Andie's Baptism

4/27/22

My entire life I have been surrounded by Christian influences. Christian parents, Christian grandparents, my friends were primarily from church, I went to church Sunday mornings, Sunday night, and even Wednesday nights up until I was around eleven years old. My family was deeply connected in our church and we also stayed in touch and had deep relationships with a couple of missionary families. I do not say this to boast, but rather to show how much opportunity I had, the endless resources and encouragement that I could have ever needed and yet, for so long I let that go to waste. I let myself be a lukewarm Christian, a casual church goer if you will. 

I had accepted Christ as my savior as a young child at home with my mom after a Sunday school class that had taught us about hell, and my motivation for praying with my mom that day I believe was born out of a fear rather than a motivation for a relationship with God. And so because of this, I went on with the same motives, keeping God at arms distance and only pulling out my bible for Sunday school class sword drills. 

Later in my life I attended a teen camp where the week’s messages were focused on the names of God. After a week of learning about God’s many names and the greatness and significance that is held in each one of them that represents him so well, God stirred my heart and I made the decision to dedicate my life to him. I wish I could say that after this I followed hard after him and made all decisions in my life to glorify him. But that is very much not the case. I strayed for a good while and kept fighting with God for power over MY LIFE. Although I trusted him as my savior and believed that what he had done on the cross was able to save me from my sins, I was still unwilling to give him Lordship over my life. I had a pretty significant event happen in my life in the last year that opened my eyes to the sin I was walking in, and the reality of the fight I was in with God. 

After seeking forgiveness for these things, and through getting myself in His word and striving after a relationship with Him, God has brought me to a place in my walk with Him that I have never been before. God has instilled in me a passion to learn and grow towards him that is no longer born out of fear, but rather out of a genuine yearning for a relationship with my good good father. There is a lyric from a song that has been encouraging me lately and it says: Only in surrender I am free. While my walk is far from perfect, I have chosen to stop fighting with God for Lordship over my life. I surrender and it is so freeing. 

So today, in my decision to be baptized, I am choosing to be obedient to Christ. In making a public profession of faith before you all, I am claiming Christ as my own. Claiming him as Lord of my life, As my good good father, as my savior. In doing this in front of all of you, I am asking for accountability in my walk, because it is a narrow path, and I will surely need a nudge in the right direction every now and again. This action does not save me, but with this action I am obedient to Christ, and He is loudly proclaimed as Lord over my life.

While surrounded by disorder, with no one truly there for me.

You were always watching over and Your love protected me.

You brought me those who'd love me, the way that I deserved.

And I knew that I was special, but did not yet know my worth.

As I grew amidst uncertainty and doubted all the world.

I felt You there with me though, You did not speak a word.

When I searched for answers through my tears, You knew that I was ready.

A mere man, was Your way, to introduce Yourself to me.

I declared that I believed in You and trusted I was saved.

But my journey was just beginning and only You would know the way.

My mind questioned as I followed, and knew I was not forsaken.

But every blessing You bestowed on me, I thought surely, You're mistaken.

The enemy had told me lies and made me question my existence.

I thought the ones I loved the most would profit my disappearance.

Deep down I knew this wasn't true and prayed a desperate plea.

That You would come into my life and show Yourself to me.

You drove into the darkness and cast out all of the demons.

And whoever made me question my Holy Fathers decisions.

You answered my prayers in ways I couldn't really see.

And You weaved into my life Your chosen ones for me.

"If God is for us, who can be against us?" echos in my mind,

as I walk towards the mountain steep I know I still must climb.

Here I am before You now not a single doubt remains.

The way You set before me, though hard is worth the pain.

I'm thankful for the suffering and know that it was needed,

to understand my purpose and my path which You preceded.

I promise to You now, I will always live for You.

A witness You have made of me, a bearer of Your truth.

