A day that my life was forever changed...

This past Thursday was a big day for me, it was the 8 year anniversary of when I committed my life to Jesus. November 4, 2002, I was a junior at high school. It was a Monday night at FCA. I remember knowing I believed in God and that Jesus died for my sins, but I never accepted that to the point of complete surrender. For some reason, that night, the Lord laid it on my heart to ask. I went up to Mr. B (our FCA leader) and asking him, "How do I know that I have accepted Jesus into my heart?" At that point, I was almost in tears, but tried my hardest to hold them back. I was doing great, until a friend walked by and said, "What's wrong?" Within seconds, I was crying and turning as red as a tomatoe. Mr. B pulled me aside, and said, "Kim, it's happening right now. The angels in Heaven are dancing and singing for joy." He asked my best friend, Kristin Trayser (now Stockfisch) to come by us so that they could pray for me. That night was so surreal. I felt like I was on top of the world.

Since then, my walk has gone through the valley and climbed to peaks. God is faithful. I have seen him move in my life in ways that I can honestly say, only He could have orchestrated. He knows me better than I know myself, and has a better plan than I ever could have created. Right now, I feel like God is teaching me more on grace and trusting Him. I was reading "Transforming Grace" and it talked about our spiritual life being bankrupt (without Jesus) the same way that a personal can be financially bankrupt. We need Jesus. He says in the bible, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to my Father except through me" The author compares the time in our life when we surrender our lives to the Lord and ask Jesus into our hearts to Chapter 7 bankrupcy. We realize we can never save ourselves, and we need Jesus to do it. Then we live our lives like we filed Chapter 11. We live in way that we need help, but we will fight to the end to save ourselves.

My prayer is that God continues to change my heart and draw me near him. I desperately want to learn more about his grace, and how to live in such a way that He is glorified and His grace is evident.

It was such a sweet day, I enjoyed some great time with God... partly reading and then simply just thinking about Him and how good He is. I listened to worship music and just sat. I loved it.

To top it off, even though Jon was out of town, he remembered. About 9am, Thursday morning, flowers arrived at our apartment.



Thank you Jon for remembering. Thank you for loving me in a tangible way, even though you were a thousand miles away.