FAKE

I grew up in Christian schools from 6 weeks old all the way through high school graduation. My parents didn’t go to church but would always take us if we wanted to go. Usually they would drop us off and either someone would bring us home or they would come back and pick us up. I always knew about God and Jesus. As long as I can remember I knew about salvation and going to heaven. What I didn’t realize until I was older was that knowing about God and Jesus is not the same as knowing God and knowing Jesus. Knowing about salvation is not the same as being saved and knowing about heaven is not the same as the assurance that I will be there someday.


When I was in 11th grade, I was on the praise and worship team at the school that I was attending. Not only was I singing, but many days I was leading worship. Most of the time it didn’t bother me, but all of the sudden one day I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stand up in front of my peers and lead them into worship. I wasn’t sure why, but something in my heart wasn’t right. I asked to be benched until I could work through this and I was. I finally realized that I was fake. I was leading people into the presence of God daily, but I wasn’t really getting there myself. My whole faith walk, wasn’t a walk at all, it was a mirror image of what I grew up around. That is when I really figured out about having a personal relationship with God. It changed my life forever.

To this day my life is not perfect and neither am I. Even after truly coming to Christ, I made mistakes and I did things that I wish I could take back, but through it all I believe that I have learned from those and have grown closer to God each time I stumble. I know that until the day that I die or Jesus comes back, I will continue to stumble but God’s grace will continue to be there to pick me up and dust me off. And my greatest hope is that as my son grows up, that he will see God at work in my life and that he will desire the same type of relationship with God. I don’t want him to be in the place where I was thinking he was ok with God; I want him to know without a shadow of a doubt where he is in that relationship. By the grace of God, I and his father will be able to guide him down the right path and raise him to desire what is good and right.

---Brenda (age 24)