A Spiritual Birthday

 

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”

‭‭II Corinthians‬ ‭5:17

I don’t know my spiritual birthday date exactly.  I didn’t know, back then, that I should mark the day of my rebirth.  Everything was so chaotic in my life when I became a Christian back in 2005 that I was just desperate to find something that would help me.  Through the example of my husband, who turned to Christ during a very dark time in our family and marriage, I gave church and Jesus a chance.  

Fifteen years later the ups and downs of my walk could only be described as roller coaster.  But know, the roller coaster was me.  He always remained steady. 

I know it was on an October Sunday in 2005 when I ventured into a church with my family.  My brother-in-law was attending this specific church at the time and I was so out of my element. I had been raised in church off and on.  Had been serious about my walk as a young teen, but fell away in my later teen years, discouraged by the stuff I saw in the church.  I also totally felt like God has abandoned me in my young, heartfelt prayers.  

But there I was, years later, in my early 30s, needing peace in the storms that were ravaging my life.  I was a mess.  My marriage was a mess.  My children were a mess. 

I had been fighting the pull of God’s Spirit since my husband told me he had given his life to Jesus a few weeks earlier.  Nothing about our circumstances had changed.  Everything was a mess.  And yet. my husband had become peaceful.  

It was so annoying!  I wanted to have the arguments.  But I also secretly wanted what my husband now had, also.  I wanted to have that sense that it was going to be okay. 

As I stood in that church, the music not an old-fashioned hymn but a contemporary song that tugged my heart, I felt the tears well up.  I could fight a hymn, declaring it not relevant or hokey.  I couldn’t fight the Third Day song sung as if it was just to me and the current chaos happening in my life.  

And just like that, the weeks of fighting with my husband and fighting the drawing of the Holy Spirit were over.  I gave my heart before the worship set had ended, before a sermon was preached or a Bible verse was read.  

I still remember that simple faith that I felt that day.  If I had known what the future held, I would have run for the hills.  It would be seven years before the chaotic situation in our marriage was resolved completely.  Fox would give us another child.  He would call me to homeschool.  He would call us into ministry.  We would endure unemployment, crisis moments of health, and lose everything at one point. 

We would fall away and come back.  We would grow and slowly come to realizations about what God had for us.  

I would look back every October and reevaluate.  I spent way too many years asking God why it was all such a mess, when in truth, the mess was me.  

In the last eighteen months, God has increased my walk greatly.  It’s like a switch was flipped.  My study time and prayer life have become so much deeper and richer.  Our lives are centered on Jesus.  Each day we live as a gift. 

I wanted to acknowledge my spiritual birthday this year.  It’s been such a rough year.  Even now I am quarantined at home, having been exposed to Covid, and dealing with symptoms.  I needed to find the positive, as we face a tempestuous election and a country divided.  It’s a similar chaos as fifteen years ago, except this time the mess is the world and not just my world.  

And Jesus is still there, the peace in the storm.  With a word, He calms the seas. Thank You, Jesus, for fifteen years of loving me and guiding me and being my Savior and my everything.