So, here I go, I’ll tell my story. Darlingwarhorse (a friend of my friend Shae – blogging brings us all together!) encouraged (“tagged”) people to share this on their blogs, and so I will do so. And in turn, I encourage all of you to write a post on your experience coming to God!

October 2006 Update: You can read other testimonies at The Tour of Testimonies!

And in writing this down, and reading it over, it might be a little serious. And freaking long! I hope it doesn’t come across as pretentious. If it does, so sorry, and wish me better luck next time.

The Story…
So… okay. I grew up in an awesome home where we kind of went to church, kind of didn’t. I basically went for social reasons, and that was just to Sunday School, we didn’t have a youth group or anything. My last couple of years in high school, I knew there was something attractive about the whole “church thing” – but my church at the time was stagnant, and didn’t reach out to students and share with them. (I can say with great joy that this church has turned around 100% and is now thriving with young families and students and I am so happy to hear that Christ is being preached there!) Anyway, so I went to church, longing for something – meaning, significance, truth – but didn’t find it there.

I left for college at the University of Cincinnati in the fall of 1999 – and in the dorms, I met some people that met for a Bible study, ran by Campus Crusade for Christ. I was invited to go by the guy I liked, and I thought, “Hey, I like the Bible, I like this guy, I guess I’ll go.” Very deep reason, you know, but hey – God brings us to Him in what seem like silly, shallow ways.

I was raised in a pretty liberal political home – my family is very open to diverse people – they love all sorts of people, and one of the reasons why my entire family is leery of organized religion is because of all the hatred they see coming from the Christian sector for people considered “different.” Anyway, so in this Bible study, I said I was a Christian – because I thought I was – and I proceeded to question and doubt everything, and ask all sorts of questions – I was just so worried about all of the social stigma that certain issues have – but I learned a TON in that Bible study, from a man who really impacted me, Volunteer Staff Steve. Volunteer Staff Steve, if you ever read this, thank you for being so kind with my questions, and answering with strong truth, and not watering it down for my doubting soul!

A month or two into this Bible study, the guy I was then dating asked me if I had ever made a conscious decision to be a Christian. I was taken aback – of course I was a Christian! I thought that I was born a Christian! Just like I was born a girl, just like I was born into a middle class family. Um, well, yeah so, I had a little wake up call. I realized I wanted to make a commitment to following God – not just assume I had one, but actually MAKE one. Not just walk along, oblivious to a real commitment, but to walk along strongly within that commitment.

The analogy I make in my head is this… its like meeting a man and starting to spend lots of time with him – going out to dinner, talking for hours, getting to know each other. And then finally making it clear where you both stand – making a commitment to the relationship and to each other, making it official, being able to tell people what the two of you are. I wanted to do that with Christ. I didn’t want some vague, unexplained relationship. I wanted a certain, positive thing.

So, that night, I asked God to come into my heart and make me His.

And the months went on, and I got involved with Campus Crusade for Christ, and asked questions and met with friends and was given 1000 different resources for growing closer to God.

The real catalyst for change in my life, however, was in the fall of my sophomore year of college, 2000. I broke up with my boyfriend who had led me to Christ, and the following year was one of the roughest times in my life. Not because my relationship with this guy was so amazing and Godly, but because it had been very co-dependent, and I had neglected making friendships in exchange for giving my all to this romantic relationship. I say very gladly today that we are now friends, and that I love his wonderful wife. God has taken what Satan would have used for evil and turned it into a blessing for all of us. Which I think is so cool!

But anyway… my sophomore year was miserable – I kept calling out to God to save me, to make me feel better, and I just felt a void. I just wasn’t connecting. I was lonely and sad, and entirely focused on my own problems. But God was still faithful to me – I just couldn’t see it through the sadness. He provided people to love me and activities to keep me busy. In the Spring of 2001, at the end of my sophomore year, a staff member from Crusade asked me if I wanted to go to Rome for a summer for a mission trip. When she asked, I immediately felt something in my heart reach out – I felt God for the first time all year, saying to me, “Sarah, go.” And so I signed up. (Yeah, and like signing up for a summer in Rome was a hardship.)

So I raised $4000 in 3 weeks – it was crazy. I didn’t even pray about it. I was still sad and lonely, and basically said, bitterly, “If I am meant to go, then God better provide the means.” And He sure did! I look at that now and just see how God meant for me to spend that summer in Rome with those people – it was in His plan for my life, and He was going to take me there, no matter what.

So I went to Rome for the summer, and God changed my life there. I grew up a little – I began to laugh again – life became sweet to me again – I met friends that spoke absolute truth to me, right to my heart – and God granted me such faith in Him that I have never forgotten it. When I describe that summer to people, all I can say is that God brought a group of broken people to live together for a summer in Rome and teach each other about His love. I was baptised that summer, with my best friend Taylor, and making a public commitment to Christ with people that I loved and had helped me grow was really meaningful to me, and still is. (I was baptised as a baby, but wanted to make the decision as a consenting adult now that my faith had become real to me.)

I came back to Cincinnati, and life went on – there have been some struggles and really hard times, but it has been 100% rewarding.

And while that is the story of how I really committed my life to Christ, the story gets longer every day. Everything I do, in some way, teaches me more about the heart of God, and how He loves me. I spent almost 3 years as the Director of Student Ministries at White Oak Presbyterian Church, and there God showed me more love and graciousness than I ever would have believed. Through the hearts of children, I learned how to love God more. Through my relationships with my kids, my heart grew bigger and bigger for ministering to students.

Today, in December of 2005, I am surrounded by people that love me – my family, friends from college, my new church and small group at Lifespring, and my church family at White Oak. I have a job that pays my mortgage and car payment and has great health insurance (score!). I live in a city that provides lots of fun stuff to do. But as I wrote in my prayer journal last spring, all of this could be taken away from me, and I would still proclaim that God is faithful to me, and that I am whole and perfectly content in my love for Him. And things will be taken away from us – people will leave us – jobs will end – and experiences will be forgotten. I had no idea when I wrote that in my prayer journal how God would follow through on making that sentiment real to me, and how faithful He would remain to me. And I encourage you all to think about what will be there in the end – no matter what – through pain and heartbreaks and famine and floods and earthquakes. What will you have in the end?