Amy Brinker

I grew up in a churched home and in the Lutheran church. Until two years ago, I never once questioned what would happen to me once I died. I was baptized as a baby, regularly attended church, Sunday school, youth activities, confirmation, and I even chaperoned a youth confirmation trip while I was in college. I was a pretty good kid growing up, not perfect by any means, but I could do a lot worse. I am so thankful that my parents did bring me up in the church, as I know many don’t even get that opportunity. I did learn a lot and our pastor had really good moral, character building sermons. I look back now and see they lacked biblical teaching and never was a relationship with Christ stressed. I enjoyed going to church, as my friends were there and people always wanted to talk about the game the previous night. I thought it made me look better for attending and I felt like it made people look more highly upon my parents. I was there for all of the wrong reasons! That was obvious once I left for college, as the only time in those four years I went to church was when I happened to be home for the weekend.

When my husband, Doug, and I got pregnant we decided we needed to start attending church again. Still for all for the wrong reasons! We knew that it was “right” to raise our kids in the church, so that is what we intended to do. All that meant to us was that we’d be at church on Sunday. Even then, the church we went to was so big that we didn’t know anyone, even after attending off and on for four years. It became so easy to skip a week here or there. We continued that pattern until we were pretty much “holiday attenders.” I believe God started to tug at our hearts and do a work when we sold our home and were moving to the Polk City area.

We decided we wanted to find a new church in the area and we thought we’d try for something other than what I grew up in. Lakeside Fellowship was the first church we visited, by pure chance after looking in the phone book. My daughter, Madison, and I attended by ourselves the first time, as our son, Jackson, was sick. We never visited another church. God pulled us and kept us at Lakeside through the connection with people and fellowship alone for the first few months. I had no idea what Salvation meant. I had honestly fooled myself into thinking it wasn’t for me because I had grown up in church. I thought salvation was only for people who had never been to church and not something I needed to worry about.

Doug and I, during this time, were having some problems in our marriage and we sought out help from Pastor Dave. Honestly, his entire visit that night never touched the problem in our marriage but was focused on my problem with Christ. The problem was that Christ didn’t know me nor I know him, even though I had grown up in “His house” my entire life. I was mad at Pastor Dave for accusing me of that, but the more I thought about it the more I knew he was so right, and I am very thankful to him for that night. I am also so thankful for Christ’s patience and for the work He was still doing within me. The next day, I asked Christ to come into my life while walking my dog out by Jester Park. I wish that I could say that after that day my life changed for the better, but it didn’t.

I didn’t realize the responsibility that I was to take by letting Christ into my life. My heart wasn’t ready for Him. I think that all I did that day was pray a prayer because I was still making poor choices. My marriage was plummeting downhill, I was hurting my family, and sin still ran my life. As Pastor Dave said in a sermon, the soil of my heart didn’t show Christ in my life. However, I know Christ was there, because I was more aware of the sin and felt remorse from it, and I know if he wasn’t still working in my life that my family would be broken. I am so humbled that Christ waited for me to realize my need for him, and that realization brought me to my knees on April 10th of 2009. It was the worst and the best day of my life.

My marriage was at an end, I had a bag packed, and I am so ashamed that is what things had come to. The song by Casting Crowns is in my mind now, because I was a flower that was fading to the point of disappearing. That night in my bedroom I was on my knees before God, begging him to not leave and let me continue on by myself, I couldn’t be in the dark anymore. The was the night that Christ officially came into my life and the night that Doug and I recommitted ourselves to our marriage and family and Him. I still wish that I could say that everything immediately turned perfect, but it didn’t. However, we had hope, and we knew that if we kept Christ in the center, that we would be stronger than we were at the beginning of our marriage. That so rings true today.

I know that there will be trials in our lives, but I know where to go first when they happen. I know that my children will have trials in their lives, but my prayer is that they will already know Him when those trials come, instead of it having to take the trial to bring them to Him. “He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” Colossians 1:17.