“For by grace are ye saved…”

I will begin this blog by telling my personal experience with my Savior. I was raised in church, a missionary baptist church, in my hometown of Columbus, Indiana. To clarify our beliefs before I get to far into my story, we believe in salvation through repentance solely between God and a sinner. We also believe one is only saved once and cannot lose their salvation, however, they can lose the joy of their salvation.  I went to church every Sunday morning and night. Went to revivals and other annually held special services. Although I was in church this whole time, none of what the people and preachers were saying really hit me until I was seven years old in a revival during October of 2000.

Brother Ron Spurgeon was assisting my pastor at the time (who is also my great uncle), Elder John Thompson, in this revival effort. I can’t quite remember which one was preaching, but I do remember what they preached on. They told of heaven and hell and how if a person died without salvation, they would go to hell. He also talked about the end of the world. All of these things began to catch my attention and I became afraid. I was afraid that if I died right then, I would end up in that awful, dreadful place called hell. I became convicted of all my sins. After the preaching was over I was too afraid to go to the altar to pray in front of everyone, so I waited till church was over to tell my pastor I was lost. I began to pray at the altar and the rest of the church began to pray with me. I prayed for a while and when I thought I was fine, I got up. I told the church I had gotten saved that day and joined the church through baptism about 4 months later.

After I was baptized in February of 2001 I began to really start doubting my salvation. People would testify at church and talk about the sweet peace they felt after repenting of their sins and being saved. One night I remember I was so scared that I had not really gotten saved that I stayed up almost all night praying and crying my heart out to the Lord. I wanted to find out if I was saved, and if I wasn’t, I wanted to be. I ended up going to the bathroom and praying because I didn’t want my parents to know or think that anything was wrong with me. This night has stuck out to me very vividly ever since and because it has, I had been very confused on if I had gotten saved during the fall revival at my church when I first became aware of my sins or this particular night at my home.

Throughout the next 10 years or so I kept all of this confusion to myself. I was embarrassed and didn’t want people to know anything was wrong with me spiritually. Pride got in the way. A few years ago I let my pastor at the time, Elder Chris Jones, that I was very confused about when or if I was even saved. I told him I had tried to pray many times about it, but soon gave up because I would never get an answer. He told me that night that I needed to just pray and pray until I got my answer. So, after we talked I went to my bedroom and knelt down by my bed and began to pray. I prayed once, and didn’t feel anything, so I tried again. I tried pouring my heart out to God  as humbly as I could, but still nothing. I did this about 3 or 4 different  times while I was knelt down. I gave up and climbed into my bed with the expectation to go to sleep, but just before I did so, I decided to pray one last time in my bed. I cried and called out to the Lord to just give me an answer. That I was tired of living my life as a game. I no longer wanted to “hope” I was saved, I wanted to know. After I prayed I told myself quietly, “The Lord will answer my prayer.” When I finally had the faith to know He would do just that, it happened. It was as if he was standing right next to my bed telling me I had been saved that night at my home. When I had this assurance I was so happy I could of shouted. I finally knew what I had been questioning all along; I’m a child of the King.

I told my family right away, as well as my pastor and they were both very happy. The following Sunday at church I testified and told them of the struggle I had been having with confusion and the blessing of assurance I had received that week. The following week I joined the church and was rebaptized because the other baptism was void due to me not being saved before it took place.

To this day I am so thankful for what God has done for me. I am so unworthy or His great blessings, but he gives them to me anyways. I fail so many times, but He is always there to pick me back up. I am excited to learn and discover more things about Him in my walk with Him throughout my life and to see what other things He has in store for my life. God is so good.