Anyway, I’m so glad 2009 is gone, and I have faith that 2010 will be a year of great blessing and promise. So Happy New Year everyone and God bless!

My mom and I accepted Jesus as our personal savior at a large evangelistic crusade when I was 11, back in 1983. That crusade was like nothing either my mom or I had ever seen before. It ran Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday afternoon. Mom and I went on Sat. and Sun. People were clapping and swaying to very lively music, raising their hands in the air, shouting, crying, some even spoke in tongues (now that was the strangest thing of all). There was a full band on the platform with singers. It was called praise and worship. After the praise and worship everyone was told to greet each other and total strangers would turn around and give us bear hugs while more music was being played. Then we’d sit down, an offering was taken and there was another song or two with a solo vocalist. By this time at least an hour had passed. Then there came the preaching, which was powerful, often loud, and lasted for about another hour. That was followed by an altar call for people to come forward and accept Jesus as their Savior. Afterwards in the Sunday service there was a call for those who were already saved to come forward and receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit (with the evidence of speaking in other tongues).

When I entered 7th grade (junior high) and turned 12, I “backslid”. I wanted so much to be liked by everyone and have friends that I even said to my peers “No, I’m not a Christian!” However, I never really fit in with my classmates anyway because many of them (girls in particular) were already established in a clique and being “cool” by wearing certain brand names and styles and listening to rock music if you were white (or Michael Jackson and Prince if you were black) was essential to acceptance by one’s peers. My parents didn’t have much money – my dad was on disability and my mom got injured on the job and subsequently lost her job when I was in 6th grade. I wore thrift store and Kmart clothes, not Jordache, Calvin Klein, Members Only and Nike. My teeth were crooked and my parents could not afford braces for me. My mom was very strict and old-fashioned and didn’t let me go hang out at the mall or at other kids’ houses. Both years of junior high were emotionally painful for me, but 7th grade was perhaps the worst year of my life. I was made fun of and called names almost daily. I ate lunch alone most of the time.

While I was in 7th grade my mom and I started going to a local Assemblies of God (Pentecostal) church. From the time I started seeking acceptance by my peers in 7th grade the guilt settled in because I wasn’t abiding in Christ. The truth is, I came forward to accept Jesus mostly because the “fear of God” was preached into me, i.e. I was afraid either the Rapture would occur and I’d be left behind, or I’d die in an accident and end up in Hell. Afterwards, when I started hearing the Gospel message regularly on TV and in church, I had trouble sleeping at night because I was still afraid the Rapture was going to occur and I’d miss it. Probably a lot of people, particularly in those days, accepted Christ for that reason, neither having counted the cost, nor understood what repentance truly is, nor come to know the depth of Jesus’ love for all of us (and can we ever fully grasp it this side of Heaven?) That evangelistic crusade was actually the FIRST TIME EVER I had heard the Gospel. I had only been to church a handful of times in my life, and that message was not preached in any service I had ever attended before. I actually count the beginning of my Christian walk starting at age 13. That’s when I really dedicated my life to the Lord. But I’ll get to that in my next post.

So where was my dad in all this? He wasn’t interested. He grew up in the 1930s and 1940s going to an old-time Pentecostal Holiness church and had enough. That was back in the days of big hair buns, no makeup, long sleeves and dresses, etc. He couldn’t help but hear when my mom had televangelists like Jimmy Swaggart on TV in the house, but he wouldn’t go to church with mom and me. My dad *did* go with us Saturday to the crusade, and he spent much of the time outside the auditorium in the lobby of the coliseum smoking cigarettes. He said when we got out that night that the whole place was rocking and swaying to the music, LOL.

(stay tuned for part 2)