Jc1103
Member
When I was eleven, I 'chose' to become a Christian. It wasn't something my parents put into my mind, or even anyone around me. In my young mind, I believed God existed just as I believed the sky was blue. That was the beginning of a shallow faith in God, where I had an extremely shallow and vague image of what the God I called myself 'friends' with was like.
In my journey for God, I bought a small crucifix at a grocery store for, I still remember, $19.99. I also bought a Bible. Since I didn't really have a real relationship with God, I was still bullying people when I was twelve. I even made a hate site for someone -__-, and yet, while doing all this, I proudly toted that I "was a Christian and loved God." (as Jesus said, "No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit" Luke 6:43)
Because I didn't have a firm foundation in my faith, aka Jesus, I quickly fell away. By the time I was fifteen, I thought I had already tried the whole 'Christianity thing' and was done with it. By that time, I was a very different person from who I am today. I had bright pink highlights, was a lover of the Distillers and Dir En Grey, and was in a same-sex relationship. I also was very vocal about my sexuality >.>.
I knew that certain things in my life, such as swearing and lust and all that, were not right with the 'Christians', but the more I knew it was wrong, the more I rejoiced in it because I truly thought that Christianity was false.
I recall once in that year, my friend brought a Bible to school, and I (don't hate me for this hahaa) scoffed when she started reading it. I said to her that the Bible was full of poop, to put it in less explicit terms.
I wasn't an atheist, but I was someone who believed in the New Age movement, which is pretty much a chex mix of religions. I had angel tarot cards, and I (don't laugh at me :<) communicated with an angel. I was kind of intimidating on the outside, but on the inside I was lonely :<.
But one day my mom and I decided to rent out a room in our apartment. This new roommate's name was Sheri. For months, Sheri tried to talk with me about Christ. Being an immature fifteen year old, I became annoyed with her immediately and always asked her purposefully hard answers. She couldn't really answer my questions, so that didn't help much ahahah.
I recall that my mother asked me "isn't Sheri's God your God?" and I replied to her that "if I believed in God, it would be in a loving God, not in a mean and hateful one like Sheri's". I mean, none of my friends were Christians, and the people I admired and the bands I listened to all had a general consensus among them: that God was supposedly dead. And that if He was alive, He was just a grumpy old guy sitting in Heaven with His arms crossed.
Anyway, months passed, and I started having nightmares of being chased by wolves. I also had recurring nightmares of being chased by two men who wanted to kidnap me :<.
On one night, I watched a really scary and satanic movie where there was a graphic scene of a woman rolling on the floor with her eyes gouged out. Even though I was telling all my friends that I loved horror movies, I was still squeamish as ever. Then Sheri came home, and I still remember how comforting it was to know that she was in the house. It was a sign of things to come, and the comfort that Christ would give me for the rest of my life
.
For weeks on end, that image from that movie haunted me. I kept having terrible nightmares, and when I laid in bed at night, the shadows cast on the ceiling from my lamp always seemed kind of demonic in ways. And that dream of being chased by two men kept recurring. All of this was while Sheri kept trying to start conversations with me about Jesus, and I kept trying my best to smush her attempts arrogantly.
I prayed to God once after a stressful night of debating with Sheri "Hey God! If you're there, please show Sheri the truth!" Jesus must have burst out laughing, because that was the most ironic prayer ever in my life 
.
All the tension in the apartment rose, until Sheri announced she was moving out. After her announcement, just a week before she was planning to move, Sheri approached me again and asked if she could speak to me. I rolled my eyes, "oh boy, here we go again... well, this time I'm determined to make her realize that I will NEVER be Christian AGAIN."
I smiled and said "Sure, Sheri!" Sheri looked at me doubtfully, and said that she wanted to go pray first. I watched her retreat into the bathroom to pray. It also 'happened' that my mom was out playing mahjong, and wouldn't be back till 2 am. When Sheri came out of the bathroom, she said to me that God gave her two visions of me last night.
That really struck me, I was like "wait.. this is different."
She said that she woke up around 1 am last night, and God gave her a vision of a beautiful angel. Even though he was beautiful though, in the back was thick darkness and an eerie atmosphere. She said that even though it looked like an angel, it felt demonic. The second vision came shortly after when she asked God why He gave her that vision.
The second vision was of me watching horror movies, and then after that vision God said to her that I was "opening a door I couldn't close" and that He was worried for me.
Well, after Sheri shared her two visions with me, I decided not to believe in New Age stuff anymore. But I still did not want to be a Christian. I thought I was 'done' with Christianity, and that Christianity was for the preppy straight A kids or for snobby uppity people:3.
As Sheri and I were discussing it, she then started to share her own story with me of how she had come to Christ. When I first saw Sheri, she looked like someone I could never relate to in a million years, but it turns out that seven years ago, when she found Christ, she was in the same place as I was. And she also had believed in the New Age Movement.
