Keri Carlton

When I was very young my parents and I attended the Presbyterian Church where we lived in Grandview, Missouri. My most vivid memory of church at that age was dressing up on Sundays and carrying my little white bible that had my name embossed on it to Sunday school. I was very proud of that bible. In it I kept a green folded page of the Lord’s Prayer. I remember reading it and saying the prayer in church, but never really understanding what it meant. Even though we attended a church at that time, our house wasn’t a particularly religious one. I can’t really remember saying prayers, reading the bible, or talking about God being part of daily life.

Just after 3rd grade, my family moved to Belton, Missouri. I remember attending church sporadically in another nearby town. I don’t know why we didn’t attend regularly. We never really got plugged in there and our visits became more spread out. By the time that I hit middle school, we were no longer attending at all. About that time I got involved in tournament softball. Between that, a variety of other sports, and the usual chaos of teenage years, that took up my time right on through high school. Everything revolved around practices, games, tournaments, etc. and taking time for God just wasn’t really in the picture.

That mentality I carried on with me to college. I attended Baker University, which was a Methodist school. There I played volleyball and life continued on as before. I did have Christian friends. Actually, the majority of my friends, including the guy I dated, were Christians and they did provide a great example, however most of them attended another college 1 ½ hours away. During that time I felt like I should attend church, if only for the reason that I had friends who did. So, I dipped my toe back into the water and occasionally attended the church on campus. I can’t say that I got much more out of that experience than I did when I was younger.

The spring of 1998 I graduated from college and moved back home for the summer. It was only just a pit stop on my way to attending grad school that coming fall. I hadn’t lived at home since the summer after my first year in college. While coming off the high of graduating college, getting pumped to go to grad school, and starting a new chapter in my life, everything changed. Shortly after moving home, my mother announced that she and my father were separating and getting a divorce. I wasn’t completely blind to the fact that there were maybe some problems there, but I was blindsided by that fact that it was so bad that divorce was deemed to be the appropriate remedy. I was 21 at the time and while I was intellectually equipped to deal with this change, emotionally I was absolutely devastated. I was an only child. Everything in the world that I had known as my constant, the way things were, the way things were done, the way that things were going to be, all the traditions, were now gone.

I toughed out that summer at home and in the fall I moved 3 ½ hours away to attend grad school at Iowa State. I knew no one. I left all of my friends. I moved even further away from the guy I had dated all through college, which had already been a long distance relationship now made even longer. For the first time in my life I was truly alone and by myself. While it was an exciting time to start fresh some place new it was also a sad, scary, and lonely time.

In the evenings I had much time on my hands and so without any specific reason I started to read a devotional book for women that had been given to me. From there, I started looking at the additional scripture reading that the book suggested and started reading the Bible. I had never before just sat and read the Bible. It was so interesting and enlightening and applicable to me. How was that possible for something written so long ago? Then one night, I read in my devotional how the author of the book had submitted herself to God and accepted Jesus Christ as her personal Savior. I knew at that moment that I needed Him in my life too. I didn’t want to be alone and I realized that I couldn’t control life and other people. I realized that I was a sinner no matter what and there was nothing that I could do about that. Jesus died for my sins. He died for everything that I had ever done or said or thought that was sinful. I was not worthy of my life and yet Jesus redeemed me. He took MY place on the cross and died for ME…I was overwhelmed. Right then and there I stopped and said a prayer and accepted Jesus as my personal Savior. I didn’t know exactly what to pray or how to do it and so I just asked for forgiveness of my sins. I thanked God for His son Jesus and I asked him to be a part of my life going forward.

Salvation has changed my life in many ways. It has changed my thinking. It has changed my behavior. It has changed my outlook on life. It has simply changed my heart and changed me. I can’t honestly say that all of those things were immediate and happened overnight. Many of those things were things that I have grown into and continue to grow in. It’s been a process and continues to be a process. I’ve had to back up and start over many times asking God to take control of my life and show me His way to live. It has been so rewarding to feel and see the continuous change in myself. Only after coming to know God have I been able to humble myself enough to grow and seek His will for my life.

The Lord has blessed me with so much and has given so much peace to my life. The examples are numerous. Five years of long distance dating brought the guy I was with to become my partner in life. We have been married for eight years. The Lord has blessed me with jobs I have both enjoyed and disliked. He has blessed me with situations with family and friends that have been both wonderful and challenging. He has taken things that I thought I wanted or needed and turned them upside down. He has taken things that I hadn’t cared about or understood and provided me with education, insight, and objectiveness. He has allowed situations where my decision making between right and wrong has been tested. He has showed me love and asked me to give up bitterness, anger, fear, and resentment. He has blessed me with children – even the challenge of having more than one at a time (twins). He has blessed me with the ability to be a stay at home mother and love every minute of it, even the most challenging of days. He has continuously given me energy and strength beyond what I thought I possessed to get through good times, difficult times, and daily life. All have been the will of God in my life, and of course being able to look back now I can see God’s grace and guiding hand has been present throughout.