Becoming (BE)Loved :: When Doubt Enters

Doubt entered into my life at the age of 12. Doesn't it come into everyone's life somewhere around there. Teenage years are difficult with body changes, the start of middle school, and boys only "sort of have cooties."

But more than anything for me, this was doubt in my relationship with Christ. 
As I mentioned,I didn't have a singular conversion experience. God was simply a part of my life because I went to church and I obeyed my parents and I enjoyed VBS and church camps. 

I remember QUESTIONING God to see if he would miraculously tell me that I'd get to spend eternity with him and "properly" hold the title Christian.

One summer day I was sitting in our mostly empty pool 

(only mostly empty because it was being worked on... we didn't make it a habit to have an empty pool)

with my feet several inches away from the water, praying:

"God, if I'm really saved, then let that water touch my feet."

And when it didn't MIRACULOUSLY rush over my whole foot, 

my fear and desperation inched me forward physically

and repeated the question till I myself slipped my toes into the water.

The following fall I entered to the youth group.

And with youth group came weekend conferences.

Places full of people who were raising there hands, passionate speakers who talked about P.U. (Persecution University) and door-to-door evangelism, and the POWER OF THE LOVE OF GOD! Conferences where you were supposed to invite your non-Christian friends so that they could hear about Christ and choose to follow him. And at the end of everyone of these conferences they'd do the "alter call" and thousands of people would go down to the front and pray with someone and accept Christ into their life. And their whole lives would change. They had their CONVERSION MOMENT.

And while they had their MOMENT, my doubt deepened -

Maybe I'm not saved.

Maybe God doesn't love me because I've never said those exact words to invite him into my heart.

But others THINK I'm a Christian, so I was ashamed to ever walk to the front.

But I wanted to be "safe."

I wanted to get to spend eternity in heaven with the rest of family. 

I didn't want to go to Hell.

So every conference I went to, I SECRETLY prayed THE prayer. I let worry and doubt drag on my young mind and hid the fear that maybe I wasn't a Christian.

{...}To Be Continued