Chapter 2.

We’re moving forward. The inward changes are starting to manifest into outward actions. I’m excited & i’m nervous. I thought it was appropriate to go back to my roots. Where my most important & life-changing relationship began.

Location: ugly old couch.

Age: 4.

Instigator: Jesus.

I’ve often tried to conjure up my earliest memories from childhood. I see brief snapshots of our one-bedroom apartment, the kiddy-pool, a big, shaggy dog who happened to be named Abigail, and a mean kid called Patrick. But I think the absolute earliest memory I have is of President Clinton. Yep, that guy. I remember him in front of the nation, hand on the Bible, swearing the Presidential Oath for the first time. I was two years old. But what I most distinctly remember is what my Mom said.

“That is a bad, bad man, Abby. A very bad man.”

That’s who my Mom is. A person of absolutes. She deals in black and white; there is no gray. She loves Jesus. The Bible is true. If you don’t believe in Jesus, you are evil. If you don’t read your Bible everyday, you are sinning. Now don’t get me wrong– my Mom is a beautiful person; a compassionate person who does her best to love everyone around her. She is very wise. But she also has some abrasive & legalistic tendencies.

Contrast that with my Dad– a man who is best described as a conundrum. He has always professed to be a Christian, but the fruit is lacking. I won’t pretend to know whether he is or isn’t. I really don’t know, and I don’t feel like it’s my place to know. I do know, however, that throughout my childhood, he was a very angry man. I remember broken chairs, angry words, and sitting up late at night with my ear pressed to the floor, straining to hear whether or not he hit my Mom. As far as I know, he never did. But she wouldn’t tell me anyway. The toughest thing about my dad was that he acted totally different outside our home than he did in it. Nobody saw who he really was, and all my friends told me how “cool” they thought my dad was.

Overall, I count myself blessed to have had the childhood that I did. I had parents who cared for me and loved me, even though they may not have said it very often. And maybe because of the marked difference between my parents, or maybe because my Mom borderline- brainwashed me, but probably because of Jesus’ grace, I came to know Him at four years old.

I have a vague memory or kneeling down by our brown, 70’s couch, and reciting the ABC prayer, but this could just be a memory that’s been conjured up based on what i’ve been told. The only thing that I really know & remember is that I could tell that there was something different about my Mom. Something in the way she acted; something I couldn’t quite understand. Something I wanted too. So I accepted Christ.

In the following years, doubts plagued me about whether or not I had really known what I was doing. About whether or not I was “really” saved. I prayed and re-prayed the prayer. I recommitted my life probably a dozen times– just in case. I hated telling my “salvation story” in a church context because it was just so…typical. Eventually I put this doubt to rest, and came to a peace. I decided to trust that God would honor my little 4-year old commitment to Him, even if I didn’t fully understand it.

It’s hard to compare what my life was like before I met Jesus to now, simply because I don’t remember. I know that in 17 years as a Christian, there have been hills and valleys, but I have steadily grown deeper in my relationship with Him. I have a tendency to fall back to my upbringing– to feel like I’m not doing enough. Not reading my Bible enough, not praying enough, not loving enough. If two or three days pass where I haven’t read my Bible, I start to think that maybe God is mad at me, or that I’m just a bad Christian.

But I know that God is trying to teach me different. He’s slowly teaching me how to rest in Him. He’s been revealing idols in my life, and I’ve been trying to work with Him to rid my life of them. I want to follow Him with everything. I don’t believe that being a Christ-follower is a church service on Sunday. It’s more. I want it to be more. I want my relationship with Jesus to permeate every detail of life. I want to witness to people without ever saying a word. I want to honor God by living for Him. I want my identity to be wrapped up in Him instead of in worldly things. But the truth is, I don’t know what that fully looks like. I struggle to find balance.

God is currently teaching me to let go of what other people think; to let Him justify me. He is teaching me to be patient– to wait on Him, to trust. To stop trying to make my own way and my own plans. But we’re still working on that. I know His plans are better, but they’re scary.