My History with the Lord (Getting Saved)

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Leah Moats talked to me at a regional high school choir competition in Bloomfield, IA.  I didn't know her other than I had been a jerk to her one time in the cafeteria.  I don't really remember our conversation other than it was...well...real. It was about "something."  I don't remember what that "something" was but she never mentioned church or God or religion and I had never had a conversation like it before.

She invited me to a Bible Study at her house led by Sam Dye.  I was feeling pretty hostile towards religion, but I still went.  I remember siting in the corner, trying not to be seen.  I remember bristling at the sound of Sam's voice.  You could tell he was completely confident in what he was saying, and that was making me mad because I was completely confident he was full of bull.

I started going to Sam and Deb's house every Wednesday.  I remember hanging with a group of people who I never would have thought would look my way, or I their way.

The first prayer I ever prayed went something like this, "God, I know you're not there. I'm never going to stop doing anything I'm doing unless you do something about it, which I know you won't, because you're not even there to hear me say any of this."  Before the end of the week I was in-jail and out of school.  I began to pay attention.

I had a bookshelf in my room.  On that shelf  was a paperback book with "Reach Out" on the cover. The letters were a cut-out photograph of a bunch of long-haired 70's Jesus People singing around a campfire.  I don't know how long that book had sat there, or even how it got there. But I pulled it off and went to the first page.  The was a list of references on that page.  The first reference was, "If you are sad, go to this verse..." Honestly, I don't remember the verse, all I remember was reading it and crying...sobbing, actually.  It was all so "true."  I  had spent the previous 7 months being so thirsty.  After weigh-in I would run to a faucet and just suck down water until I thought I would burst.  That's how I felt right then. I didn't realize how thirsty I was. But as soon as I got one drop on my tongue, there was no stopping me.

Leah, Sam, Debra, and Ginny put up with a lot of my "stuff."  They were all very patient, and I knew they loved me.  I never doubted my purpose again. I knew that God was always facing me, looking at me, and that His hand was ever upon me. I feel like my life started May 3rd, 1980, at Lake Red Rock.