5/30/22

MARTY FRASER

8/30/22

My names Hayden, I am the oldest of six kids and a jr. in high school. I’ve been a Christian for as long as I can remember. That doesn’t mean I don’t need God, because I do need God just like everyone else, because I’ve sinned just like everyone else. It doesn’t mean I have never failed, or fallen short of the standard, I do even to this day, and always will. It doesn’t mean I don’t question, I have questioned, as all do, whether or not what I thought I knew was true. So, far I have always come back with the answer that, yes, it is true. It is true, that we are all sinners in a broken world, who would like think that we don’t need God. It is true, that we need the one and only true God to redeem and forgive us through his son, Jesus Christ, who lived how we should live, perfectly, and yet died the death we deserved in our place so that our holy god might forgive us. I have accepted this gift of grace that is freely offered to those who accept. I have been baptized before, but not by immersion. So I am here to be baptized by immersion, which is what this church requires for membership, because I want to be a member of this church. I want to be under the authority of the church because through my journey as a Christian I have come to believe that being a member of a church, being under the authority of a good church, is good. I recently went on a trip to Boston with several of this church’s leaders. Their goal was to teach us how to make our faith our own, by teaching us how to find a good church, they taught us how to discriminate between churches that do not follow the word, and churches that do follow the word, which is good. They did this so that when we moved out of our parents house, our faith would not shrivel. I believe they succeeded because I learned how to do something I had never done before, because I had always relied on my parents to do that for me. Throughout my journey as a Christian, there have been moments or I should say periods of time where I grew to know the true God more fully. I hope that through being baptized and becoming a member of this, with help, I can continue to grow in my faith.

8/30/22

Church on Sundays, youth group every week, say 3 Hail Mary’s and all is forgiven…. Most of my life has been going through the motions because it’s what my parents told me to do…. Heck, it’s what society told me to do. I entered a marriage for obligatory reasons and it felt wrong from the start. I realized right away that something was missing in my life and just accepted that a happy marriage was for books and movies. If not for my 2 beautiful children, my life would have been completely devoid of happiness over the last 20 years. Two and a half years ago, I realized that staying together in a broken marriage was doing more damage to my kids than anything else. I made the decision to divorce and this began the most difficult stretch of my life. COVID hit, jobs were shaky at best and I moved back home to the East Coast for some solid work and a fresh start. Try as I may, I could not get my life in line with any stability or meaning.  

Sept. 6th I met with my oldest friend Craig, who has been a man of God for as long as I can remember. As we caught up on life and wrapped up dinner, he suddenly stopped, looked right at me and said “God is coming for you, very, very soon”. I looked at him puzzled, smiled and said “That’s great”. A couple months later, in Mid Feb. I reached out to and met with Janine who I have not seen since we were very young kids, we had plenty to discuss, but one thing in particular stood out to me the most. Towards the end of the night, she had told me that what had helped her the most was revisiting her faith. She then asked me if I would be open to coming to church with her one Sunday when I was off from work. Little did I know, she had just shown me a path that would change my life forever. It was just up to me to take it. About 1 month later on March 13th, I finally managed to get a Sunday off from work and visited the Faith family for the very first time. I was a little nervous and quiet, but was immediately overwhelmed by the kindness of everyone and immediately felt welcome and knew that this was something I wanted to be a part of no matter what. As I began to come consecutive Sundays, things in my life seemed to start gaining clarity. Once I came to the realization that God had put this path in my life, I broke down and cried. Excited to share the news, I met up with Craig and told him what was happening. He simply smiled large and said “I told ya.” As I continued coming to church with the Fraser family, my path became more and more clear. Finally, during a meeting with Pastor Josh, I made a phone call to Janine and asked her to come to the church and meet us. We all joined hands and on may 22nd, I accepted Jesus Christ into my heart. 

Now, what does that mean exactly? For me, I think about God the creator of us and everything we love and know. We lie, sin, cheat, and defy Him. He sends down his own flesh and blood, his only son, to be born and die for all of these sins we continue to commit to be forgiven. All we have to do is accept Him for who He is. I look at my own life. I pushed Him away, ignored him, rebelled against Him, living in sin, I willfully kept him away from me and my life. Why not trust He who has given everything for us including His only Son? From the VERY moment I decided to accept Him into my heart, things started to align and makes sense. 

Recently, I have been putting more and more of my daily life into his hands. I feel as if I am being safely led down a path I can’t wait to travel. recently, I have reached a level of comfort where I feel I am ready to help bring others to our savior and strive to become a true man of God. Through this baptism, I am truly surrendering my total self to him to use me as he sees fit.

7/23/23

When I was going to school at Plymouth State, I was invited to a Christian club meeting. At first, I didn't want to go. I didn't know what to expect, but I figured it would be too long, too uncomfortable, and too boring. It probably wouldn't be fun. . . or memorable. . . or life changing. It blew me away. People were so excited to see each other, even if the last time had been less than a week ago. They couldn't wait to hear about how last week's topic had unfolded, how the week went, or what might be coming next. Everywhere I looked there was so much laughter, joy, care, and love - all in this tiny, small classroom that I had no idea about.

