let's sit..."

Tears formed behind my eyes and I literally threatened them to spill. I was desperate not to embarrass my daughter.

The problem was that what I was seeing now, my daughter and her pastor siting on the stairs, was the exact image that had first flown into my head when another pastor had said those "write your story" words. My brain that was involuntarily forming sentences in my head was describing what I was now looking at.

It was wonderful and sentimental and a little crazy in the similarity. 

I was eight years old when I had shyly approached my own pastor after the church service one Sunday. He also smiled down at me, and I told him I had a question. Ignoring the others waiting, along with whatever obligations I'm sure now were vying for his attention, he unbuttoned the coat of his suit, sat down on the carpeted stairs and invited me to join him.

Which I did.

He smiled into my nervous face and asked me what my question was.

"Why did Jesus have to come to earth to save us?"

He smiled gently and I'll never forget the simply yet profound analogy that he used to illustrate this part of God's plan for the redemption of His people.

I'll also never forget the time that he took with a shy eight year old girl. It was formative in my view of the church and of pastors. I simply will never forget the kindness he showed to me that day.

And here we were, decades later, and another pastor was showing the same kindness to my own daughter. Pastor Jim was gentle and deliberate in his conversation with her this day. As I stayed out of the frame to give them the space to talk freely without me, I reflected again on how much I appreciated the pastor that led me to Christ.

I was so thankful that he got to be part of my story. The fact that the Lord used him to lead me to Himself rooted this man in my heart, and I'm thankful for that. It's easier for me to trust my own pastors now, as a result of the kindness and gentleness he showed me as a child.

My daughter also has reflected several times on the kindness shown to her by her own pastor. There aren't words in a mother's heart to express the gratitude that wells up in me because of this.

I was saved in the same church I attended from the time I was three years old until I was married there at the age of twenty three. I honestly don't remember a time when I didn't believe. I do remembering needing to have some "theological" questions answered by my pastor. I remember the time on those stairs with him, and I remember the time spent in his book lined office where he patiently explained the way of salvation. I remember the white robe he wore when he baptized me, and I remember being amazed that he wore rubber waders under that robe that kept him nice and dry in the baptismal pool.

I had always wondered about that.

It seemed simple.

Yes. I believe.

And that was that.

I attended Mission Friends, GA's and Sunday School. I went to kids' camp, did Vacation Bible School, and sang in children's choir. {I still remember the songs we sang in our kids' musicals.}  I went to youth group when it was time and sang in the youth choir, went on choir tour, beach camps, did lock ins, Monday night visitation, hung out in the FLC {Family Life Center if you didn't grow up this particular flavor of Southern Baptist} and ate dinner on Wednesday nights just like everyone else before youth group. We had Sunday morning church, Sunday night church, Wednesday night church, fellowships, sing alongs, bible studies and pretty much any other activity that you could ever think of. I was the good girl in school too. It was all just easy. Everyone knew I was the good girl, and it was easy to be good. I didn't even want to be any other way.

And it was all fine.

I graduated high school and dated a boy. This was fine because he wanted to be a preacher and that was good. It seemed to fit in with what I thought God was telling me to do with my life. Then that relationship didn't work out, and I decided I wanted to go off to school.  I went off to college and made new friends and had a great time, but I still didn't have the desire to really do anything other than what I had always done: just be good.

Soon that desire would leave me. Without a desire to be good, what would I be left with? Did I have a real faith? Or was it a cultural religion that I had simply inherited from the environment around me? The journey I was about to embark on would teach me more than I ever thought possible.