My Spiritual Journey--The Changes Jesus Made

So, for the past several days, in honor of my spiritual anniversary, I've been posting how I came to know Jesus Christ.

Now I'd like to talk about a few of the changes Jesus has made in my life.
Previous to coming to Jesus, my life had been dominated by the dark shadows of my insecure personality.  Always fearing rejection, it was a 3 year project to plan how to say "hi" to somebody.  Most people stare at me in disbelief when I tell them that I don't recall ever speaking to a single person outside my family all through elementary school.  Certainly I did not speak to any of my classmates.  It wasn't that I didn't like them.  I just didn't know how, nor did I have the courage.
In elementary school that wasn't so bad.  I kind of lived in a fantasy world of my own making.  But around about Jr. High, it began to become excrutiating.  I was almost finished with my sophomore year in high school when I came to Christ, and my social situation was not much better.


I can't say that Jesus transformed me into a brilliant conversationalist or a popular socialite.  But becoming a Christian did change things for me.  It took my mental spotlight off my own pain and began to focus it on Jesus.  It assured me of God's love and acceptance.  It assured me of my personal worth as a person made in God's image, an object of His love and mercy, a part of His big plan.  As those ideas filled my mind, it was easier to relax around others.  I was still very shy, but I no longer feared rejection so much.  And I began to understand God's love for others, too, and reach out to them to genuinely befriend them, and not just to get a friend for myself.  That has been a long process.


Along the way in God's providence He brought me a husband who had all the social qualities I lacked.  He has taught me a lot, and I am still amazed at how fast and completely he opens up even to someone he is just meeting.


I am still a quiet, thinker type of person, still more cautious in how I make myself known to others.   I am still uncomfortable in many social situations.  But I no longer fear speaking to people.  I no longer worry about whether I am liked or accepted.  I feel secure and loved, and am able to extend that to others.


My heart always goes out to the underdog, to the person who is alone, to the person who is outcast.  I can identify instantly because for so many years I was an outcast myself.  (And yes, I do recognize that most if not all of that was my own making.)  My own making or not, I can still remember how it feels.  I think maybe God wanted me to go through that pain so that I could identify with the pain of others.


Because of that pain, I have been able to help homeless street kids, abandoned kids, enslaved children, trafficked children.  God has used it all to help many and I think to bring Himself glory.

I must not be the only one in the world who has gone through these things, because some years back I wrote my story for Good News magazine.  They wrote back encouraging me with the news that 63 people had written to them saying that they had received Christ as a result of reading my story.  Wow, that's more than enough repayment for any pain I suffered!


Even better yet, God is not done with me yet.  I can't wait to see what else He has in store.

I opened the Bible and SURPRISE !

May 14.  In 1961 it was a Saturday.  Since I had received Christ, I had suddenly found a new and inexplicable interest in the Bible.  Since it was a Saturday, I had a little free time.

I hunted around my room until I found the Bible my Grandma Miller had given me for Christmas when I was about 10.  It was still stiff and unused, still in the box it came in.  I'm sure I politely thanked Grandma for it along with my other gifts, but I remember that I felt disappointed when I got it.  What would I do with a Bible?  I hadn't yet begun active disbelief.  I just wasn't interested.  So I put it away in its box and never opened it again until I was 15.  May 14, 1961.

I began first by trying to find the verse I had memorized as a child in Vacation Bible School.  As I underlined those to make them easy to find again, I noticed other verses around them that seemed just as significant.  I underlined those, too.  Underlining became a habit as I continued reading the Bible with spiritual eyes freshly made alive in Christ.  It took about one year before almost the whole Bible was underlined.  Funny how one day it was all so irrelevant and the next it all became so very important.

Our family's attitude toward the Bible was kind of strange.  My mother was horrified if anyone ever set any book on top of the Bible.  So somewhere there was a certain kind of respect for the Bible.  However, I never recall anyone in the family ever reading it, LEAST OF ALL, ME!  That all changed when I received Christ.

I am sad and ashamed to say that I have not always followed all that I read, and sometimes I have messed up pretty badly.  It's still true, though, that the Bible came alive for me the moment I received Christ.  It's as if blinders were taken off my eyes, and before me was a royal banquet table filled with all varieties of delicious food and set with the most beautiful flowers in the world.  I've been reading and studying the Bible for 51 years now, and I still marvel at its depth, its beauty and its significance. 

When someone tells me the Bible is boring or outdated, I always wonder if they have truly met the author, or if, like me in my unconverted days, they only learned to recite facts about Him.  I always encourage them to actively seek God, because that most exciting of books assures me that those who seek God will always find Him.  Or sometimes, like me, like Saul of Tarsus, like Matthew the tax collector, God will find them when they are not even seeking for Him.  That is because He seeks for us.  I love the Bible, and I first began to read it 51years ago today.