Dear Diary,
I did end up praying that night. And the night after that. And the night after that. After a couple months I finally asked my youth leader, Sarah, what I was missing. It made me feel better to pray, but it never really lasted. I never heard anything back, and I never really understood what was driving me to do it. It turns out that the people at church really did have something I didn't. They did know something I didn't. I knew about Jesus but I didn't know him personally. I had to have a personal relationship with him. That meant I had to invite him into my life to change me and help me. He wasn't just going to waltz in and take over, like I was kind of expecting him to. You see, Jesus is a gentleman and he doesn't take things without asking. Even if that thing is your heart.
So one night, alone in my room, after struggling for around a year with what I should do, I finally gave in. Crying, I asked him to come in and change me. I asked him to show me if He loved me. To show me that He was listening. To show me something was different. I'm not going to lie and say something extraordinary happened. There was no grand miracle. But in that moment, I felt peace and the sense of being loved like nothing I had ever felt before, and I had no doubt left in my mind that Jesus was, in fact, real. And that he did, in fact, love me. More than that, he wanted me. Just like I had heard in church over and over again, he had been waiting since the moment I was born for me to come home. I finally felt that truth settle into my soul. I knew he had spent just under sixteen years waiting for me. I knew he had not once given up. Through all of my doubts and all of my reservations he had waited patiently with his hand outstretched just waiting for me to take it. Because he loved me so much, he was willing to die for me. And after something as extreme as that, what was waiting a few years for me to accept it? There was no condemnation because he had given himself as a sacrifice in order to end it. There was only forgiveness and his complete, unfailing, unwavering, patient, kind, gentle love he had been waiting all this time for me to accept. So in a few short minutes I handed my life over to him, and was completely changed forever.
A New Creation,
Anna
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Growing Pains
Krótkie OpowiadaniaA diary entry style short story. Anna writes in her diary throughout her life. She goes from a five year old playing in the sprinkler, to a ten year old ruining her easy-bake oven, to a fifteen year old trying to understand why the people in her hi...