But the difference with her story was that eventually terrifying things would start happening to her. She blankly said that her nightmares were so terrible she wouldn't want to sleep at night, and there was another instance where a bell in her room started ringing loudly by itself. Eventually it was coming to Christ that saved her and gave her peace. She said that God could see me going down this same road and wanted to save me all that pain.
It took me a week to accept Christ in my life, but when I finally did, it was for real. Instead of just accepting a religion and a status and a title, I would always pray to God and ask Him to show me all the things that were on His heart. It was a two-way conversation, and trust me when I say God has really done amazing things in my life.
I was someone who was heading the opposite road of Christianity. I brazenly opposed God, and I mocked His name so much. But He still chose to save me like the knight in shining armor like He is. In these three years of my journey with Christ, I can honestly say that falling in love with God and walking by His side has changed the entire scope of my life.
Later I found out that God had actually called Sheri to move to the city I was in. She was originally living in a city that was about an hour away. I also found out that Sheri hadn't told anyone else about her past, but that she was planning on telling her husband first. She had apparently just blurted out her testimony. When Sheri went into the bathroom to pray before our conversation, God had said to her that He would 'put the words in her mouth'.
This post was long -__-, but I'll add one more thing that might seem little weird. When I was 12, something strange happened when I woke up one morning to get an 'early start' on homework if you know what I mean ('catching up' on homework right before class). Then a voice asked me in my head if I believed in God and trusted Him with my life. Though I didn't really know God, I was still 12 and quickly answered yes.
Then my cross was literally ripped right off its chain by an invisible force (I know, I know, it sounds like something from Harry Potter). It was so quick that the chain wrapped itself around my ankle.
I think that event was God's way of foretelling that one day, I would fall away from Him, but He'd still always be pursuing me. He is, after all, the Shepherd who left His 99 sheep for the one sheep that was missing.
There's a lot of times in the Bible where God might look like He's angry and grumpy, but the truth is that God is so much greater than what the media caricatures Him as. Bible passages that seemed eugh to me before I knew Him, made sense when I truly started analyzing them.
"I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me; I was found by those who did not seek me. To a nation that did not call on my name, I said, 'Here am I, here am I.' Isaiah 65:1
My relationship with God right now is in a dry season, but still I'm always encouraged by how He's always been more faithful than I ever gave Him credit for.
Long post, but I hope this encouraged you 
In my journey for God, I bought a small crucifix at a grocery store for, I still remember, $19.99. I also bought a Bible. Since I didn't really have a real relationship with God, I was still bullying people when I was twelve. I even made a hate site for someone -__-, and yet, while doing all this, I proudly toted that I "was a Christian and loved God." (as Jesus said, "No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit" Luke 6:43)
Because I didn't have a firm foundation in my faith, aka Jesus, I quickly fell away. By the time I was fifteen, I thought I had already tried the whole 'Christianity thing' and was done with it. By that time, I was a very different person from who I am today. I had bright pink highlights, was a lover of the Distillers and Dir En Grey, and was in a same-sex relationship. I also was very vocal about my sexuality >.>.
I knew that certain things in my life, such as swearing and lust and all that, were not right with the 'Christians', but the more I knew it was wrong, the more I rejoiced in it because I truly thought that Christianity was false.
I recall once in that year, my friend brought a Bible to school, and I (don't hate me for this hahaa) scoffed when she started reading it. I said to her that the Bible was full of poop, to put it in less explicit terms.
I wasn't an atheist, but I was someone who believed in the New Age movement, which is pretty much a chex mix of religions. I had angel tarot cards, and I (don't laugh at me :<) communicated with an angel. I was kind of intimidating on the outside, but on the inside I was lonely :<.
But one day my mom and I decided to rent out a room in our apartment. This new roommate's name was Sheri. For months, Sheri tried to talk with me about Christ. Being an immature fifteen year old, I became annoyed with her immediately and always asked her purposefully hard answers. She couldn't really answer my questions, so that didn't help much ahahah.
I recall that my mother asked me "isn't Sheri's God your God?" and I replied to her that "if I believed in God, it would be in a loving God, not in a mean and hateful one like Sheri's". I mean, none of my friends were Christians, and the people I admired and the bands I listened to all had a general consensus among them: that God was supposedly dead. And that if He was alive, He was just a grumpy old guy sitting in Heaven with His arms crossed.
Anyway, months passed, and I started having nightmares of being chased by wolves. I also had recurring nightmares of being chased by two men who wanted to kidnap me :<.
