Laura

Before I became a Christian, I assumed I was kind of alright.  I tried to be nice to people and do good deeds and thought that that made me a good person.  Little did I know that years before I met Steven, God was working in my life to bring me to the place and time where I would accept Jesus as my Lord and saviour.

I went through much of my childhood believing in ‘something’ very loosely.  I certainly didn’t think that this was ‘it’ but never really pursued it any further.  No-one in my family went to church so it never really even came up in conversation.

I went to high school, and it was while I was there, when I was about 14, that I suppose I started thinking about life more.  I used to go along to a lunchtime group called talking point and although it seemed at the time to be more to do with hanging out and chatting with the only cool teacher in the school, I look back now and see that she was trying to bring the gospel to those that were in the room.  She was the RE teacher, but was really easy to talk to, and eventually we ended up watching Chasing the Dragon with her over a few lunchtimes.  I didn’t really think much more about it but I would occasionally think about what had gone on in the film and often wondered whether I believed it or not.

I left school and went to college and literally bummed around for a bit.  I was always working in different places trying to earn a few extra pennies for my nights out drinking, and my smoking habit.  I used to go drinking in a working men’s club with my dad, and they offered me a job behind the bar.  I had worked in a bar in town for a bit so knew the ropes and took the job.  One night I was working and this older, bald man came up and asked me whether I liked men with hair or not!!  I was very dubious to be honest, as there were some quite undesirable people that went in there, so my response was ‘depends on the man’.  I was single at the time, and liked any interest so kind of wondered what the man was going to say next.  Well, he introduced me to a man with a big mop of curly hair called Steven!!  Steven was very drunk at the time, celebrating his 22nd birthday, and he looked nice so I accepted his offer of a drink.  We ended up chatting for ages after my shift finished and went on a couple of dates after that.

It soon became obvious that Steve was taking drugs.  He was quite open about it, and although I would usually run a mile, something really drew me towards him.  It would only be later that I realised that God was bringing this part of his plan for my life together.  So we dated, we broke up, we dated, we broke up, we dated, we fell in love.  But the drugs were too much for me.  There was no real relationship.  Everywhere we went had to be planned around when Steven could have his next joint and it would upset me and we would end up arguing all the time.  We were having a heart to heart one day out on the bench in the pub, and although I knew Steven had been to church before and his brother and sister-in-law were religious, we’d only ever really spoken about it briefly before.  When, in the conversation he told me that I was a sinner who was going to hell, I didn’t really know what to do.  I was shocked and upset that he would say such a horrible thing to someone who he said he loved.  Needless to say I ran away and soon after the relationship broke down again.  We did get back together a few times, and spoke about God.  Steve even bought me a bible for a Christmas present but we didn’t really do anything with it.  I did flick through it a few times, but the thing that was on my heart and mind the most all the time was what Steven said that day.  I couldn’t get it out of my head.  Was I really a sinner?  Was I really going to hell?

Inevitably, we broke up for what we said was the final time.  We couldn’t put each other through the heartache anymore.  We were tearing each other apart and it was awful.  So, for 6 months we didn’t speak to each other. We didn’t bump into each other, we didn’t call each other.  While we were apart, I would often think of what he said and I suppose, looking back, I would often pray about us to God.  I yearned for him in such a way it was horrible.   Slowly though, I tried to fill the void I thought he had left and learnt to drive, started going to a gym and going out with my friends.  Then, one night in November 2003, I got drunk with my brother and sister-in-law and sent Steve a text that said “is it too late?”  I wasn’t expecting a reply as Steve had never responded before when we had broken up.  He replied straight away.  He met me that night and we walked and talked for hours.  We both wanted to have a relationship with each other, and with God.  I was scared.  I didn’t know what was happening really, but I knew the void in my life was bigger than anything Steve could fill, and I wanted to know more.  I said to Steve that night that although I wanted to know more, I didn’t want to be pushed into anything as that would just make me turn away.

So, although we weren’t going to church we tried to embark on a ‘cleaner’ relationship.  We weren’t having a sexual relationship anymore.  Steven stopped smoking cannabis on New Years day 2004 and we both gave up smoking shortly after. We started trying to read the bible.  I bought an ‘alpha’ book and started reading through some of the ‘bigger’ questions, but we didn’t really know where to go and what to do from there. 

Steve worked for a friend who was a Christian and in March 2004 he invited us to go and see a group called Tough Talk.  A group of body building Christians who go around different churches and prisons etc. giving their testimonies.  Steven had seen them before and read their book and so we decided to go.  The night I walked in to the church I felt so nervous.  I didn’t have a clue what I was doing.  The worship began and I found myself singing along to tunes I didn’t really know, and some that I had heard before and I really enjoyed it.  Then the group started talking and I thought that their stories were interesting.  As I was listening to their testimonies, I was very conscious of my sin, and knew I needed to repent.  At the end of the evening one of the guys prayed and asked if anyone wanted to accept Jesus into their life to raise their hands.  I SO didn’t want to do anything that brought attention to me, but before I knew it my hand was raised.  I was still confused and didn’t really understand a lot of what was going on, but in my heart of hearts I knew I needed to confess my sins, and repent and accept Jesus into my life.  Little did I know that Steven had raised his hand too, and it wasn’t until we were called to the front with others to go to a room with some Christians to pray that I knew he was there as well.

After that we continued going to the church and our lives totally changed.  I was becoming ever increasingly aware of how sinful I was, even though before, in comparison to others I thought I was a good person, God was slowly revealing to me how wretched I am.  Steven proposed to me not long after that, and in April 2005 I was baptised.  We married on 7 May 2005, and the morning of our wedding my dad told me that he didn’t ever believe someone could change their spots, but he had seen the biggest change in Steven that he had ever seen in anyone.  That day I married my soul mate, and reflected on what a wonderful work God was doing in our lives.

For the next year, we stayed at our church, then I got pregnant with Evie, and we moved to a church in Worthing.  Although we both loved Jesus deeply, we felt we weren’t really growing and had hit a stumbling block.  I was struggling spiritually and my desire for God was waning.  Our friends had recently started coming to Montpelier and so we wanted to come along and see what it was like.  We had been so spoilt but the ‘bigger’ church that this felt slightly uncomfortable and I was really challenged about coming here.  But the word that was preached made us feel like we had been in a desert for the past 3 years and suddenly had found a lake.  We felt challenged, we felt convicted, and over the last year, our knowledge of Jesus and our knowledge of our own sinful nature has become more apparent to us than it has ever done before.

I want to keep building on this desire for God, and hopefully as a result, be able to serve the church and community.