I look back at that night often, seeing it as a steppingstone and a door opened by God's grace. I think what I saw that night was a beautiful, accidental, revealing expression of John 13:34-35 and I always smile when I see another one. That text reads: "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

In the following months I started going to different churches challenging my existing ideas of what Christianity was all about. I was agreeing with broad ideas of love and peace, but still thought church was just a crutch for people who needed it at the time, and the Bible was the longest game of telephone, losing something with each generation. I came to the point where I was actually asking Jesus, pleading with him, whoever He was, to help me believe in Him. A few days later I was driving home for a short visit (probably mostly for a homecooked meal and free laundry). I see this beautiful sunset and stop to take some pictures. I get back on the road, but almost immediately pull off again, because I'm just drawn to what I'm seeing.

I'm looking up at the sky, thinking about what the future might have in store. All of a sudden, I'm hit with this wave of calm and security. It felt like any hint of anxiety or fear of the unknown was swept away, like my future self had just mind-melded with me, showing me that everything was going to be fine. I wish I could capture that feeling and give it to everyone I meet, to experience what I did. I still can't really describe the feeling, but the closest thing that comes to mind is peace. I literally stepped back because this wave had like pushed me. I looked around looking to see if someone was pranking me, or if anyone saw what had just happened. I then realized that this was it – this was what I was looking for and has asked for. Jesus became my king and savior.

I get back on the road and start tearing up. I call up my friend Nicole, who had first invited me to Cru and tell her the news! She starts shouting with joy and saying that she and others at Cru have been praying for this, which just brings more tears. As I'm getting back to campus, I'm telling her in a text that after I put my stuff away and get settled, we should all hang out to celebrate. Minutes later I'm walking up to my door, with my bag in one hand, laundry in another, when Nicole opens the door with a smile - everyone's already there to greet me. We spent the rest of the night sharing stories and singing whatever songs we knew, praising God.

I'm not very vocal with my faith, especially with people who aren't believers. But this relationship with Jesus is too big in my life to pretend like it isn't or to be quiet about it. He is so much more than I could've imagined, wanted, or can explain. I want this to help me express that, and live my life in a way that says to Him: Thank You. Faith Family, will you help me be a man of integrity and stay strong in my commitment to Christ through accountability, encouragement, and prayer? I need you. Thank you. 

7/23/23

I am standing right here today because I have faith in Jesus Christ, I know He is Lord, and is my Lord and savior.

I was saved 7 months ago. And looking back at my life before then, I can see all these times when the Lord was there and I didn't see Him. He was reaching for me in the lowest of lows and highest of highs and everywhere in between. He was in relentless pursuit of me.

In the low points....when my Dad passed away unexpectedly in 2015, the pain was so great that I found myself in prayer for the first time. God was drawing me near to Him. I didn't know it at the time but this started a spiritual awakening in me.

In 2021 my mother passed away unexpectedly, and again, I found myself praying to God. And although my prayer was not answered, He had drawn me in even further.

In the high points, marrying my incredible wife, and having 5 amazing children. He was blessing me and being patient with me all along.

Then last year a series of unplanned and unexpected events led us from Brockton MA to Loudon NH. Within weeks of moving here I had developed a strong yearning for truth, and foundation in God, began reading the Bible, and while reading the gospels, I knew that I had just found what I was seeking. It became very very clear. I was seeking Jesus Christ and He not only revealed Himself to me in that moment but revealed Himself in every moment in my life.

My wife and I wanted our children raised in a Christian household and began looking for a church. We had a lot of options and again God drew us where we needed to be.

I went through all these years trying to figure things out, to navigate, highs, lows, good decisions, terrible decisions, all without faith, and was able to go through all that and come out the other side for 1 and only reason... because of what Jesus Christ did for every one of us on the cross, and rising again.

If you truly seek Jesus, He will reveal himself to you and it will change your life forever. He is The way The truth The life. Amen

7/23/23

I waivered almost an entire lifetime between moments of being very open to God being real and there for me and doubt, stubborn denial, chalking everything up to coincidence and resistance. And also wanting God to prove to me that he was real by showing me something that I could see with my own eyes like moving a lamp or a piece of furniture. All this while thinking we just lived and died and there wasn't anything more to life than that.

