What’s Your Story?

Okay so I told y’all about Jamie Kimmett the other day. I fell in love with his song “Prize Worth Fighting For.” Well I decided to go on iTunes and look through his music. I found his EP and decided to purchase it because his other songs were equally as good. 🙂 (Seriously, go check his music out!)

But what really captured me was his story of how he came to know the Lord. I encourage you to check it out! https://www.jamiekimmett.com/full-bio

I love learning how someone comes to know the Lord.

I know I’ve shared my story before but here’s how I came to know the Lord….

I have been in church since I was 4 years old. I went to a Christian school up until 4th grade. I’ve heard about Christ nearly my whole life. I even participated in Bible Sword Drill and (not trying to boast here) made it to our Nationals. I had all the head knowledge of Christ, I could recite Bible verses at the drop of a hat.

I was saved, was I not? I was a Christian, right? That’s what I told myself.

Then the darkness came. I fell into a deep depression during my senior year of high school and I hated life. Gone were the days of reading my Bible and praying to God. I just didn’t care anymore.

Then it came time for me to go to college. I attended a local community college my first year and then after much prodding from my mother, I enrolled at the Free Will Baptist Bible College (now known as Welch College). I told her I would give it a try.

During spring break in 2003, I came home for a week and at church that Sunday, we had an evangelist come and speak and he said this one thing that turned my whole world around. He said this one thing that made me immediately realize I wasn’t a Christian like I’d been pretending to be. He said this:

You can be 99% sure of your salvation but your still 100% lost.

It clicked with me! I’d been leading a life full of hypocrisy. I wasn’t saved. I never had been. And just like that I headed to the altar, tears streaming down my face. I gave my life to Christ on March 16, 2003. I went back to school a new person. The weight was off my shoulders. The weight I didn’t really realize I was carrying. I was FREE!

Now of course that doesn’t mean life got suddenly easy. Satan tries his very best to bring me down and on some occasions he almost has. But with Christ on my side, I’ve been able to pull myself back up every time.

In 2008, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I should have seen it coming. I had all the symptoms back in high school but was only diagnosed with depression.

It’s been a struggle…having a mental illness and trying to live a Christ-like life. Satan knows my weaknesses and does everything He can think of to twist my mental illness in order to lead me astray from the Lord.

But I believe God will use my bipolar disorder for good. It says in Romans 8:28:

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

So how about y’all? What are YOUR coming to Christ stories?