Well, my first thought is I am getting older every day, and some days I can feel it.  Though let’s go back quite a few years.   I am a middle child, of five.    Life growing up was filled with Sundays at church, Bible memorization, Sunday school lessons, youth group, Christian camps, VBS, and so on.  As we would say back then, I asked Christ into my heart at ten years old.  I’m pretty sure it was because the message was if you don’t you will go to hell when you die.  Well, I didn’t want that.  Life continued as I knew it, with a lot of “Christian” activities. 

Junior High came along.  It was tough.  I was bullied and peer pressured.  In High School,  I started drinking, doing drugs, and hanging out with the wrong crowd.  Got pregnant at 19 and married a few months before our first child being born.   Life continued that way for years.   

Life wasn’t easy, my choices didn’t help.   I could hear Jesus calling me back, knowing that He was the answer, yet I was too scared.   Jesus or my husband.  Thankfully God took care of that and my husband became a believer.  We did all the church stuff again.   We had good years and bad years.    

Through it all, I have learned it is not about asking Christ into my heart and just following all the good Christian rules.   It’s about believing Christ loves me and came to earth to die on the cross to pay the penalty for my sins to offer me forgiveness and accept that forgiveness.   It’s about laying down my life at the foot of the cross to follow Him.   It’s about allowing him to lead me and to pick me up when I just can’t.   It’s about how He never stops reminding me how much He loves me and that His grace wasn’t just for the day I gave my life to him at ten, but it is for me every single day.  Being a Christ follower is not about following all the good Christian rules, it’s about God loving me so much and me loving Him back and what happens within that.