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When I became a Christian I was at a really low point in my life. I had an abusive boyfriend, I was struggling with drugs and alcohol, I had been fired from my job as a music teacher because I couldn't function at work, and I wasn't taking my medicine for bi-polar disorder. My mother, who was trying to recover from gambling addiction and alcoholism, started seeing a Christian psychological counselor and asked me if I would go with her. The counselor had taught her how to pray and she taught me how to pray, so we had already been praying together. One day after a counseling session, we just kind of wandered in to this church down the street out of curiosity. We were searching for something, we just didn't know what. We went to the front desk and they called down one of the ministers to talk to us. He was really nice and he gave us a tour of the church and a Promise Keepers tape. He wasn't pushy. Before we left he said, "If God wants you here, you'll be here". So my mom and I started attending to church on Sundays. We were embraced with love and kindness by the body of Christ. My hair was only an inch long at the time with bald spots, and we cried through every service, so I guess they could tell we needed help. One day we had made up our minds that we were going to go down to the front at the next altar call, so we did. We didn't know what was about to happen, we just knew that whatever they were offering was a million times better than the life we had been living. Little did we know we were about to accept Jesus into our hearts! At the moment I accepted Christ I thought to myself, "Nothing else has been able to help me, maybe Jesus can help". Before this happened God had been preparing my heart to accept Christ. One night I went to a Calvin Hunt Concert at the Church and he sang this song called "Mercy Saw Me" which competely changed my life because I realized God could love me despite all of the things I had done. "Justice and law saw what I had done, but Mercy saw me through the Son." are some of the words to the song. Anyway, my mother and I accepted Christ on the same day, so we have the same spiritual birthday! Life has not been perfect since I have become a Christian. A lot of things have happened. But God has used those things to mold me into the person He wants me to be, and He has used those things to draw me closer to Him. And I am a better person for it! It's really not about me, it's about Him!! God bless this on-line ministry! Gwen Larrick |