I've heard people laugh at speeches that begin with "Webster's Dictionary defines..." I have also heard one the best blog writers, who happens to be one of the top ten people I admire most, my dad, begin a speech that way, So, while this is not a speech...
The online Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines Sanctification as: "the state of growing in divine grace as a result of Christian commitment after baptism or conversion," and Grace: " unmerited divine assistance given humans for their regeneration or sanctification." We will come back to this later, there may even be a test on it...
I grew up in a Christian home. We went to "non-denominational" churches while I was growing up. My father attended Moody Bible Institute before he married my mother, and when I was six we moved to Wyoming so he could continue his education at Frontier School of the Bible with the goal of becoming a pastor. I attended church at least 2 times a week from the time of my infancy until I was 18.
I was 4 when I started asking questions about heaven and hell, Jesus and sin. I can actually remember the car ride home from church one Sunday. My mother wasn't there, she was on pregnancy bed-rest, I remember sitting in the front seat asking my dad how I could go to heaven when I died. The conversation continued when we got home, it ended with me praying and "asking Jesus in my heart." I don't know all the details, I do know that I believed that Jesus died to forgive me of all the wrong things I had done, I knew that I was a sinner, in fact I had stolen a graham cracker just the week before....sorry you had to find out like this mom... I also know that I believed that Jesus is the only way to get to heaven and that He loves me, and I believed that I was saved. I also remember my dad telling other people that he believed that I was a Christian based on what I understood.
I really meant this whole Christian thing. I loved Jesus, and I wanted to obey Him because He loved me. When my brother was born I remember hearing my mother saying something about how she couldn't believe such a sweet little baby could be a sinner. I was shocked, I rolled his walker in my room and I asked him if He wanted Jesus in his heart and got him to shake his little head yes. Thankfully my mother came in and heard me praying the prayer for my non-verbal little brother and figured out that my little 5 year old mind just did not understand that babies would go to heaven because they don't know any better and can't understand what sin is.
After we moved to Wyoming and my Father finished his schooling we moved to another town in Wyoming and I attended a Private Christian School in 3rd, 4th, and most of 5th grade. We learned everything you would in a public school, although I will say the standards were much higher than public school, and we also learned the Bible, said the pledge to the American flag, the Christian flag, and to the Bible. My teachers lived their faith out before our eyes. It was this that inspired me to study God's Word for myself. I didn't do a very faithful job of it, but it was a start.
When my Grandfather died in January of 1992 we moved back to our hometown in Indiana to be closer to my grandmother. I went back to public school. I was never a leader, I always seemed to follow others never wanting to stand out anymore than I already did, I had huge glasses, crooked teeth, and I was a head taller than the rest of my school mates. Going back to public school away from the influence of a Bible School community, was a very difficult adjustment. The first week at my new school there was a group of kids who were nice enough to include me because I had a popular cousin in our grade, we were on the play ground and they were off in the back playing 'light as a feather, stiff as a board.' Something just did not feel right about this to me. I remembered one of the teachers at my old school talking about the "satanic games" she use to play, and this smelled strongly suspicious to me, so for the first, and sadly one of the last times in my life, I walked away. I walked away from a chance to be popular, I walked away from a chance to be "cool" and I made friends with kids that were a little less popular. Their influence wasn't the greatest either, for example I started saying "oh my god," not realizing that I was blaspheming, and I started saying "that sucks" not realizing what "sucks" really meant. I still refused to listen to any music that wasn't about God. In those days Amy Grant had just started doing secular music, and I was so upset because my favorite song was "El Shaddai." I tried to hold on to the things I held dear, but I felt so different, and being different at the age of 11 is a very hard thing for a girl who just wanted to fit in.
The fall of my 6th grade year saw us move yet again, this time only about 2 minutes away, but it was a whole new school district, and once again I did not fit in anywhere. I was so alone, and I think that at this time my Bible study and prayer life started to drop off. Funny how the One who could keep me from feeling lonely was the One I started pushing away.
Middle school was worse, I don't think it is easy on anyone, but I was still taller than anyone else, my glasses were still huge, my teeth were still crocked, but I was developing faster than all the other girls. I was made fun of mercilessly, I was able to make friends with a few other girls, but for the most part I was that different girl who was all religious and backwards. By the end of 8th grade I had had it with being so different, there was nothing I could do about the glasses or my teeth, but I could stop being the goody two shoes everyone made fun of me for being, and I started cursing and listening to the music everyone else did.
That may not be such a shocker, but when Suzanne does something she usually goes all out, and this was the beginning of my Prodigal thoughts and behaviors. I had started on a promising journey of grace and progressive sanctification only to end up taking the fork in the road that lead me down a long path of self destructive behavior. And, I'm out of time for now.
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