Teacher

"It was during that week that I began to feel uneasy about my soul, and the reality of a Heaven and a Hell."

Looking back, it's hard to pinpoint when exactly I became a Christian. I had been brought up in a Christian home for most of my childhood, and like most kids from Christian homes, I thought that I knew it all! I could quote Bible verses, passages, and even argue doctrinal issues . . . but I had no personal faith.

When I was 16 I was taken along to a beach mission team. It was during that week that I began to feel uneasy about my soul, and the reality of a Heaven and a Hell. I had several nightmares, which I believe were from God, where on the last day my family would walk into Heaven and I would be stopped. I was terrified. God used different situations in my life to show me what I was really like. I saw myself for the first time as horrible and guilty before God, and I begged Jesus to forgive me.

There were small changes in my life after that, but the biggest change was my attitude. I started to hate things that I used to previously love, and I wanted to know Jesus better. Unfortunately, wanting to be like everybody else started to choke these desires. When I went to university, I started to doubt all that I'd been brought up to believe as fact. I questioned if there was a God at all, and I began to resent my Christian upbringing. I rebelled in every way I could! Everything that I knew I shouldn't do, I did. I behaved in a way that shocked the world and horrified my Christian friends. I was having a great time, yet at night, when everything went quiet, the reality of Heaven and Hell would bother and frighten me again.

After a year of shrugging off these fears I remember thinking, "You can't go on like this, it's all or nothing. Either you walk away from God once and for all, or you submit." It wasn't a choice at all. I couldn't walk away. That was the trouble. I couldn't shrug off all I knew was absolute truth. I begged God to forgive me for the way I'd let Him down so very badly, for the bad witness that I'd been, and for all the filth I'd indulged in. He forgave me at once and reminded me of the great verse: "He restores the years that the locusts have eaten".

I can testify that however good the world is at its best, it can't compare to the real joy of sins forgiven and a real Saviour!