Testimonies to God's activity in our lives

Testimony by Sarah Fletcher, on the day of her baptism, 11 February, 2007      More testimonies

So, how did I get to this point?  Well, as a child, I wasn’t christened or baptised, hence I’m here being baptised today.  But, I was brought up going to Sunday School.  In fact, we went week in week out for years and years, even getting prizes for our attendance.  But, in spite of this, I never really understood what Christianity was all about.  And, I don’t know how much religious education has changed in schools since then, but, at that time, it seemed to consist almost entirely of learning the names of the books of the Bible in the correct order.

Anyway, I remember very clearly, as a teenager, one of my best friends saying to me “You don’t have to be a Christian to be a good person”.  And I thought, “Yes, she’s right.  Christianity is about being good, but you don’t have to be a Christian to be a good person.  I can be good without being a Christian”.

So, for very many years, I lived without any reference to God, simply trying to be good.

Things, however, started to change almost exactly five years ago, when my husband Michael and I faced the first of what was to be a whole series of challenges. I think my feelings about God started to change ever-so-slightly at that time, but I remember the first time I recognised that was four years ago when I was expecting Josie.  I recall one of my friends telling me that she was praying for me, as was my Mum, and I felt so glad and relieved that they were, although I still did nothing more about it.

Well, some 18 months after Josie was born we faced another big crisis and it was then that things really began to change for me. 

What happened was that, over a period of about 18 months, I bumped into a whole series of people who were prepared to talk to me about their faith.  To be honest, initially I made no connection between these people, but during these months it soon became very clear to me that this was no coincidence.  And you have to see this in the context of decades where no-one had ever spoken to me about being a Christian.

You know, it got to the point where Michael was saying “not another one” when I told him about these encounters.  And I would think “yes, another one.  Do you think someone’s trying to tell me something?”

But what I think is so inspiring and encouraging about that is for those of us here, me included, who find it very hard to talk about our faith.  These Christians that I spoke to had no idea what kind of reaction they would get from me, yet they were still prepared to share with me what they believed in – from the person who gently sowed that little seed over 2½ years ago now, to the huge encouragement I got from another Christian who helped me to take my first big step coming to St Bart's a year ago now.  And that really was the hard bit, taking that first big step and knowing it would change my life forever.

What does being a Christian mean to me?  Well, before all of the challenges of the past five years, I used to think that we all created our own luck in life.  My life felt good – and I thought that Michael and I were responsible for that.  Of course, the problem with that approach is that when it all fell apart, that too felt like it was my responsibility.  “What have I done to deserve all this?” were words I used on more than one occasion.

Then, for me, feeling such a lack of control over the situation, led to feelings of superstition.  A friend of mine who found herself in a difficult situation used to talk about her “lucky pebble” and her “lucky parking space”, as if such things can make a difference.  It’s a sign of the desperation people feel that they seek to create their own gods.

Now, though, I can discard my equivalent of the lucky pebble.  And, I know that I don’t have to be a good person to earn God’s love.  He loves me the way I am.  The challenges I face are not God punishing me. 

What God has done is used my suffering to positive effect and the most important aspect of that is the way in which the challenges in my life have brought me to God.  As I understand it, for lots of people and many Christians, the whole question of suffering can be one of the huge obstacles in their relationship with God.  Yet, for me, it was quite the reverse.  Had I not suffered, I would not be here now and for me now, God provides an enormous comfort in the face of suffering because I don’t have to handle things on my own and I don’t have to feel responsible for it all.  It’s such a liberating feeling.  It’s about trusting God and remembering that, however much I might pray for certain things to happen, they might not do so; that at any point I can only see the partial picture of my immediate wants and needs whereas God can see it all.

So, it’s all about trust and that’s the biggest thing for me now about being a Christian.  That’s not to say I find it easy and I have to remind myself all the time to put my trust in God, but when I do so, it makes all the difference as I put my life in God’s hands.

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