On one night, I watched a really scary and satanic movie where there was a graphic scene of a woman rolling on the floor with her eyes gouged out. Even though I was telling all my friends that I loved horror movies, I was still squeamish as ever. Then Sheri came home, and I still remember how comforting it was to know that she was in the house. It was a sign of things to come, and the comfort that Christ would give me for the rest of my life
.For weeks on end, that image from that movie haunted me. I kept having terrible nightmares, and when I laid in bed at night, the shadows cast on the ceiling from my lamp always seemed kind of demonic in ways. And that dream of being chased by two men kept recurring. All of this was while Sheri kept trying to start conversations with me about Jesus, and I kept trying my best to smush her attempts arrogantly.
I prayed to God once after a stressful night of debating with Sheri "Hey God! If you're there, please show Sheri the truth!" Jesus must have burst out laughing
, because that was the most ironic prayer ever in my life . All the tension in the apartment rose, until Sheri announced she was moving out. After her announcement, just a week before she was planning to move, Sheri approached me again and asked if she could speak to me. I rolled my eyes, "oh boy, here we go again... well, this time I'm determined to make her realize that I will NEVER be Christian AGAIN."
I smiled and said "Sure, Sheri!" Sheri looked at me doubtfully, and said that she wanted to go pray first. I watched her retreat into the bathroom to pray. It also 'happened' that my mom was out playing mahjong, and wouldn't be back till 2 am. When Sheri came out of the bathroom, she said to me that God gave her two visions of me last night.
That really struck me, I was like "wait.. this is different."
She said that she woke up around 1 am last night, and God gave her a vision of a beautiful angel. Even though he was beautiful though, in the back was thick darkness and an eerie atmosphere. She said that even though it looked like an angel, it felt demonic. The second vision came shortly after when she asked God why He gave her that vision.
The second vision was of me watching horror movies, and then after that vision God said to her that I was "opening a door I couldn't close" and that He was worried for me.
Well, after Sheri shared her two visions with me, I decided not to believe in New Age stuff anymore. But I still did not want to be a Christian. I thought I was 'done' with Christianity, and that Christianity was for the preppy straight A kids or for snobby uppity people:3.
As Sheri and I were discussing it, she then started to share her own story with me of how she had come to Christ. When I first saw Sheri, she looked like someone I could never relate to in a million years, but it turns out that seven years ago, when she found Christ, she was in the same place as I was. And she also had believed in the New Age Movement.
But the difference with her story was that eventually terrifying things would start happening to her. She blankly said that her nightmares were so terrible she wouldn't want to sleep at night, and there was another instance where a bell in her room started ringing loudly by itself. Eventually it was coming to Christ that saved her and gave her peace. She said that God could see me going down this same road and wanted to save me all that pain.
It took me a week to accept Christ in my life, but when I finally did, it was for real. Instead of just accepting a religion and a status and a title, I would always pray to God and ask Him to show me all the things that were on His heart. It was a two-way conversation, and trust me when I say God has really done amazing things in my life.
I was someone who was heading the opposite road of Christianity. I brazenly opposed God, and I mocked His name so much. But He still chose to save me like the knight in shining armor like He is. In these three years of my journey with Christ, I can honestly say that falling in love with God and walking by His side has changed the entire scope of my life.
Later I found out that God had actually called Sheri to move to the city I was in. She was originally living in a city that was about an hour away. I also found out that Sheri hadn't told anyone else about her past, but that she was planning on telling her husband first. She had apparently just blurted out her testimony. When Sheri went into the bathroom to pray before our conversation, God had said to her that He would 'put the words in her mouth'.
This post was long -__-, but I'll add one more thing that might seem little weird. When I was 12, something strange happened when I woke up one morning to get an 'early start' on homework if you know what I mean ('catching up' on homework right before class). Then a voice asked me in my head if I believed in God and trusted Him with my life. Though I didn't really know God, I was still 12 and quickly answered yes.
Then my cross was literally ripped right off its chain by an invisible force (I know, I know, it sounds like something from Harry Potter). It was so quick that the chain wrapped itself around my ankle.
I think that event was God's way of foretelling that one day, I would fall away from Him, but He'd still always be pursuing me. He is, after all, the Shepherd who left His 99 sheep for the one sheep that was missing.
There's a lot of times in the Bible where God might look like He's angry and grumpy, but the truth is that God is so much greater than what the media caricatures Him as. Bible passages that seemed eugh to me before I knew Him, made sense when I truly started analyzing them.
"I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me; I was found by those who did not seek me. To a nation that did not call on my name, I said, 'Here am I, here am I.' Isaiah 65:1
My relationship with God right now is in a dry season, but still I'm always encouraged by how He's always been more faithful than I ever gave Him credit for.
Long post, but I hope this encouraged you
ed This is a term paper 
Thank God for you. I read the novel you wrote...and honestly no one runs away from GOD. 