Then one day about a year ago, while just standing in my kitchen after seeing an inordinate amount of photos of space and the universe a sudden undeniable understanding moved through my body, staring in my gut, and moved through my being making me aware that God is real, created the entire universe, you and me, and every living thing that enables us to

live on this planet. I had asked God to move a lamp but God moved and changed my heart in an instant.

Since then I've had an absolute appetite to read God's word and to learn his truth. The truth that Jesus was sent here as our lord and savior. It fills me like nothing in this broken world ever could and I've felt so very blessed that you have all welcomed me here to grow and worship with you.

7/23/23

I was born in Massachusetts into a christian home and I was told the gospel along with my siblings since the day we could begin to comprehend that kind of information. I grew up believing in God, going to church and reading the Bible every so often. I told everyone I was a christian and believed it but never actually surrendered to Jesus; I lived my life the way I pleased; I was a christian in-name-only until I was fifteen.

NH -

When I was twelve years old, my family moved here. I had a pretty tough time with it. I had a hard time making new friends, especially since I was homeschooled. I became antisocial very fast and after we joined this church, I was too scared to try to make friends or even talk to anyone. I felt like I was being torn apart every time I made my way to youth group because I knew I would be standing awkwardly alone as always and I was crushed by the intense weight of people pleasing that I had laid across my own shoulders.

There were also many difficult circumstances that had occurred in my life around that time, from family struggles, to mental and physical struggles that I found very hard to grasp, so I disregarded God and became depressed, angry and thought only of myself. I was consumed with self-pity. I read lots of books and watched lots of movies to try to distract myself from my "horrible" life and I vented my emotions though yelling at my family and friends... a lot. My relationships with my siblings went very downhill and my parents were distressed by my behavior... but this isn't the end of the story.

Bible Class -

When I was thirteen, my mom signed my sister and I up for Lighthouse Co-op and just randomly, when I was picking my classes, I chose a Bible class. During this class, once a week, I was taught the Bible, the gospel and basic theology. I had heard the gospel a thousand times before, but this felt like the first time; this was the first time I truly understood the gospel. During the Bible class, I realized how little I'd actually taken in regarding the Bible. I developed a newfound fascination with the Bible and wanted to learn everything there possibly was to know about it. And so I began my zealous, year-long studies of the Bible. I became so blown away that Christ would die for someone like me... His enemy. I was only in the class for a couple months before the pandemic struck and the class had to be canceled. You would think that my new interest in christianity would have slowly faded away after the Bible class was canceled, but it actually grew stronger. I had lots of time to dig as deep as I could in the Bible and ask my dad question after question and of course he was very happy to answer all of them. During this time I got to know the LORD, started developing a relationship with Him and  began my repentance process.

My repentance process was more subtle. Some of it was when I was thirteen and fourteen at the time of my Bible studies but most of it was actually when I got saved and after when I learned how to not think legalistically as you'll learn about in a minute. God brought one sin at a time to my attention and I repented, and of course even now, God is still sanctifying me in this way.

Unfortunately, I didn't fully understand for my childhood or when I was fourteen that I am saved by grace not by work, and I developed a legalistic mindset. It took me quite a while to wrap my head around the truth that God loves me so much that He would fully pay my unfathomably huge debt; that He wouldn't only forgive my past sins, but also my present and future sins simply because He loves me.

The more time I spent with the LORD and in His word, the more I began to change. My depression and anger were fading away, I began to spend more time in prayer and in the Bible than watching movies or reading books; in fact, those things became completely uninteresting to me, and instead of yelling at my siblings, I found myself trying to repair our broken

relationships. But though Christ was a part of my life now, I wasn't fully surrendered to Him; I was still living for myself.

February 21, 2021 -

At last, on February 21st, 2021, which was a Sunday shortly after I had turned fifteen, I sat down to listen to the sermon as always. The sermon was about what it looks like to truly follow Jesus and surrender all to Him. At that moment I realized that I had been living for myself all this time when I thought I'd been living for Christ. I realized that I hadn't surrendered all to Jesus and that I wanted that to change right then. (l realized I was a christian in name only.) I thought to myself, "I've seen the evidence, I know that God is real. I know that the Lord loves me and I love Him and I know that Jesus gave up everything to be with me so I want to give up everything to be with Him. Right here, right now, I choose to surrender all to the love of my life Jesus Christ." Right then and there, everything changed. Suddenly nothing was about me and everything was about Him. The very way I thought was altered; my heart was transformed in an instant.

