my person story of faith

My Story of Faith

 

Jesus became my friend as a child when my mom taught me the 23^rd Psalm, the Shepherd’s Psalm, at bedtime line by line. She would say a line and I would say it after her.  She and Dad took me to church and Sunday school. They were believers. At the age of twelve or thirteen, I joined the Methodist church in Caroleen NC, a small mill town.  I was baptized and joined on an Easter morning.

 

I attended MYF, Methodist Youth Fellowship. I had wonderful Sunday school teachers like Wilma Vickers, Peggy Moore, and Annis Ledford. When I was a freshman in high school, the choir director, Annis Ledford asked me to play piano. (She was my twelfth grade English teacher.)  She was very particular and I was so nervous, I came home after the practice that first Sunday night and cried saying I would never do it again. I played for six years. I had taken lessons for five years but did not feel ready. My music teacher said I was and began teaching me organ as well and I played organ at church when the organist, Peggy Moore, couldn’t be there.

 

My music teacher, Myrtle Mashburn, also got me a job playing organ for a small Methodist church in Alexander. I would play the early service there and then come to my church and play for the eleven o’clock service. I was employed at the Alexander church until they could no longer afford to pay me.

 

Over the years in high school and junior college, I taught Bible School, Sunday school, and worked at a church day camp the local churches had at Camp McCall in Golden Valley.

 

While a student at Appalachian State University, I didn’t attend church as often but my roommate, Debbie Wall, and I often read chapters in the Bible and discussed them. I did attend church on weekends at home.

 

I have a small green Gideon testament where I wrote that I became a Christian on October 15, 1975 but I was a believer and Christian long before then. There’s poem somewhere that says, “I became a Christian but I know not when or where.”

 

Over my lifetime, I have served on many different committees and held many offices in the church, taught, read the Bible through a couple times, attended Bible studies, read daily devotions, and prayed. I have shared my faith with family and friends. I now attend Stanley First United Methodist Church.  I also do online Bible studies.

 

I know God’s presence daily. There are many days I could do better. I will forever believe in God, my heavenly Father, his holy Son, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. If not for the mighty Trinity I could not survive. They are my true lifeline and I love them and want to give their love and power to everyone.