How I became a Christian

I remember when I was about 10 years old, I was so depressed that I wanted to die. I stopped speaking much, I grew my bangs out to cover my eyes, and I felt like walking garbage. I used to ask God to please just take me home. I had moments of deep despair, and often I would feel God there with me. He didn't lift me out of my depths, but He wrapped invisible arms around me and said "Sarah, I know you better than you know yourself, and I love you. And no one else matters." (see psalms 139) 1

I also recall seeing a baptist choir sing on tv when I was about 12. They were so happy and excited about God! I told my mom, when I grow up, I am going to be a baptist.
She told me, you don't want that honey, they don't have the fullness of the gospel and we do. But I was pretty sure they knew something I didn't, and I wanted a relationship with God like the one they seemed to be having. 2

Until I was a teenager, I never really questioned the beliefs that were taught to me from all directions. My parents were Mormon, all my friends and relatives were Mormon, and everybody was so sure it was true! So I was sure it was true too.3

But there was a fatal flaw in this belief, as I got older I became more and more disillusioned with God. The pile of things I needed to do and not do, think and not think, grew larger and larger and I felt more and more unable to rise to the task. If God demanded perfection from me, I would most assuredly fail. So I decided that since I could never be good enough for God, I might as well accept my fate and do things my way.4

I felt a heavy sadness because I wanted to know God, but when I tried to go to church all I got was feelings of guilt and inferiority. I had lost the God I knew as a child.5

Then came the unraveling. Seeing that I was lost was a significant part of the being found. When I was 25, I told my husband of 7 years to pack his stuff and get out.
It had finally become obvious to me after two years of mental limbo that he was hurting me and hurting the kids with his entitled and abusive behavior and he wasn't going to change.6

It was painful, and it was scary. I didn't know who I was anymore if I wasn't his wife! An identity crisis was unfolding, was I strong enough to do this alone? I wasn't sure, but whether I was or I wasn't, I had to do it.7

It took some time to adjust to this new life, but I was surprised and delighted to find that I was much happier this way. Staying busy kept the ghosts at bay, and I didn't have to fight all the time anymore. But I still felt a big emptiness. And the question I avoided loomed heavy around me. Who am I? When I thought about it I felt like I was spinning down a deep dark hole with no bottom.8

Then I met a girl named Heidi at work. She was the first Christian I had ever had the chance to sit around and discuss religion with, and I always felt a stirring of interest and excitement when she talked about God. The God that I had known my whole life was always taking note of my failures, a God who was impossible to please. I knew that I was fallen and that I could never work my way into His love or His heaven, and so I had given up. But the God that Heidi spoke of knew my inner most thoughts, knew that I had nothing to give that was enough, and He loved me deeply and wanted me anyways. The thought made my eyes and my heart burn with a hope I hadn't felt in a very long time.She gave me a book called "The Bible, final infallible and forever" Wow, did that book make my head spin! While I was reading it, I kept getting this imagery in my head of a mummy coming unraveled, which is why I always call it coming unraveled. Everything I had been taught to believe in (in Mormonism) just kept coming undone and undone, and was there anything underneath all of this except more bandages to unravel? It felt very scary but it also felt very freeing. This book was explaining proof that everything I believed to be true was false, but at the same time it was also ministering to my need to find God because the book was written by a Christian pastor. Heidi invited me to church with her to hear a choir of traveling teenagers sing, and I couldn't wait to get there and see it. 9

When I saw the choir sing, a girl sang the song "The Real me" by Natalie Grant and tears streamed down my face. This was the God who had sat with me in the darkness, holding my hand when I had reached childhood lows so low I prayed to die because I felt unloved and unlovable.
This was the God who sat with me in my darkness and said "I know you inside and out, and I love you and nobody else matters."10

This was the God I had instinctively known as a child, that religion and becoming jaded by life took away from me. I was home.11

After that I felt a hunger awaken in me to go to Christian church. I looked forward to going all week long, I wanted to learn everything there was to know, I cried to and drew strength from Christian music whenever I was in my car, and I wanted to worship God through music any chance I could get. It's not as intense anymore, but I still feel a big hunger to listen to christian music, to learn about the bible, and to go to church and now I also have a hunger to serve.12

For me, it was the message of love that grabbed me. My whole life I have struggled with not ever feeling good enough, and not feeling lovable.13

But so many times, God has sat with me in my darkness and said to me "I know you Sarah, and I love you." (Psalms 139) How can I run from a love so complete and so beautiful? How can I do anything but love him back?