As I mentioned last week, from a theological perspective, I’ve come to see that saving faith is more than intellectual assent. That’s why when talking about my testimony, in addition to the “change in belief” experiences, I place considerable weight on a three-month series of events that occurred during my fifteenth year.

I was working in a bus ministry that our church provid­ed to underprivileged families.  Through this venture, I became acquainted with a very attractive Puerto Rican girl who was twenty and the mother of a five-year old. (She looked a lot like Paz Vega’s character in the Adam Sandler’s movie, Spanglish.) New to the country and while visiting her older sister, she had a severe asthma attack and ended up in the hospital. Knowing she couldn’t speak English well and was probably scared, I thought I’d befriend her. But my motives were mixed: she was also very pretty and I liked her. In fact, on my second trip to the hospital, I communicated my affection by giving her a necklace. We began to write each other notes. Unfortunately, I couldn’t understand hers because they were in Spanish. And, although my dad spoke the language fluently and had a Spanish dictionary that I secretly consulted, I couldn’t interpret them. I hid them in my wallet.

It was summer, school was out, and she finally came home from the hospital. Once she did, I would ride my bike twenty miles round trip once or twice a week to sit and have coffee with her and her sister.  Being bi-lingual, her sister helped us communicate. One day when I came to visit, the older sister arranged to leave with the three children (the older sister had two of her own). Once alone, the younger sister took me into the living room, sat me down, and began to kiss me, unbuttoning my shirt. Although I don’t wish to pin all the harshness of this “bad-news-woman” stereotype on her personally, it was the kind of scenario Proverbs warns young men about:

For the lips of an immoral woman are as sweet as honey, and her mouth is smoother than oil. But in the end she is as bitter as poison, as dangerous as a double-edged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps lead straight to the grave. For she cares nothing about the path to life. She staggers down a crooked trail and doesn’t realize it. (Prov. 5:3-6, NLT)

Remarkably, although I’d laid awake several nights fantasizing about something like this happening, when things got real, I was afraid and left before anything happened.

Scared, yet excited and flattered by the attention, however, I visited her again… just to have coffee. I was playing with fire.

And then “mysterious” things began to take place. One day, on my way to her house, my bike tire went flat. I fixed it and the next day it went flat again.  In fact, this happened three times in a row! It seemed there was an unseen hand prohibiting me from making some very bad choices.  Internally the warning light had begun to blink and I felt the pull of two different forces: my sinful desires and the goodness of God.  This intense struggle began to surface in severe stomach cramps.

One night my father picked me up from work (I had a job at Jamesway Department Stores building bikes) and said, “We need to talk.” I asked him what was wrong and he said, “Your mom was doing the laundry and found your wallet in your pants pocket.” I learned she had also found the notes, shown them to my dad and he, after reading them, quickly discerned that I was in way over my head. When I got home, with much apprehension, I unloaded the whole story.  I felt embarrassed but relieved.  Knowing what I know now, I give my parents an “A” for how they handled things. They showed great understanding, kindness to all involved, and took appropriate measures to end any contact between us.

That night, as I lay in bed, I poured my heart out to God in grateful appreciation.  His grace had saved me from a very dangerous predicament that could have altered the course of my life.  I recalled a verse I had memorized as a child in Christian school:

“Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kind­ness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance (Rom. 2:4)?”

God’s kindness had led me to repentance and I would not show contempt.  I’ve thanked God many times since for what He kept me from during this very vulnerable time in my life.

I mentioned last week that, in my own healing and detox from shame-based concepts of God and religion, I no longer use a church-sanctioned horror film as the Christian cherry on top of my “coming to faith” story. Despite the church, God broke into my world at fifteen as described above. That’s when my relationship with God became real and intimate.  It’s also when I began to hunger for God and the Bible.  As I con­tinued to grow, I became known among adults and peers alike as one who was serious about my faith.  By God’s grace, although I’ve had and continue to have plenty of struggles with sin, my life has largely been “a long obedience in the same direction.”  I close with a poem I wrote during high school that gives a glimpse into my early and maturing faith:

I pray, Oh God, today I’ll be

A chosen vessel fit for thee;

That all I do will be thy will

With love for souls my heart You’ll fill

Help me to fight sin day by day

To make my goal to stay away

From Satan and his pleasures strong

And fight the things I know are wrong

Please God, forgive me when I fall

And though my sins be great or small

I know you view them as the same

With thanks I pray in Jesus name

Amen.

For those interested, other than the Bible, these are the books that have helped the most in my recovery, and in solidifying of my faith:

• Mere Christianity and A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis
• Released from Shame by Sandra Wilson
• Why I Believe in a Personal God by George Carey
• The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind by Mark Noll
• The Unknown God by Alister McGrath
• The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith by Tim Keller