I began reading a book that my Pastor recommended called �Hearing God�. That book really shook me; the more I read about how this man heard God talk to him, and call him by name, the worse I felt. God never used my first name when I felt His leading me. God never spoke to me and said �Fixergirl, I think you should��, Fixergirl, I want you to���. I began to say to myself, my cousin and my preacher friend had their doubts, maybe I�m not saved either. Then the arguments began in my head. Over and over again. It didn�t help that I still read my Bible every day since it just caused more questions to come up. �Are you or aren�t you? How can you be sure? What have you ever done to deserve to be saved? When do you think you were saved, huh, you can�t even remember the date, maybe you are still lost? If you were really saved then you wouldn�t sin. If you were a better Christian you would be handing out gospel tracts to everyone you ever meet. You would feel this great burden to win souls.� So I called my sister and told her that I didn�t think I was a very good Christian. If I were a better Christian, then I wouldn�t be fat�I wouldn�t smoke�people would love me more�X wouldn�t have rejected me�preaching would mean more to me personally�I can�t even remember what the date is when I was saved�I have no big, elaborate conversion story to share�I would give away all of my belongings to others�I wouldn�t be addicted to caffeine�I�I�I�� Sounds sad doesn�t it?
I thought that God would love me more if I denied myself everything I liked. Every sermon my Pastor preached after that seemed to be directed at me personally. I went so far as to call the church I attended when I was a child to find out when I was baptized, as if knowing that much would make everything better. The date was recorded with a check mark indicating that I�d been baptized. I was ten years and ten months old. How could someone that young really know what they were doing? Could I live in hope of eternal life if what I did then wasn�t real? What did I feel when I accepted Jesus as my Saviour? For the life of me, my mind went totally, and utterly blank.
Then on a Wednesday night at church, I was sitting in my pew, relaxed and listening to my Pastor�s message. He read John 6:37 �All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.� I heard a voice in my head say, �He�ll cast you out you�ve never been saved.� A cold chill went down my spine and I trembled. Where did that come from? Did it say �IF�? I said to the voice, �No, He won�t, I�m saved.� I sat through the rest of the service with an uneasy feeling. I couldn�t let it go, it was too important to me. I had to make sure. How could I do that? Why would I think that I wasn�t saved? Whose voice was that? I remember not being able to go to church the following Sunday, because I was scared of what the voice would say next. I was afraid I would infect everyone around me or they would see what bad spiritual shape I was in. I hid in my room most of the time. The next Wednesday night I went to prayer meeting but I was very tense. The second Sunday after hearing the voice in my head, we observed the Lord�s Supper after the evening service and I became very flushed and agitated thinking that I didn�t have the right to participate. The voice kept pounding in my head, �You don�t deserve to go to church, you don�t belong here with these Christians, and you don�t love Jesus enough for Him to save you, what have you ever done that makes you worthy?�
The next week, I came home from work one day and told Mom that I thought I was losing my mind. I couldn�t talk I was crying so hard. I told her everything that I had been feeling and thinking. She was stunned. She told me to go into a room alone and pray until I settled it with God. �Why should God hear my prayers if I�m not saved?�, I asked her. I wept and prayed for the longest time, and after a while, I heard three words in my head. �Accept, Believe, Stand�. Accept what? �That you are saved.� Believe what? �That only I can save you.� Stand on what? �On my promise to never leave you nor forsake you.� Still I questioned the source of the voice. Once the doubts began they were always there.....