God had been talking to my heart and convicting me for several weeks. I was a blessed child, in that I had saved parents who loved God and were in the true Church of God. For as long as I could remember I would go to church every Sunday, Tuesday and Friday, so I knew exactly what salvation was. I knew what God required of each and every individual in the world. I had a knowledge or right and wrong, and heaven and hell.

Weeks before God saved me I'd heard on the radio of two young ladies, around my age, that had been killed in a hit and run accident. They left their parents house late one night to go joy-riding and died before they could return. That tragedy had such an impact on my life and troubled me greatly. When you are so young, only 12 years old, you tend to do things without really thinking through the consequences. You tend to see life only in the present. HAVE FUN NOW!!!!! DO WHAT I WANT NOW!!!! You don’t really realize the affect your actions will have on your teenage and adult life, let alone what affect your actions will have for Eternity. No doubt, those girls did not expect to die that night. Death had caught them by surprise, and unprepared to meet God.

At that time, I had in my young mind that the only people who died were elderly people, extremely sick people, or extremely wicked people. Morally good, young people, full of life, did not die. I was so wrong and God began to show me, through various tragic events, just how wrong I was.

Not long after the hit-and-run incident was the terrible Oklahoma City bombing. That event troubled me like nothing else ever had. I would lay awake at night just thinking about all those lives suddenly sent to stand before God in the judgment. I knew that one day everyone would have to stand before God and be judge for the deeds that they had done. I also knew that those who lived in sin, committed sin, and had never professed (and possessed) Jesus Christ as Savior, would be cast into Hell, a place where they would burn forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever, for eternity. I believed that while in hell they would be able to remember those times they had neglected God and pushed him away. I also knew that the vast majority of the world was not saved from their sins and did not possess Christ as Savior. It was overwhelming to think of all the souls in that bombing who had lost their lives through tragedy were now burning in hell, with no hope of ever being saved.

I was afraid. For weeks I walked around, plagued by fear. I was afraid to sleep for fear God would return and find me unsaved but too tortured by my fear of dying to want to stay awake. I was always afraid that at any minute God would come and I would be caught in my sins and go straight to hell (especially since I knew the truth). I think the knowledge of where I would go made my fear all the more intense. It seemed that every time something made me a little happy, the fear would rush right in and take away any inkling of joy I would have felt.

One night the fear just became unbearable and I knew I had to somehow get rid of it. So in the middle of the night I went and knocked on my parent’s door. My father sacrificed his sleep to come and talk to me about what was bothering me. He explained that the fear I had been experiencing was actually called "conviction". Conviction is when God speaks to your conscience and makes you aware and sensitive to your sins (my own definition). According to the dictionary "conviction" is the state of being found or proven guilty. And I was GUILTY! I knew the price that God had paid for me, yet I lived in sin, transgressing God's law. I had knowledge of what God required and was guilty of willfully disobeying him.

We read together for Proverbs Chapter 1. In this chapter it talks about the way of the sinner and those who walk in the way of sinners. It also talks about Wisdom that cries for the sinner to forsake their sins and turn to God. It asks the question,

"How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and the fool hate knowledge? Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you. Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; But he have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon me, BUT I WILL NOT ANSWER; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me: For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord: They would none of my counsel: they despised all of my reproof. Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and prosperity of fools shall destroy them. BUT WHOSO HEARKENETH UNTO ME SHALL DWELL SAFELY, AND SHALL BE QUIET FROM FEAR OF EVIL."

What a wonderful blessing to be quiet from all FEAR!!!! As we continued to read, God was preparing my heart to be changed. The scripture that mentions God laughing when fear came, weighed heavily upon me. I was already trapped in fear and just to think of God laughing or mocking me and mocking my fear, made me...even more afraid. I can't quite explain in words how I felt, the emotions, I just know that I wanted deliverance. I was tired of the fear. That night I surrendered all to God, and true to his word, immediately the fear was gone. Thank God for peace and joy in the Lord.

Ever since that day in May 1995 I have been living for God. It has not always been easy. Sometimes living for God will cause others to look at you with pity and other times people will look at you with disdain. I have found myself an outcast of my peers. I remember times in high school when I spent lunch alone because I didn’t fit in with the other students. I didn’t dress like the other girls, didn’t talk like the other students, I just plain and simply did not act like my peers. But when what others are doing is shameful, disgusting, unhealthy, and unfulfilling, I would much rather serve Jesus. Getting the victories at an early age helped me through the pressures of college life, and now as an adult I am proud of who, and what, I am in Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 15:10 says, “But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain…”

I can honestly say that I have no regrets for the life that I’ve chosen to live.