The Day I Got Saved

My Testimony

During my early life, my family attended a Baptist church regularly where I went to Sunday school and sang fun songs like "I've got the joy joy joy joy, down in my heart". I loved singing and going to church. And around six years of age I became extremely aware of God's existence while having a vision. I'd gone to the hospital to have my adenoids out and ear tubes put in my eardrums. And I was very afraid to be away from my parents and in the hospital. The church pastor and my family had prayed that I would stop having the frequent ear infections and wouldn't need surgery, but the earaches didn't go away.

I remember as I lay on the operating table, the anesthesiologist had me count backwards from ten to one and I went to sleep. But then I became very aware of the room I was in and I could see the doctor and the nurse. And at the head of the operating table there stood a man with long, brown curly hair. He was wearing a white gown that resembled a toga. He held a baby in his arms. The man told me that his name was Gabriel and that the baby was Jesus. He said that Jesus would watch over me for my whole life. Later, I'd wake up to find my mother at my hospital room bedside, and I'd excitedly tell her all about how the angel Gabriel had brought baby Jesus to me and that Jesus was going to watch over me for my whole life.

Just over a year later I would make that commitment to accept Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior. It was Easter Sunday, 1981, when I heard the Baptist pastor give an altar call. He talked about how Jesus died on the cross to pay the price for our sins. And if we said with our mouth's he is Lord, and believed in our hearts that he died for our sins, then we would be saved. As a seven-year-old, I watched other people walk up to the altar and I wanted to go up there, but I was afraid to. I probably thought, "What will others think if I go up there? What's going to happen? Will my parents follow me or try to stop me?"

My family left church that day and I hadn't accepted Jesus, but I kept thinking about it. I felt like God was telling me to go up there, but I didn't do what he asked. So then I found my dad and I told him that I thought I was supposed to go up to the altar and get saved. And my father told me I could accept Jesus anywhere. I didn't have to be in church. He reiterated much of what the pastor had said about Jesus dying for our sins and he led me through the steps of salvation. And then he prayed with me.

As my father prayed with me I felt a liquid warmth come over me that started from head and went down to my feet. And I couldn't stop crying. I can't put into words other than "joy" to describe how I felt that day. And over the years I would grow in my faith and love for Jesus.