I'm not ashamed

This has been going around facebook lately.

let's see how many people on fb aren't ashamed to show their love for God and admit that Jesus is their Savior. We need to get God back in America. If you're not ashamed, copy and paste this in your status! I am not ashamed!!!!

I have been slow in joining this wave. Maybe it's the writer in me... but if you ask me to proclaim something this personal - I won't want to do it with a copy-and-paste. So, here's my personal declaration -

When I was very young, every night at bedtime, my family gathered in the living room. Dad read from the Bible and then talked to us about what he read. We finished the time together on our knees, each of us praying our "Now I lay me"s and then off to bed we went.

I remember one particular night like it was yesterday. Dad read John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." He explained that our sins separated us from God, but that Jesus died to take our punishment. If we believed this in our hearts and asked Him to forgive us, then the sin would be forgiven, the separation removed.


I don't know how much of this my 4 year-old brain understood, but my heart was convicted. I went up the stairs that night thinking, I need to do this. I got ready for bed thinking, I need to do this. I laid in my bed, waiting for Mom to come in and kiss me goodnight, thinking, I need to do this. When she arrived in the doorway of my darkened room, I said, "I need to do this. I need to ask Jesus in my heart."

That night, on my knees beside my bed, I asked God to forgive my sins. Although I didn't understand the theology of the moment, I knew from that moment on, that I was a child of God, forgiven, soooo loved that He would give His Son to save me. I have been blessed to have known such grace for so many years.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth... Romans 1:16