Saved at Nine

I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior when I was 9 years old. I was only 9 years old. It wasn’t a dramatic conversion. I didn’t need to repent from a life of prostitution and drugs. It was a quiet conversion. I simply went to my room and accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior.

I had just seen a movie called, “The Thief in the Night.” It was this cheesy movie from the 70’s about the rapture. This woman wakes up one day to find her husband’s electric shaver bouncing around in the sink. He has vanished. She has no idea where he has gone. As the movie progresses, you learn that the rapture has taken place and this husband was taken up. She is left behind and has to fend for herself. She is terrified.

I was terrified. I think that might have been the first time I had heard of the rapture. All Christians are taken up into heaven or “caught up” with Jesus in the air. It was wild! But I freaked out. I didn’t want to be left behind. So I went immediately to my bedroom when I got home from church and accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior, right then and there.

Things changed immediately. All of a sudden I cared about the kids in my fourth grade class and where they would go after they died. They were all going to hell unless someone told them. This urgency, this compulsion filled my mind and heart. These classmates of mine needed to get saved, like right now!

So I devised a plan. I had recess, where I could preach to these lost children and tell them they were going to hell unless they accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior. I was going to convert the girls first. I lined them up at the back of the fence in the school yard. I told them they were all going to die and they would all go to hell unless they accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior! It was very important! (And it was!) Every recess, I would gather as many girls as I could and line them up at the back fence and preach hell to them.

Somebody must have complained. A few days later, my fourth grade teacher grabbed me as I was headed out for recess. She said, “Wendy, I need to talk to you.” I was a good girl, so I wasn’t worried. She explained to me that I could have my own religion, but it wasn’t good to try and force it upon other people. Now me, the normally shy, quiet, obedient girl wasn’t having this! Something burned inside of me. I wasn’t afraid of the teacher and she wasn’t going to take me down! I looked at her right in the eye and said that I was going to continue preaching to the girls and you can’t stop me. And I marched right out of that classroom and out to the playground and lined the girls back up against the fence. I had the Holy Spirit inside of me now. I was a changed kid.

My new life wasn’t perfect, but it certainly was different. I wasn’t secure in my relationship with the Lord as I wrote about here. But I have never looked back. I have never questioned my salvation. I have never walked away. As I grew up, at the same time, I grew up in the Lord. It’s been a long time. God has proved Himself over and over again to me. I have been a Christian for forty years now. And to quote Robert Frost, “that has made all the difference.”

If you are reading this, maybe you have never accepted Christ as your Savior. Being a Christian isn’t doing anything. Becoming a Christian is accepting Jesus Christ as your Savior. He died in our place. He took the punishment for our sins upon Himself. He died and rose again from the dead, three days later. And He’s coming again! A rapture will take place first, and catch up all of His children to meet Him in the air. And then a terrible time will come to this planet. At the end of that terrible time, Jesus Christ will come back to the earth as a judge. If you want to accept Jesus Christ as your Savior, say this prayer:

Dear Jesus: I know I’m a sinner. And I know you are a Savior. Please forgive me for my sins. I accept you as my Savior. Thank you Lord.

If you have done that for the first time, let me know. I really want to hear from you. I promise, I won’t line you up against a fence!