I have been a part of a group on Sunday night who are contacting people who have visited our church.  One of the requirements of participating in the group is to write an account of how you came to believe in Jesus as the Son of God, and how it has changed you.  So I am going to practice on all of you out there.  I have to do it in 250 words or less, which I doubt I can do--but, here goes.

I was raised in a family of practicing Christian people.  I heard about Jesus every Sunday in church, and everyday at home.  When I was 8 or 9, I went forward during the song "I Surrender All."  I surrendered all a child had to surrender.  I was a good kid growing up.  I never drank, smoked,  etc. nothing that was classified as "sin," and still don't to this day.

I was 23 years old before I needed to repent.  I was listening to a Billy Graham sermon on sin, and he didn't mention any of the so called sins I had heard about growing up.  He talked about greed, stinginess, spite, thinking you were better than others, and on and on.  Hitting me over and over.  I repented.  And prayed that my three girls wouldn't have such a hard time coming to repentance since they too were being raised in a Christian family.  That they would spend eternity with Him.  Within five minutes of praying that prayer, and laying our youngest daughter in her crib while I went to get her a bottle, she was dead.  One minute she was alive, the next minute, she wasn't.  I credited God with her death, and that my prayer had caused her death so that she could spend eternity with Him.

For four years, I struggled.  I couldn't sleep for fear one of my other three children was going to die.  That God would take one of them, too.  One day, a friend said, "Janie, you don't trust God.  You have given Him your life, but you haven't given Ken and your three children back to Him."   It was true.  I knew that I didn't trust Him with my family.

So, I told God I didn't trust Him.  He knew it anyway.  I had surrendered all as a child, but I needed to surrender all as an adult.  It was horrendously difficult.  But one day, a moment came when I was able to say, "You've got it.  Me, Mine, and everything I possess."  I can tell  you one thing for sure,  there is no peace in your life until you surrender, repent and trust God--you must do all three things.  I know.  Whatever God wants, I have surrendered.  All of it.