A Beautiful Love Story | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: A Beautiful Love Story | Previous Challenge Entry
By Sheila Adams
08/13/08
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Every child under the age of 10 had left the sanctuary and only we “big kids” were left. We listened with quiet anticipation as the pastor gave us the “ABC’s of Salvation”. We had always wondered when we were “little kids” what went as we left the sanctuary and began the Vacation Bible School experience. Now we knew, we were asked to stay and hear this wonderful news of the gospel. After the pastor finished he asked those who had more questions to stay. Those who didn’t have questions were escorted out to their appropriate classes. That was the first time I would “hide”. I hid behind the fact that I was good girl from a good family who was always in church. I wasn’t a sinner, what was all this fuss.

Over 10,000 teenage girls filled the stadium in Kansas City, Missouri including me at the age of thirteen with twenty-one of my closest girlfriends from our church. We were at a National Acteens Convention and we had heard music, testimonies and the gospel presented to us in the clearest, most awe-inspiring fashion. I listened intently, my heart beating so loudly I was sure they could hear it on stage as they gave the invitation for all who felt God calling them to come forward. That was the second time I would “hide”. Hide behind the fact that I was a teenager who did nothing wrong, read her Bible every night, and attended church every time the door was opened. It couldn’t be me that God was speaking to, He had the wrong person.

It was a cold, winter Sunday afternoon. The doorbell rang and standing there I found two of my favorite senior high girls. They were out witnessing door to door to prepare for a mission trip they were going on in the summer. My name was on their list to visit and I gladly let them in and we went to my room. Full of love and sincerity these two shared the gospel with me in a way that I was beginning to understand. Maybe I was a sinner, maybe I was the one to which God was trying to speak. It was then I quit hiding and began to “seek”. When they left I read the scriptures they had shared with me. I read them even though I had read them and heard them hundreds of times. This time I understood them. This time I wanted to do something but I wasn’t sure what to do.

The sanctuary was packed. The sermon had been powerful, but not near as powerful as the voice speaking directly to my heart. “I have sought you and you have hidden from me. I stand here seeking you once more, please stop hiding, this is your time. Please let me in your heart and life.” I could hear Jesus speaking these words as clearly as if He had been sitting right beside me. I will I thought to myself if the preacher will ever get finished. As soon as the invitation to accept Christ was given I jumped from my seat and ran to the preacher’s arms as fast as I could. But it was not the preacher’s arms that I was running to but rather the arms of Jesus; the One who loved me from the very beginning and had been calling me for years. I was finally through hiding; I was ready to seeking Him and know Him with all my heart. It was the beginning of a beautiful love story that still continues today.

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
Matthew 7:6-8

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