Deeper and Deeper Still: How I Became Even More Christian

This is the second post in my five part series about my journey to Christianity and back.  Part one was how I became a Christian.  This is part two, the defining moments that solidified my belief and the deepening of my fundamentalism.

Indeed, that is where we start.  That is how we know that God is real.  Then, we are more able to force ourselves to accept the garbage that follows.  But, I’m getting ahead of myself.

When I last left you, I had just accepted Jesus and got saved.  But that was not when I became the believe-it-at-all-costs, hard core Christian that I would become.  I still lacked that God moment that I could turn to when presented with anything that contradicted my deeply held beliefs.  I had not yet encountered the thing that would transform my desire for a savior into full fledged Jesus coma – the transcendent experience.

Oddly, I cannot remember how soon after my conversion this event happened, but I remember it like it was yesterday.  I was overwhelmed and frustrated with things I cannot even recall today, so I went into my room and cried out to God.  The details are murky to me, but what happened next remains crystal clear – hot tears began to pour from my eyes as I felt a warm, tight “hug” envelop me.  I knew everything would be okay because my Jesus was holding me.  I could trust him, this I knew.

From that point on nothing else mattered.  Nothing.  There was nothing you could say or do, no science, no psychology, no history, no contradiction in the Bible that you could ever point out to me that would convince me that Jesus was not real.  I had literally felt his presence.

Why Jesus?  I have been asked that before.  How did that experience prove that the god(s) of Christianity was real and not some other god.

I believed that it was the God of the Bible because that is the god I had prayed to.  I had no experience with any other god-based religion and, since this one came to me when I needed him, it must be true.

(Yes, I am so aware of the twisted logic of that conclusion – now, that is.)

In early 2005, shortly after I became a Christian, our kids had met our new neighbors, who happened to be Christian.  They were those “it’s not a religion; it’s a relationship” counter-cultural Christians.  They were cool, with tattoos.  The mom had blue hair.  The dad worked at a coffee house and listened to the Christian equivalent of death metal (life metal?  eternal life metal??).  They went to a home fellowship, instead of a church.  They were not religious people; they just loved Jesus and loved people the way Jesus did.

One day, the mom came to my door to tell me about a book study she and some other women were doing at the home where they had their fellowship.  The book was Captivating, by John and Stasi Eldredge.  I joined the study and met the other women involved in the home church.

This was a real turning point for my faith, for several reasons.  For one, I now had a community of believers.  It was amazing how easy it was to open up to and trust each other, since we knew that we all loved Christ.  It was unlike any kind of relationship I had ever had with another woman, let alone a whole group.  It was an amazing bond.  The fact that the bond was so unlike anything I had ever experienced further convinced me of the supernatural presence of god and his working in our hearts.

Another significant thing that came out of that book group was my introduction to spiritual warfare.  “Captivating” was my first introduction to the concept.  As with everything I came to believe, I had an experience that confirmed its existence and from then on I stopped questioning it.  (After all, the questioning comes from Satan himself, another spiritual attack!)  I read everything I could about spiritual warfare, like “Battlefield of the Mind,” by Joyce Meyer.  I went to a “Living Free in Christ” conference, where I learned all about how spiritual warfare works and went though the “prayer steps” to renounce any and all things I had done in my life to give Satan a foothold.  “Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram,” the podcast that led me to accept Jesus as my savior, even had a series on spiritual warfare.

Everywhere I looked, there was confirmation of this idea that there is a battle going on in the heavenly realm for our souls.  Every time we would step out in faith and do something great for God’s Kingdom, we would come under attack, in the form of negative thoughts, bad attitudes (especially from our children), and other events that seemed to stand in our path.

Soon, every doubt I had about Christianity was thought by me to be an attack from Satan.  My circle of Christian friends confirmed this belief as true and everything that went on in our lives was viewed through this lens.

I started to fear worldly influences as an attempt by Satan to undermine my beliefs and the plan that god had for me.  So, I limited what I would watch and listen to.  I even limited what the kids could watch and listen to.  After the “Freedom in Christ” conference, I even went though all of my books and CDs and threw out anything that was against god, including yoga videos and most secular music.   It was black and white – if it wasn’t honoring god, it was working against god and not something that I should let in.

Meanwhile, there were other ways that my faith was affirmed.  It seemed like every time I trusted God, he was there for me.  Every time this happened, my belief became stronger.

My oldest son, now 13, but 8 at the time, was going into third grade.  For kindergarten and second grade, we had a lot of problems with the school.  He now has been diagnosed with ADHD, anxiety, and severe seasonal depression, but at the time, he was just a very bright little boy who could not sit still when he finished his work.  Since he didn’t have a diagnosis, the school expected him to use will power to sit still.  Needless to say, that did not work.  I was at the school almost daily trying to help them come up with a solution and he was getting lower and lower self-esteem because he wasn’t able to change himself.

A few weeks before school was to start for third grade, I received a letter from the school with information about his teacher for the new year.  I started getting really stressed out about the school year.  We had such a great summer and I could not stand the thought of dealing with the same problems for another school year.

After three or four nights of not sleeping because of the stress, I decided that I would trust the problem to god.  I prayed about it and asked god to give me one good night of sleep and provide a solution to my problem.

I fell right asleep and woke up the next day with the idea to homeschool.  I believed that god had given me this idea.  When it turned to be the ideal solution for my unique child (even the principal agreed), I was convinced even further that I was following an all-knowing god who would always lead me in the right direction.

Every step of the way, every time god came through, my faith was stronger and I went deeper into trying to live in a way that served and honored god.

When I learned about tithing – giving 10% of our income to the church – I knew that we had to trust god with our finances.  (That’s how they spin it.)  If we showed god our thanks for everything he gave us, he would always meet our needs.  So, even though we are a one income family, which puts us in the low income category, we gave 10% of our income to the church and other Christian causes.  We trusted god.

And god came through.

The first time we tithed, my husband got an unexpected spot award, just as our car needed repairs.  Praise God!

And so, on it went.  I would trust.  God would provide.  My belief was confirmed.  I would go deeper.  Lather, rinse, repeat, ad nauseam.

(Read part three.)