40 years ago tonight I felt wretched, guilt-ridden and afraid.
It was a book’s fault. Maybe two books. Both recommended by a local church.
A 15-year-old sophomore in high school, I had begun playing volleyball at the Lutheran church around the corner from my home. I’d followed the lure tossed by my next door neighbor: “Guys play volleyball with us on Friday nights.” I figured it was time to meet some guys, so I went.
A lot of high school guys played volleyball (indeed, I met my husband), but ideas also flourished at that church and I heard about God from a slightly different point of view.
I thought I knew a lot about God and Jesus before I visited Trinity Lutheran church, but it turns out my concept of God was an intellectual one–not a personal one engaged in conversation with someone who responded. Trinity opened my eyes, heart, ears and mind to understand a loving God cares about me.
The Bible told me so.
I appreciated that.
But 40 years ago tonight, I wasn’t sure what it meant that God loved me and had a plan for my life. I didn’t know how to shake guilt from my shoulders and not feel condemned when I made mistakes. I’d been given a book to read–The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey— and read about end times with terror.
I didn’t learn about dispensationalism for many years. I didn’t know Lindsey’s book has nothing to do with the doctrine of many church bodies. All I knew was his descriptions of the end of the planet frightened me and convinced me the only way to not be annihilated was to become a Christian.
I knew enough about prayer that I appealed to the one who could do something about the guilt and fear which left me shaking that night. “If you’re real, God, change my heart and make me yours. I don’t want to live through the events described in this story and end up in hell.”
I woke up the next morning, January 18, my mother’s birthday, feeling peaceful for the first time in a long time. I was changed. Reborn into a girl who didn’t have to fear her eternal destiny. Saved.
But what I appreciated the most then, and a great deal even today, is that I finally had something to do with my guilt. I wasn’t afraid to admit mistakes anymore because I knew God, who is faithful and just, would forgive me of all my sins and I would feel clean again.
That happened 40 years ago. And the next day. And the next day, and everyday in between up until right now. I can deal with my sin and my guilt by handing them over to God, accepting His forgiveness and walking forward forgiven.
And all because of a book.
Or two.
Thanks be to God.
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