After Saved -

It has now been over two years since the Lord completely changed my heart and I got saved. God has done amazing work in my relationship with my family; my siblings and I are friends again and a few weeks after I got saved, my dad explained to me what thinking legalistically looks like and how I don't have to think like that because of what Christ did for me. And

so I learned to not think legalistically and simply accept that I don't have to maintain a justified status before God, because Jesus does that for me, but to do the works out of love and rejoicing in what The Lord has done. 

Now I live every day for Christ and through Him my relationship with God grows deeper still every day.

8/20/23

Good morning, everyone.
I'm Kelly, and today I would like to share how I came to know Jesus Christ as my savoir.

First, I'd like to start by telling you today is my mothers' birthday. You may ask "Why is that important?"

My mother was the first person that ever introduced me to the idea of God and Jesus. She explained that Jesus was the son of God, and because He died, we could go to heaven, that are bodies would be cured of all diseases after death, and how beautiful of a place heaven would be. We didn't attend a church when I was a child, and my mother was really the only figure in my life who professed faith in Christ. So, my understanding of God and his plan of salvation didn't progress.

As I grew, I chose my own path. I wanted to be in control of my life. As you can imagine this didn't turn out very well. Fast forward to when I was nine months pregnant with my daughter Nicole, my mother sadly passed away at 42 years old which devastated me. I still can clearly remember the Pastor that got up and spoke at her service. He started to describe how she was at peace and no longer in pain. This at the time brought me comfort and took me right back to those early childhood conversations with my mother.

 
As life moved forward, I still chose my own path. I had a poor relationship with my children, I got divorced, and ran from all my problems. I felt hopeless. Then came the day that little girl that was in my stomach when my mother passed was standing up where I am right now saying in front of all of you that Jesus Christ is LORD of her life. This was a tipping point in my life. Eventually I began to attend FCBC with my daughter and her husband Adam. Through FCBC I met Pastor Josh, Laura, and Sharon who God has used to show me the truth. The truth that my broken heart can be healed, that my sins can be forgiven, and that through Jesus, God the Father can accept me because what Christ did on the cross.

8/20/23

Throughout most of my life, God and the subject of Christianity in general had no relevance to me. I didn't know much about it. The whole thing always seemed more like a fairy tale than anything else, and it didn't really hold any special place among other world religions either. In my mind it just got thrown In with everything else. My father was, and still is a die-hard atheist. My mother, although she was a Christian, didn't share her views with us, as it wasn't exactly welcomed by my father. Whenever the subject came up he never wasted a minute before going into a good sized lecture about every way that God's existence was impossible. It never struck me that he never tried to disprove Buddhism, Islam, or anything else. All he cared about was disproving the God of the Bible, and as a kid, my dad was the greatest guy in the world, so I took his every word as truth. My mother on the other hand kept to herself about the subject, and there wasn't so much as a single Bible verse quoted in our family for over 20 years.

Through my adolescence I too considered myself an Atheist. I'd always had a very logic based mind, and I was always good in fields of technology and natural science. This was around the age where I first started getting asked the question: "Do you believe in God?" Well I was always under the impression that science disproved God. It caused me to grow the sense that I was above religion, and that religion was only for people who were scared of death, and that somehow, I just knew better than everyone else. When my parents split up about 4 years ago, My mother was led back to her faith. From an atheist's perspective, I personally thought she was insane. I surmised that it must have just been some form of guilt or fear that had caused her to turn to religion, so I decided not to read too deeply into it. As she started going back to church, she would always ask me to come with her, but I often declined. On a rare occasion I would go, but I always despised it, at least that was the case until I was 16.

On Christmas eve 2021, FCBC was holding its usual service in the evening. My mother had asked that all her family be with her, so I went along. There was something unusual about that night though. As I'm listening to the sermon, it was the first time I remember biblical topics piqued my interest. For some inexplicable reason, I wanted to know things. The secular world teaches much false Information about the Bible, and unfortunately I was victim to that, there were many wrong ideas I had about the Bible, and about God. But luckily that was all about to change. I started just whispering questions to my mother right there in the pew during the sermon. I was slightly annoyed that she couldn't answer all of them, so she suggested I just talk to one of the pastors myself. Until then I didn't really know I could do that, so I was all for it. We reached out to pastor Josh and he was more than happy to meet with me, he was on sabbatical at the time so I had to wait a bit. But around early March we got to talk for the first time. What was supposed to be roughly an hour chat ended up turning into a 2 and a half hour theological debate about the origin of human morality. It is still one of my favorite memories. All the questions I thought would lead to me proving Josh wrong, only ended up working against me. We eventually decided we should conclude and we would pick it back up another time. The last thing Josh suggested to me was that if I was genuinely interested that I take it back to the book itself, and he handed me a Bible. I went home with even more questions than I'd arrived with. 

