My son is the one who brought about my salvation. When he was around 17 years old, he started asking me about God and my beliefs. I told him that I believed in God but I didn’t know too much about Him. My son already knew the story about his own birth so he knew that I felt God intervened. You see although I believed in God, I had a hard time with churches and Christians. I had some bad experiences and being a single parent I felt out of place. I hated judgmental, hypocritical people, and generally people who didn’t seem to have any compassion. I had a hard time reading the bible and pretty much gave up on my search for truth.
My son on the other hand, was not going to give up and asking me questions that I had no answer to. I have a friend at work who is one of the few Christians that I knew at the time who truly walked the walk. He was always there if you had questions and you could see the Holy Ghost shining through his eyes whenever he talked about Jesus. He never condemned. He wasn’t judgmental and he was very patient. But most of all, he was human and was not perfect. (BTW he is still a great Christian but now I know a lot more of them.) So I got my son and my friend together.
What I didn’t realize was that my friend was of the Pentecostal denomination. (When you talk to him though, he will tell you that not ONE denomination has all the answers.) As a matter of fact, I didn’t even know what being a Pentecostal meant. My son visited several churches but kept going back to the Pentecostal church. He would tell me that it was the only place that he really felt God’s presence. At the time though, I didn’t understand what was going on with him.
At first, I was not comfortable about my son attending this church. I called it a cult and also called him a Holy Roller and a bible-thumper. He was driving me nuts. He was baptized and received the Holy Ghost and still kept driving me nuts. We would constantly fight about our beliefs. He would always pull out the bible to make his point which would drive me nuts because I didn’t know too much about the Word.
We would argue about Heaven and Hell issues, about churches judging people, and how religion throughout history was the root of wars and many other terrible things. But the whole time, my son never really contradicted me. Sometimes he would agree saying that just because certain people did awful things in the name of their religion doesn’t mean that it was Right.
I would go to church with him a couple of times and though I honestly did feel God’s presence there, I also wondered if it was my imagination or perhaps mass hysteria. Some of you may not know but Pentecostals are very passionate and vocal about praising God. They believe in speaking tongues and the term “Holy Rollers” applies to them. If you never experienced it, it can be a bit freaky. Some people believe they are a cult. But I guess you can say that about all denominations because there is always someone who believes that your denomination is cult-based.
Then one day my son told me he wanted to go in the ministries. He didn’t know exactly what he wanted to do (Pastor, Preach, Evangelist, or Missionary) but he knew it involved devoting his life to God. Now this really blew my mind. We had a huge fight. I guess I should tell you that I had little to no religious upbringing. My father is an atheist and my mother is probably agnostic. No one else in my family goes to church either. So I am looking at my son and seeing a total stranger. But that night I prayed to God (by the way I always believed in God and prayed to him, I just had no idea who he was) and begged for his help…and His answer? I got the distinct impression that I was not to stand between Him and one who he has called. It wasn’t easy though. But it was a real eye-opener.
We enrolled my son in a Christian College where he would be roommates with one of his best friends from church. His friend’s family, and my son and I were all going to drive there together the weekend before school started. I was not looking forward to it. I loved the part about my son attending college, but not the part of driving in the same car with the mother and father of the other boy. (The boys were driving in a separate car.) For one, the Pentecostals have standards where the women do not cut their hair and have to wear dresses. Another is that the women are submissive to their husbands. Okay now, so here I am, a single mother, who wore combat boots, is not very submissive, and I was going to have to make small talk with this family. I really was not looking forward to it.
But this is what really happened. The mother and I hit it right off. She is less submissive than I am although she is submissive to her husband in accordance with the bible. Her husband is nice and very cool. He is not a tyrant or egotistical male chauvinist pig. They didn’t care about my hair or wearing long pants or that I had a kid out of wedlock. They were intelligent and loved science. They were funny and witty and we did not talk about religion the entire time and at no time did I feel that they were preaching to me. When they talked about Jesus, it was exciting and new and fresh. We hit it off so well, that now the mother is one of my very best friends. Sure they had flaws and I didn’t agree with everything they said but who doesn’t have flaws and who agrees with everything I say? I confessed to them that I had judged them wrongly and stereotyped them and I apologized. I was appalled with myself. Here I was professing to all about how I hated judgmental people and people without compassion and that is why I didn’t like most churches and blah, blah, blah…and here was I doing the same thing. Duh!
After our trip, I started discovering more about myself and my beliefs. I did a lot of soul searching, and started praying more. I started to read the bible more and better yet I was starting to understand it. I wanted to know more so I started going to my son’s old church. I realized that church was not about some building where everyone met and talked about God. I learned that a church is a fellowship of believers who support each other, who gives praise to God, who are fed by the Word, and a place where the Holy Ghost can rain down his blessings. Here I allowed flawed people keep me away from the Truth and His love. Now I will kick anyone to the curb if I feel that they are getting between me and my God. (I am talking about people who professed that they are Christians but always made me feel bad to the point that it turned me away.) More truths kept pouring through me, and He started revealing himself to me through his Word. I got baptized and I received the Holy Ghost and yes I spoke in tongues and it is the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me. This is the first time that I have found a church that I absolutely love going to. I am sure there some at my church who are probably not thrilled about me but who cares. I still wear pants. I still have a problem with cursing. I still get angry at stupid drivers. I still love Science and technology. I am working on things that I believe God wants me to work not people.
One day at church, my son stood up and praised God for my salvation. He told of how he prayed nightly for over year that I would come to know God’s love and there I was. I don’t care about what others think. I know what I know. I know what I feel. I know what I see. I know that about 19 years ago, God saved a life, so that my life could be saved today and that is my story of God’s Grace.