A chance to get to know the REAL person behind the camera!

I said the prayer of salvation when I was in kindergarten.  I said it several times actually…I can remember doing it several times as I was running out to play “just to make sure”.  You know the prayer basically “come into my heart”.   I knew even way back then I wanted to go to heaven and not hell so I prayed the prayer.  I was in Christian schools up until my senior year. 

The chunky chick on the far right would be me. This was on Thanksgiving I was a pilgrim :)

I grew up as a very trying child…full of pride and pretty disrespectful.  I started having “relations” at a very young age (keeping it PG J ) and started smoking at 15.  By my senior year in high school I was getting drunk on a regular basis, dabbling in drugs, and cursed like a sailor. 

That's me right smack-dab in the middle.



By 19 I was pregnant and out of wedlock….all this while still claiming to be a Christian.  If you were to look at my life next to a “non-believer’s” life and I didn’t tell you I was a Christian…you would never know…I never bore any “fruits of the Spirit”.  My life pretty much looked like this for years.  Yes, I would go to church sporadically …sometimes every Sunday for a couple of months and then sometimes I would skip several weeks.  Yes I would read my Bible…sometimes Books at a time…sometimes months would go by without a single verse.  Yes I would pray.....sometimes several times a day…but sometimes I would go weeks without speaking a word to Him.  I often wondered if Jesus were to come back right now….would I be named among the righteous?  Something just didn’t feel right…I would think how can I live like this knowing it’s wrong and still go to heaven.  My friends would tell me…you’re saved you BELIEVE in Jesus Christ and asked for forgiveness of sins and He lives in your heart…but it didn’t add up. 


I got remarried in February of 2006 and on Easter of 2006 I visited my parents church, and decided to “rededicate” my life to God…now keep in mind I had done this a dozen times before over the years…but this time was the only time I said “not my will Father, but Yours”.  I told God I had been doing things my way my whole life and I wanted to do His Will now…after all my way hadn’t worked up until that point.  Although my heart changed and I was sincere I didn’t completely change overnight.  I got baptized on Mother’s Day that same year and we started looking for a church to call “home”.  We tried several in the area and didn’t feel lead to continue in any of them.  I began to pray for a church that God wanted me to be in and for friends that were Christians …since I had moved I hadn’t made new friends.  In December of 2006 a new family moved into our Condo’s.  Makala (my daughter) started playing with the new family’s kids and she told me their dad was a pastor.  I wasn’t interested in getting to know them because as horrible as this sounds I thought a pastor and his wife sounded like boring people (keep in mind I was new at this God’s will thing). 

That's me (Brooke) on the right...the preacher's wife (now one of my closest friends) is in the middle, and my other bff is on the left...another God-send.

Anyway, I ended up meeting the wife a month or so later and felt at home with her immediately (maybe because looking at her is like looking in a mirror...take a look at that pic again...don't we look like sisters???), they invited us to church and after a few weeks of talking about it we finally decided to give it a try (This was in early February 2007).   We began to attend to attend the church regularly and I began to make daily Bible reading a part of my life…and this is when I began to grow in my faith rapidly and the “fruits of the  Spirit” began to be apparent to more than just my family….I became a whole new creature in Christ.  I'm gonna stop here and leave the "rest of the story" for another blog, another day.

Sooo...what's your testimony?  If you died today are you 100% positive you would go to heaven?  Think you're not going to die today?  Well, ya never know...150,000 people die every 24 hours...we aren't guaranteed another second on this earth.  2 Corinthians 13:5 tells us to "Examine ourselves to make sure we are in the faith" (this statement was written to the actual church members)...make sure that you are a TRUE convert.  You can go to http://www.needgod.com/ and take a quick quiz or if you have a few minutes listen to this:

This is part 1 of 5 of True and False Conversion...the 2 of 5 through 5 of 5 are also on Youtube if you're interested.

                                                      

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this.  I urge you open your Bible and see what God's Word has in store for you today...AND go to church this weekend...if you don't have a church you call home come to The Freedom Church with us!!!  We now have 3 LOCATIONS!!!  Denham Springs, Frost, and Springfield.  To see if you may be interested go to http://www.thefreedomchurch.com/. Have a great weekend!!!!