My dad and his side of the family are all Christians so I was basically brought up in a Christian background. I was never forced into going to church although I used to go most Sundays and my parent’s let me make up my own mind about going out to pubs and clubs. (Which I regret to say I did for a few years).
I’ve never had a problem with God or Christianity and I’ve always had a group of Christian friends who I would go to Exodus with. You could say that I was living a bit of a split life, what with going out to get drunk as well as being involved with many church-related activities.
It wasn’t until I didn’t get back into school after completing my GCSE’s that I started to hang out with my Christian friends more often and God made me realise how extremely shallow my school friends really were as they only seemed to like me when they wanted something.
As for the clubbing and drinking, after waking up on New years morning with a splitting headache and a really bad hangover, I knew that things really had to change, I wasn’t enjoying myself and I didn’t see any reason in continuing with this pointless way of living. Of course my “so-called friends” couldn’t understand my change in opinion and they gradually started to drift away from me.
I then became a leader at a Christian-run Youth Club in Portrush at the beginning of the year. Through this I was introduced to “Which Way”, (a bible study for non-Christians which was run through Exodus) where I learnt loads about God and the bible as well as meeting a lot of really nice people.
On the night of Wed 28th Feb 2002, I was at youth club and I met a man called Colin Glass who my parents knew. He gave my sisters and me a lift home and was asking me about where I stood with God, I told him that I wasn’t saved but I was considering it. He shared his testimony with me saying that 3 weeks before he gave his life to Christ he hadn’t even heard of God and that I had no excuse not to be a Christian considering my background. What he said really hit home in a big way. The minute I went home, I ran upstairs and cried my eyes out. I knew Colin was right, I had no excuse if I ended up not being ready at the judgement day. I knew that I needed a saviour to save me from all the wrong things that I had done the things that made God very unhappy. I prayed and asked God to forgive me of all this sin that I committed. I asked him to come into my life and make me a new creation in him. After this I felt a huge sense of relief, I knew that God had saved me and that I was now a Christian.
“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Romans 10v13
My old friends gave me absolutely no support whatsoever and laughed at me when I told them the wonderful news and tried to convince them of God’s amazing love for the world. However through prayer God helped me to get over it and make new friends who I can really trust, people who genuinely care about me.
“If you believe, you will receive all that you asked for in prayer.” Matthew 21v22
Since my conversion, I have lead all of my younger sisters to Christ and tried to encourage them in their faith. My relationship with my parents has massively improved and I have got to know loads of people through joining the hosting team at Exodus. Last year, an awesome girl Hannah mentored me and that really helped me so much in my faith.
During the summer of last year, a number of things happened in my personal life, which caused me to doubt God and blame him for all this stuff that was happening to me. I backslid and no longer spent time with him. I wouldn’t go to church for a while either which my parents just put down to the fact that I had to work every Sunday. Soon Hannah worked out what was going on and we met up and chatted and prayed over the situation. A lot of it I think is to do with my feelings of rejection and low self-esteem which I am still dealing with and giving to God praying that he will continue to use these feelings so that I can to impact other people in a similar situation.
During the summer I was on an Exodus Team to Russia and it was amazing. There were many times while away, I really wanted to go home but it was a real stretching and learning time in my relationship with God. While away our team came across many times when we really needed to trust in Jesus and even through it was hard at the time, God showed he was faithful and carried us through.
I have now been given the responsibility of being president of the Christian union in Tech and that scares me a lot but I know that God is right beside me through it all holding my hand and guiding me. So far, the responsibility has helped me to gain more confidence especially when talking to a group of people. Before I was a saved, I would have needed a lot of alcohol in my system before I even thought about approaching a group of people and chatting to them but now I know that Gods grace is all that I need to get me through.
It has been really amazing looking back over my life and looking at the massive difference that God has made and many people who knew me before have told me how much that I have changed. It is also really amazing to look back at how far I’ve come in my faith in the short time that I’ve known the Lord.
I’m just going to leave you with one of my favourite verses:
“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Philippians 4v13
I think that we should remember that no matter what we are going through and whatever tasks we have ahead of us, whether it is going on a team to serve God or something more minor as doing some homework or a job interview. God is going to be with us throughout and he will strengthen us to get through it.
Thanks God, I love you!!!
ps, my prayer is that through reading my story that somebody elses life will be changed for eternity. God bless you all. Shaz <>< xxx
