Amy’s Story of Grace
I’ve known people who have those amazing, “Road to Damascus” moments in their testimony where in one mighty act, God turned their hearts to Him. God’s grace has worked in my life in more subtle ways so I cannot pinpoint one exact moment where I went from unbelief to belief. For me, salvation has been more of a process than one event.
I was raised in the church. I grew up in a strong and wonderful Presbyterian (PCA) church in Virginia where I found myself surrounded by a church family that loved each other and loved the Lord. It was a lovely place to grow up and to learn, and I don’t think I remember a time when I didn’t believe in Christ as Savior. I did all of the usual “good Christian girl” things like studying the Bible, and reading wonderful books such as Beautiful Girlhood, which made me want to grow up to be the sort of woman I saw modeled for me in the church. However, it was a childhood faith focused very much on what I needed to do and I still had much to learn about who God wanted me to be.
It was a series of speakers I heard with my family when I was 16 or 17 that really opened my eyes. One of them spoke on the process of sanctification and I remember him discussing the fruit of the Spirit from Galatians. He reminded the congregation that this fruit was not works generated by human will alone, but that it showed the working of the Spirit within us changing our hearts. When I heard him say that we needed not only to believe that Christ saves in the abstract but rather that Christ saves us personally, God really started to change my heart and mind toward Him.
I knew what it meant to go to church, to go to the teen girls’ group and learn from the women there, and I knew I needed to have devotionals at home. However, I knew these as actions and it was at this point that I wanted to know these things on a deeper level, not as the rituals of my childhood, but as the way to find this Jesus and to see what He would make of my life. It sounds like such a small thing, but giving myself over to the idea of seeing what Christ wanted to do with my life rather than figuring out what I wanted to do with my life was a huge shift in thinking. And it’s a shift in thinking that has made all the difference for me.
I was very blessed around that time. Not only did I find myself in a very strong Christian fellowship at college that was led by a godly couple who mentored us well, but I found myself in a Bible study of Matthew my first semester. I am convinced that God led me to this study at the perfect time. Just as I was feeling the change in my heart leading me to follow Christ and be His disciple, I was reading a book filled with Jesus’ instruction to his disciples.
Think about it. Throughout Matthew, we see Jesus teaching the disciples how they are to spread His word and urging them to an ever deeper belief. In the beginning, they do not understand, but Christ keeps teaching them through parables, through discussion of His kingdom, and through instruction in how they would spread the message of that kingdom. It had quite an influence on me because at that point in my life, I truly believed Christ was my Savior and the implications of how I would now live as a result of that were only just becoming clear.
The road to being a keeper at home has been a longer one for me. At the urging of my parents and, for a time, my husband, I pursued a full-time career. Like many in the DC area, I worked LONG hours. And I felt this career eating at my soul. I’ve written of this before, both here and on my own blog, but eventually God started to show me how this lifestyle did not match up with what He intended for my role to be as a married woman. There were women in the church I attended before I moved as well as cousins to whom I am close who were models to me of what a godly Christian woman should be and of what tone she should set in her home. And when I worked 60-70 hours a week at an office away from home, I could not be that woman. I could not keep that home. And knowing that I was not doing what God called me to do was something that kept coming back to me.
I prayed about it for a long while and as I’ve written before, I studied passages of the Bible dealing with God’s will for us as women. I’ve also been talking to my husband and cousins, and reading a number of blogs kept by women whom I look up to (I’ve been reading way longer than I’ve been commenting or blogging myself) and reading books on marriage, biblical womanhood and keeping the home. God’s leading in all of that has been bringing me home – and bringing me here. I couldn’t be more excited about this life God has given me and even though I long very much for some good mentoring, I also hope that God might use me to help someone else.
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What a blessing to grow up in a church like that and in that kind of lifestyle. God has been very gracious to you!
That is Awesome Amy! I grew up in the church too. I had very Godly parents but I always heard the Fruits of the Spirit but always thought of them as a pre-school song until I was 25 and the Lord really convicted me with them. Thank you for sharing your heart in this post!
Beautiful testimony! And what a blessing it is to have Godly women role models in your life! I enjoy reading about your transition from the professional world and your Godly and honorable pursuit to be at home!
Thank you all for your kind words! I loved my childhood church, but as Melissa said, there’s definitely a jump from learning songs about things like Fruits of the Spirit and really being convicted by God. I’m just thankful for His grace.
I’m thankful that God moved you to seek out a church where you would be taught what your soul needed to hear from God. And, that you make your faith your own.