Skills Teacher, Swansea College

 "I can vividly remember dancing around the kitchen at home in sheer joy and relief..."

My earliest memories of anything to do with God were the books about Jesus my father always got me for Christmas, and the hymns my gran would sing to me when rocking me to sleep. Later, my gran's obvious love for God, and the prayers my schoolteacher made at the back of the class every dinner time enforced my deep respect, even love for the Lord Jesus.

During the later years of my life in primary school, God brought a temporary friend into my life. She only was my friend long enough to tell me that was God a trinity, so Jesus Christ was God, and hell was very much a reality. Both these facts I doubted very much, but they frightened me rigid. I had convinced myself that hell was an imaginary place used to frighten naughty kids like me into behaving better. I had come to love Jesus as a kind man, who was obviously a lover of the one true God. But was He really God Himself? My very little knowledge of the Bible convinced me that the worst sin in God's sight was unbelief, especially regarding Jesus, His Son. I felt condemned. Surely if hell was real, I was on my way there. Although I still doubted its existence, I realised even as a child it was a huge risk to take. If it was a real place, I needed to know for certain I wasn't going there.

One day in boredom, I picked up my brother's weekly comic that had serialised the life and death of Jesus on the back page. For the first time I felt ashamed and guilty as I realised my own responsibility for the cross. Aware of my own malice and cowardice, I knew that if I'd been there two thousand years ago and powerful people had made threats against me unless I joined in with them then I, too, would have shouted "Crucify Him!"

This was a miserable and scary time for me. Looking back now I see God's love in it because not long after, the words of a famous hymn came to me with such force;

"There is a green hill far away

Outside a city wall

Where the dear Lord was crucified

Who died to save us all"

I finally understood just what Jesus was doing on the cross for me. He was paying for my shame and guilt and sin in a way I never could. I also realised that I believed with all my heart that Jesus truly was the Son of God. At the same time I knew with certainty that the only qualification I needed in order to be forgiven and saved from an eternity in hell was to come to Jesus as a sinner.

I received His forgiveness there and then and I can vividly remember dancing around the kitchen at home in sheer joy and relief. The Lord Jesus and His Father have been faithful in their love ever since. Today, over forty years on, I can testify that God is good and can be totally trusted.