16 years.
16 years ago this month, everything changed. I found new life. All the hurt and shame was wiped clean and I handed over everything I had been painfully lugging around on my back to Jesus.
I remember in jr. high feeling so sad and empty, emotions that would continue on with me. I remember being scared of letting go of the anger, because I couldn’t imagine what joy or happiness or what feeling alive could be like. It scared me so much that I clung to my anger as my only hope of emotion and feeling anything. Otherwise I felt numb. I had let too many things and people take to many things from me.
But that day in November, everything changed and Jesus reclaimed his daughter. I had found him and his arms were open wide.
So much, too much to recount has happened in the 16 years since I laid on the floor and uttered the words “Jesus I am yours,” but I know this- He is good. He is a good God, and when the troubles of this world come crashing in and sin crouches at our door, he is still God. When he doesn’t answer the prayers the way I beg and plead him too, and when words fail my broken heart, he is still good and he is still God, and he never changes and he never leaves us.
November is a painful month for me, so is October, September, and July if I’m being honest. They all mark significant loss and pain in my life. But he has reminded me of the greatest joy, the greatest gift, the greatest celebration to be had, in November, was the day I committed to living for him.
About 6 months later I was baptized with some of my very favorite people surrounding me. What an emotional day!
*Click here to read a more in depth article on my conversion that I wrote on my 10th anniversary of knowing Jesus.
rhythms-ofgrace.com 