Testimony



I first was saved in 6th grade (about ten or eleven I would guess) and then again when I was 17 I think. I didn't grow up in a Christian home, rarely even attending church on Christmas or Easter. But through different friendships over my childhood I went with friends families and in 6th grade I knew that I wanted whatever it was that made everybody different. One Sunday after church I my friend Hannah and I got dressed up, wrote out a little prayer and on my knees in her bedroom, she prayed with me to accept Jesus into my heart. Over the remaining middle school years I came and went with friends to church sporatically, even joining youth group occasionally. It wasn't until I moved to Minnesota in 9th grade that I attended church regularly. I became involved quite heavily and served any where I could in my church (small, traditional ELCA church). Attending bible camp took my faith from Sundays and serving, into a real place: my heart life. (It's interesting to look back and see the progression of my faith from an accepting God as reality, accepting Christ, and then a beginning to treasure him and to care about a relationship with him). When I was 17ish I was on the tail end of a long season of growth from many years of darkness; that's when I was baptized and confirmed. My senior year brought on it's own challenges. It was hard to go to a school where I didn't feel like any one knew me, or my back story, or the revival I had over the summer and with life beginning to change as I prepared for college a new season started. I attended Northwestern College in St. Paul, Minnesota studying Pastoral Studies. I wasn't prepared for college like I thought I was and with a lot of lingering things from my "past" made for a very tough year. By the end of my freshman year the school had asked me to take a year off and have time to grow and what not. I could have returned this fall but I am repaying my little loan for an online class that I took, before going back and I'm doing this for a few reasons. Mainly because although my passion for God is most fanned when I look at His church, I don't think he is calling me to be a pastor (and so I don't know what I'd change my major to when I return) and because I am not in a place where I will make school a priority. The last 2 years have been a really long season of brokenness and confusion and chaos, that I'm only a few months out of. The last 10 months have been some of the darkest but most growing months of my life! As I grew in my faith and knowledge of the church during my years in high school I see a huge need in the church for believers to care for the church; some people are meant to reach the un-reached but I am made to teach the already taught. It breaks my heart to see "Sunday christians" and to see this huge disconnect between the home and church. I want to see the church as a place where kids want to come, because they are falling in love with Jesus. And where parents encourage their children to become bold believers, because they themselves cherish and live for Christ! How can we send our children to Sunday school, then sit through the sermon, and just leave for a week without being changed? Without being affected deeply, truly and carrying that Sunday goodness with us throughout the week?