Sally looked around the unusually packed church and wondered. An 18 year old atheist at her mum’s funeral, she suddenly couldn’t believe that her mum could have just stopped existing.
That day, Sally needed to know what her mum had believed. She decided to start going to church to try to find out what was true. This was quite a change. Sally remembers being ‘a very happy-go-lucky, careless sort of child, not taking anything seriously.’
When, in Sally’s early teenage years, her mum started attending church, Sally refused to come. Often she returned from school to find her mum reading her Bible and teased: ‘reading the good book again, mum?’
But then tragedy struck.
Sally’s mum found out she had breast cancer and treatment began. Sally is shocked looking back at how selfish she was: ‘even when she was very poorly it never occurred to me to help around the house.’
Her mum’s death shook the family. Sally was very worried for her 13 year old sister who wouldn’t really talk to her or anyone. Sally felt ‘lost and small’ but her father was determined the tragedy wouldn’t stop her going away to university. Off she went, determined to investigate her mother’s faith. During her second term she heard some talks put on by the Christian Union.
Sally recalls: ‘the talks concentrated on the historical accuracy of the Bible, particularly the accounts concerning Jesus. This made a big impression on me because of my previous view of the Bible as a book of stories. It was a shock to me to be presented with the historical evidence for Jesus as a real person.’
‘I never could understand a religion where God was a tame add-on, only to be acknowledged on Sunday mornings. If God is real, then he must be God of all.’
Sally became convinced that God was real and that he’d come to live among us in the form of Jesus, his Son. She now was ‘certain that Jesus died and rose again that we might be saved.’
But she wondered, was she saved? Had she repented enough – was she truly sorry? ‘I knew I wasn’t the good person I had always pretended to be and fooled myself that I was.’
‘I had always told myself that I had lots of friends so must be a nice person. But it was easy to be nice for the friendship I got back. I knew my motives were selfish.
My overwhelming sense was of lostness and insignificance; aloneness in a vast world – and of the greatness and vastness of God. I knew I needed God, but was that repentance? I spent days reading and praying for forgiveness.’
Sally read in Mark’s gospel of a leper who had complete faith that Jesus could help him, but seemed to doubt that he would want to.
‘The Jesus that I now knew enough about did want to. He was moved with compassion for the leper. And if for that leper, why not for me? This passage told me that Jesus would hear me too and would want to help me too.’
Sally knew she was forgiven. She didn’t really feel different but began to realise she was different. ‘The main big difference was that I lost all interest in hanging around the university bars and discos.’ She studied the Bible systematically and got baptised.
Sally was delighted to hear through letters that her sixth-form boyfriend, John, had also become a Christian. They were married and raised four children in Devon before retiring to east Kent.
Life has not always been easy: ‘we can look back on many ups and downs over the years, One hard time was losing our second child at only seven weeks. But we can always see God’s hand.’
