How many of you can say your first steps were in the church’s nursery? Well, I can because I started attending church when I was a week old. That said, I was literally raised in the church so it was not unusual that my resurrection story began in third grade. During a Children’s Missions Class, I realized I was a sinner because with seven in the family, how could you not take a cookie from the cookie jar when your mom had told you not to or tell a lie at some time?
Fast forward to college and I was now 370 miles from home and getting to make decisions on my own! I realized during my freshman year that the God of my upbringing was the same God. Jesus was my Savior, but He was not the Lord of my life. I knew of the Holy Spirit but didn’t know that He lived inside of me. My first year was a year of making bad decisions, learning how much Jesus loved me no matter how much I sinned, and the Holy Spirit was inside me to nudge me, speak to me, guide me, and never let me go too far away from Him.
My relationship with Jesus flourished from my sophomore year in college to the present, with a lot of mountains of faith to climb and a lot of valleys to walk with my Savior. For I see my resurrection story as one that had a beginning in third grade and from that moment on, Jesus was walking with me. Sometimes, I let Him lead, sometimes I followed, and there were times I needed Him to carry me just like a shepherd carries his sheep on his shoulders. I memorized Galatians 2:20 in college and it has remained with me for 45+ years.