I volunteer at my church's children's ministry. I love it there and I love the children. When I am with them I get to see the world, the Bible, and God through new eyes. And it also makes me reflect on my own childhood experiences with God.
I grew up in a church-going home. We have a video of me at three years old singing "To Be Like Jesus" in a little Sunday dress. At five years old, I'm told that I gave my life to God. Ever since then, I've been crazy about anything about God. I used to line up my plushies and dolls on my bed and do church with the. I would put on some worship music and do a "sermon" and I believe I even did altar calls for them.
When I was 11, I started Jr High ministry and we were doing some very in-depth bible studies that blew my pre-adolescent mind. I was hooked. I started asking questions to my dad after church and trying to think things through. I didn't have a Bible of my own at that time and since children's bibles are so expensive, I constantly borrowed the church library's NLT Children's Version. It was bright red and had a picture of Jesus holding a lamb on it. I read that Bible so much. And it was noticed by the librarians at the church. One Sunday when I went to renew it, they gave me the Bible to keep as my own.
I loved the Old Testament. It had everything a kid could want in an adventure story. Most of all I liked how God was the big hero of the story. I always imagined Him as this big muscular guy (of course I knew He wasn't human but you know what I mean) with a flowing white beard and a deep handsome voice. I felt that I could trust Him with anything. Sometimes when I was scared of the monsters in my closet, I would close my eyes tight and imagine that I was curled up in God's hand high up in the sky - far away from anything that could hurt me.
It was around this time in my life that we moved back to my hometown. I was 13 and still working on who I was. I lost my friends and felt very very alone. I felt like my big God had let me down. I spent a lot of time in a depression-type state and playing solitaire on my laptop in my room. I remember looking across my room at one point and seeing my Bible lying on the floor. I got up and walked over to it. As soon as I opened it, I remembered the promises of my big God. "I will never leave you nor forsake you" and "For I know the plans I have for you...plans to give you hope and a future".
I got back into reading more about the Bible. I read books like Mere Christianity. I was moving beyond just reading the Bible. I purchased a copy of "Battlecry for My Generation" by Ron Luce when I was still 13 or 14. The book showed the hardships of the current teenager and how difficult it is to stay after God's will. After I finished reading it, I started crying and prayed "God, what can I do?" And I felt very strongly (unless my memory serves me wrongly I nearly fell off where I was sitting) that I should be a youth pastor.
I started a bible study for girls and maintained that for three years (with adult supervision from my friend Heather). Looking back I have no idea how I did that. I was (and still am) socially awkward. It must have been a God-thing. During this time, my church split and we lost our youth pastor. We went through a couple more youth pastor people and then lost our senior pastor. When we hit our 4th youth director, I gave up. I felt like I wasn't supposed to be at this church anymore and I didn't want to be let down again.
So I left. For the next two months I was "churchless" and slept in on Sunday mornings. I felt so empty. And this was when I started doubting my call to youth ministry. I stumbled on a article that said women shouldn't be involved in leading a church. Now you have to know that whenever I was feeling down - the only thing that consoled me was the fact that God had a plan for me. I felt like the rug I had been standing on had been pulled out from under me and I was lost.
(Because this pretty much finishes up my childhood and adolescence, I'll continue this in another blog post. The next part will cover the last 2 years of my life that has pretty much changed everything :D )
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