My Life Story (List) #2

I was born and raised in a non-Christian family, the fourth of five children. However, my parents sent their children to Christian primary schools because they wanted us to get a good basic education (at that time, which means Christian school).

While in Christian elementary school, I attended Christian religious lessons/class and of course also Christian worship and celebrations such as Sunday school, Easter celebrations, Christmas and so on. All my teachers and most of my schoolmates are Christians. I really enjoyed Christianity in my elementary school days.

When I graduated from elementary school, I asked my father for permission to still adhere to Christianity while continuing to attend a public junior high school later. At that time, I felt it would be difficult if I had to learn Arabic or read the Koran and pray that way. Of course, I didn’t tell my parents those reasons openly. Unexpectedly, my parents allowed and even supported me by encouraging me to attend Sunday school at the church near our house and bought a Bible for me. It seemed they wanted me to be a good girl, responsible for my choices and requests. Long story short, it was through Sunday school at the church that a few years later I repented, believed, and accepted Christ as my personal Lord and Savior.

Shortly after my conversion, while continuing to a public high school, I joined a Bible study group organized by the student ministry at the school. I was helped to grow in Christ by having a personal relationship with God through prayer, quiet time, and Bible study and so on. It is becoming clearer and clearer who Christ is according to the Bible and in my life. Truly my heart and mind were filled with such great joy and peace.

At the same time, there was a great feeling of sadness knowing that my family, especially my parents, who I thought were very good, loved me very much, even allowed me to become a Christian and were willing to attend the church building when I was baptized, actually being under God’s punishment because they had not believe in Christ. At that time almost every night I cried and as if arguing, bargaining with God about it. Until one day I got tired and gave up, surrendered, entrusting everything to God. That He and His words are “yes and amen”, unfathomable far beyond all my feelings and thoughts. My part is just to believe.

Aside from that sadness, the struggle that I experienced was the realization that when I was at home the words of God that I learned I couldn’t seem to be shared directly in words. My words may not make sense to them because I am a teenager, still young at home, so it is not appropriate for me to teach them or advise them. This made me feel guilty at first. At that time God helped me with understanding that my daily life is an open word that my family can read anytime at home. These truths really encouraged me to apply what I learned in the Bible to my daily life. Instead of me being busy looking for words to testify to them, I’d better focus on how to make these words a behavior or way of life in practical daily life, that they can see and read.

Read also: My Life Story (List) #1