The Story Of My Conversion

I had posted this at an earlier date on the church website in reply to the question of "Why do you believe in God?" and I felt that there was a good enough message within it to post it on our blog as well. Please know that by posting my story, I am not boasting about myself. My intentions are to boast about Jesus. I pray that many people will read about the amazing things I have encountered in the journey to discover God and consider Jesus for themselves. Here is my story....


I can't remember ever thinking He wasn't there. I guess I take it for granted that I've always believed. Growing up, God was not obvious in my home. I remember always watching one of my dad's sisters (Kay) and his mom because they went to church. We lived next door to Kay for about 2 years and I spent alot of time at her house playing with my cousins. Kay would always make sure I would make it to church by taking me herself. My parents didn't go and neither did my sisters for some reason. I remember not wanting to go to my own bible class because I wanted to stay with the adults and just watch them. I remember asking alot of questions about things I heard and saw and the answers were always given in a very caring, loving manner. There was just something interesting to me about this God "person" or "thing" or whatever He was. As I grew into a teenager, I spent every weekend with my grandma (dad's mom). I remember her crying alot when she prayed beside her bed on her knees. This always made me somewhat uncomfortable because I had never heard or seen anything like that before and something was clearly bothering grandma. Most of the time, I would shrug it off and continue to watch television until one night I decided to listen in on what she was saying. It turns out that we were all lost somehow and needed saved from something. She was crying and asking God to save her family and she named each one of us. I had heard about Hell before but what I was told was pretty limited because you typically don't want to scare a child too much by the gory details of Hell. While listening to grandma pray every single night, I began to get more and more uncomfortable. During the days that I would spend with her, we would watch tv evangelists and it drove me nuts with all of there crying too. Why was everyone so stinkin' upset all the time? My grandma would always interrupt the tv program to talk to me about how I needed to be saved. Saved from what? I was fine. Wasn't I? It became very annoying and I just got to the point where I decided to at least respect my grandma by listening with some interest. One day, several years later, my mother told us that it was time to start going to church and that we were going to start tomorrow morning. I got nervous and my sisters weren't exactly happy about it either. This was ALL new to them since no one had ever taken them to church when they were little....people just took me. So, here I was in 11th grade and "just now starting church". My other grandma (mom's mom) had been going to a different church than what I had been use to going to with my dad's mom and my aunt Kay. This was apparently the congregation my mother had chosen to start taking us to since that's where some of her family was already going. Little did I know that a very few months after starting there, I would give my life to Jesus forever! I couldn't wait to tell my grandma what I had done. We went to her house right after my baptism that night and I told her. She didn't seem surprised one bit. This amazed me. There was a great deal of faith in that woman. She somehow knew God would save me. She died that same summer. God's timing is so incredibly perfect. At this new church there was a man named David Lewis at this church who was referred to as the preacher. I had been use to the name "pastor so and so". People at this new church just called him David. That made him seem like more of a friend than someone who you feared would see you mess up or something. Very quickly I decided that this man (David) was different than any man I had ever come in contact with. And quite a man he was! He was the most Jesus I had ever seen in a person throughout my entire life. He always smiled....always. He always had time to listen to everyone. It didn't matter who you were or how bad you stunk or what you looked like. He had a way of getting you to figure out the answer to your own questions about a problem you were having. He was well known for answering a question with a question....hahaha. When you would go away from talking with David, you would feel so much better. He never hounded anyone to become a Christian .....not exactly. He just invited you to go "fishing". Everyone knew that when you went fishing with David that you came back changed and ready to give your life to Jesus. Some people always refused David's invitation to go fishing because they were scared of becoming a Christian. They had heard and seen what happened to people who went on those trips.....hahaha. These same people, to this day, regret turning down David's invitation. You see, David was killed in a car accident by a drunk driver on Christmas Eve one year. He was ripped from our congregation but he left an impression that will never go away....because he left Jesus with us! It turns out that it wasn't David we all adored so much. It was the Lord. The man was gone but the Lord remained. Not only that, but the invitation to come as you are is still open. It's alot like a fishing trip with David. God is fishing and he's hoping to catch YOU. He loves us so much! Too much to let us continue swimming around without Him. God doesn't care what you smell like. He doesn't care how much money you have. He wants to hold conversations with you, be the dad you never had and be your best friend. How could I not believe?