I am Naomi’s big sister. Four years ago I married my honey and now I am mama to almost 3 little children. I’m not so good with words as my little sister, but I will try to tell my story as good as I can.? ? I have loved God as long as I can remember. I am so thankful to my parents that they gave me Jesus. They couldn’t have given me anything that is more beautiful, more important and real. ? Whatever my little sister may claim, about how angelic I always was, I have always been a very human human :). I still remember very well how I struggled with my little sins as a child. My egoism, anger, ugly thoughts.. I didn’t want these things in my heart. I didn’t want to hurt God with them and still it was (and is) so hard to get rid of these things. ? When I was about 13 I felt a growing desire to change and have a personal relationship with God. I was?baptized?when I was 14. Right after my baptism I started to doubt very much. Had I been ready for this? Wasn’t I supposed to […]
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Asking?frightening?questions within a safe environment During this time I was very involved in a the?Christian?student organization called Ichtus. This was an incredibly enriching experience for me! I met intelligent people who dared to ask questions. I was allowed to doubt, pull out all the stops and I strayed further and further away from the person who I had been and what I had believed. This would have been much more frightening if I had had to do this on my own. I am so thankful to Ichtus that I was able to do it there. Without being cut of, but still part of the group. Searching for Eva In that time, a good friend of mine died in a car accident. She was someone I looked up to very much: passionate about her faith,?enthusiastic?about God, very convinced! When she died, I was crushed and by absorbing myself in God and faith, I tried to come closer to her. I tried to savor who she had been, and thought that since she was with God now, she was still ‘accessible’ in one way or another. Later on I realized this was part of my grief process and I ended up […] Sara is my sister(-in-law). She was raised Christian, but a few years ago she faced the fact that she no longer believed. I asked her to write her story down to see the other side…when the story doesn’t go like you think it will. I wanted to hear how she had gotten to this point. How she had faced her doubts and what she did with them. Ex-christian. A terrible word, but that’s what I am. Naomi asked me to write down how I came to this point. It’s turned into a long story. I tried to keep it short, but it stays quite long anyway because I want anybody reading this to be able to follow the whole process. I don’t want to make all too big jumps. Normal doubts and questions As a teenager, I very naturally had my doubts. Do I want this life, as a Christian, where I will never be like my classmates? Do I want to be the outcast that believes in God? I doubted because of my?gigantic?need to be liked. To be like everybody else. Besides that, I also had?substantial?questions, the typical ones like: “How can God be […] Every time I open my bible, which I try to do daily, I see this note: It’s a message my grandparents gave me along with the bible. They sent this bible to me when I was baptized. We were living in Minnesota at the time, so they couldn’t be there. They wrapped it up and taped a note to it and sent it over. But I loved it so much, and I wanted to be reminded of who I got it from and see the precious message inside each and every time I open my bible, I glued it in. For those of you who can’t read Dutch, I shall very kindly translate: “Congratulations to Naomi with her baptism. May this Bible be a daily reminder of your grandpa and grandma in Belgium who love you very much” My grandparents don’t believe what I believe. But they support me in believing it and hope my bible is a daily reminder of them. There have been times where it was the only reason I did open my bible. And even now, although I open it to meet my Father, ?and hear His […] Today my cousin tells about her relationship with God. I really really love her because she is super sweet. And once when I was younger she accomanied us with her flute (google says it’s a cross flute or a german flute) while we sang an offkey song for mother’s day. Reason enough for saying she’s super sweet, not?! She was my youth leader, and didn’t give me scoldings when I said or looked or did idiotic things because of my no-social-skills-syndrome. Instead, she sent me encouraging emails in my most difficult times and kept her inbox open for me. Therefore when I am a little girl again I shall draw her drawings to hang on her fridge. x I’m Annelies, married to a fantastic man and mama of 2 beautiful daughters. Naomi asked me to write something about my daily life with God. I realize now that it is quite a challenge 🙂 God is very clearly present in my life. But to explain this to others is not very easy. It is very interesting to think about this, because it is really my goal to make God’s greatness known to the people around me. […] I distinctly remember a moment when I was 9, that I decided to follow Jesus. It was in in the dirty old house where my little sister Loorke was born, the house where I had a goat with which my dear mother-in-law shares a name. Here she is, my sweet little goat. Afterwards I was sure it must not have been true, it could not have been real, because I still got so mad and impatient and disobedient. I hope I don’t have a child that is too much like me. I was a little, emotional, temperamental fright. How disappointed I would have been if I would have known I’d still be struggling with that at 24! I figured my sister was a real Christian because she never got so mad?and she was never as naughty as I was. I felt like I could only legitimately call myself a Child of God once I was pretty much perfect. When people asked me when I decided to follow Jesus, especially people I knew, I never mentioned this moment. I was ashamed of the fact that I still failed so?humongously and everybody could see that. All the time. Now, I do […] Today I have the honor of sharing my mom-in-law’s story. I’m loving all these written accounts of all the different ways God pulls His children closer to Him, how He shows His love and Himself! Read part 1 here In America, one can babysit as well as in Belgium. And I started babysitting two neighbors children, Derek and Kara. The children were dears but with the parents…something was different. The way they got along with each other and with their children? It wasn’t what I was used to. There was also an atmosphere that I couldn’t pinpoint. Love and kindheartedness and patience…I had no clue what to do with it. Especially the tolerant love that was alien to me. This mother was so committed with her young children and even when they had done something wrong, even when they got spanked, it was in love. And afterwards, they would go on their knees together and ask for forgiveness. I don’t know for sure but I think I stood there open-mouthed more then once. God softly blew on the little flame inside of me. I was jealous. Healthy jealousy, I’ll call it. What they had, whatever you might call […] |
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