So maybe before I start sharing my intimate walk with Christ and how I see Him playing a crucial role in my life, I should give you some of my background. Sounds fair...
I am a born-again Christian. I used to not understand what that meant; I can understand if you don't know what I mean. Here's how Jesus describes it:
Jesus Teaches Nicodemus
John 3:5-8
5 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
My Path to Being Born...Again
I grew up in a Catholic home (which means I was baptized at an early age) and learned about Jesus Christ through the Catholic church; so I have spent most of my life as a believer to some capacity - and probably different capacities at different points of my life. I knew some key elements of the bible – I retained bits and pieces as I went through my sacraments and lived my life as I became a young adult – but I don’t know that any of it truly resonated. A lot felt like “should do’s” or "it was time to do's" - that I was willing to do - but not truly passionate about; I just had never fully embraced nor understood how impactful my salvation is.
Over my recent adult life, I feel I have woken up and I truly understand how to live my life as a Christian; I know how to put the Lord first – and that is something I am now passionate about. I am in awe and I feel so incredibly blessed that the Holy Spirit has opened my heart and my eyes to what following Jesus Christ and committing to living my life for Him truly looks like. I chose to be baptized...rather, I was born again at the age of 33.
The Lord has led me to where I am today. I was raised the way I was raised for a reason. I piqued interest in pursuing the Lord at the perfect time to come into a community and fellowship with other Christians, which was exactly what I needed to let God's grace seep deep into my heart.
I feel on mission to be more myself IN Christ and in a pursuit for a deeper relationship with the Lord. It all sounds so mushy, but it's overwhelming and so true.
The true fulfillment I find in my faith is unlike any other attempt to grasp at fulfillment in anything on this earth.
It brings so much peace (and it's not to write off earthly relationships, things, experiences...I find gratefulness for all of this, but I don't worship these things and rely on them to bring me fulfillment as I did in the past). I have just never appreciated how God has given us his Word and shown us how much he loves us through Scripture and Jesus, and I have had a complete perspective shift in diving into it with sound theology. God is so incredible.