Over the next two months I was obsessed with learning what it all meant. I met with Josh as often as I could, always just throwing tons of questions at him. No matter how odd or extensive the question might have been, he always had a satisfactory answer. It was also around this time I started going out of my way to get to church more. I wouldn't ever admit it at the time. But I'd grown fond of all the wonderful people I'd met there. Even though I wasn't a believer, they still accepted me. I wasn't always the most loving individual, but I was definitely able to feel it in this church. It was always sort of bittersweet, as I knew you were all connected by something I wasn't part of. But I'd eventually learn that it was my own fault.

When I wasn't at Church or grilling Josh for answers, I would often join my mother for her personal Bible study, she would listen to the word and watch sermons, and I was able to just take it in and apply it to my existing knowledge. I could never Thank my mother enough for the constant figure she was in my conquest for knowledge. No matter how deep my intellectual rabbit holes were, or how confusing the subject got, she was always willing to do her best to explain things to me, and to find the answers I wanted. Eventually I reached a point where I should have been satisfied, but I wasn't. All the things that I thought disproved the faith, ended up being wrong themselves. I was at a place where Christianity looked more believable than what I thought were my solid world views. The last thing I scrutinized was the book itself, was the Bible really reliable?

I wanted to just ignore the question and go back to my comfortable ideology, but the thirst for knowledge won me over. I spent all summer researching where the Bible had come from, and most importantly, the reliability of the four gospels. My mother also offered me many books that conveniently helped with my questioning the scriptures. Things like "The Case For Christ" by Lee Strobel, which is still one of my favorites. For months most of my nights were dedicated to finding where it all came from, and to my dismay, all I found was that many before me had already asked, and found the answer to this very same question. No matter what, I couldn't find anything beyond simple theories that the Bible was fabricated in some way. This was definitely the hardest part of it all. Here I was, a staunch atheist, now faced with the proof that everything I thought I knew was a lie. I by no means wanted to believe in God, but not doing so would go against everything I now knew. I was furious. Out of rage I decided to pretend the past year hadn't happened, but it seems God was done waiting for me.

My few days of ignorance didn't fix anything. I remember him showing himself to me many times throughout this short period of time. I began to recognize God's presence in science of all things, the very thing I thought disproved God, but I eventually recognized how the very structure of our universe is so delicate that it would be absurd to think it didn't come from intelligent design. He would show himself through people too. I remember just a few nights before I was saved, I was talking to Mr. Zarges. Right before we parted he suddenly turned around and said "the Holy Spirits coming for you" I laughed it off and wished him a good evening, but in reality "disturbed" didn't even begin to cover the feeling I got from that interaction. I felt like no matter where I turned I couldn't escape what I now knew.

On the night of October 16th, I was pacing and contemplating things. I finally decided to put my pride aside for a second and think about all of it. If I knew for a fact God was real, what sort of logical person would I be if I ignored him further? I was alone in the dark, with a racing mind the first time I prayed. Just me and the Holy Spirit, as I was being stared in the face by the truth I didn't want to accept. it wasn't the typical "ask Jesus into my heart" type of scenario. I simply asked to be shown what I was missing, I wanted to know why I felt the way I did.

What happened that moment wasn't what I expected. I wasn't suddenly enlightened to some previously unknown truth, I wasn't sent some divine message either. Instead I experienced peace. I still didn't know everything, but for
the first time In months I was okay with it. Instead of knowledge, I was given acceptance. I already knew more than enough to know God was real, but he's the only reason I got there. That kind of peace is beyond compare. I was finally able to see and appreciate his patience with me, and understand how loved I really was. I was able to pursue the knowledge of my God peacefully, already knowing the truth. In a mere nine months I had been "harpooned" as I like to say. I had been given a desire to know things against my will. I certainly fought him along the way, but he pulled me in nonetheless, and I couldn't be more grateful. He has successfully saved me from myself. I don't know how my life would have turned out without him, but I most likely would have wasted it chasing the things of this world. luckily I'll never have to know. He has given me a wonderful faith family, a real purpose, blessings that I don't deserve. and the prospect of eternity with him. Now I am his to use as he sees fit to bring others to his glorious kingdom.