How Jesus Changed Me…

"How Jesus Changed My Life?"

A simple question, which has a not-so-simple answer.

I was brought up in a Christian home, and I was the youngest of six children, which means I have siblings, and lots of 'em.  Most of the time, they were busy getting into trouble. I was a silent spectator to their misdeeds and often found out, before my parents, that my older siblings weren't the cool and grown up teenagers, I truly thought they were.

When I was 5, I got saved. It wasn't because of a sermon in church, but rather because of my sister, Jennifer. She sat up with me one night, trying to explain what Heaven and Hell were, and why some people went up and other went down.  I knew Jesus liked sleeping in mangers and that he had died on a cross to save us from our sins, and that God was fond of the color white and I thought I knew all there was to know.  So, I got "saved."  But that same year, I experienced something I pray no one will ever have to.

I was only 5, when my brother raped me. Looking back, I was glad I had no idea what raped meant, or that, that was what had happened to me. Sadly, I wasn't the only one, the sister who helped me get saved, fell victim to my Brother. For years, I hated him. He never asked for forgiveness, and I felt until he did, he certainly didn't deserves it from me. My parents were shocked and devastated when my sister and I told them. They called the police.

Though it was the most painful thing they've ever had to do and my brother was made to pay his dues for what he did, but I was still resentful. Until two years ago. That year, I read this book, A Passion Most Pure (Daughters of Boston, Book 1)A Passion Most Pure (by Julie Lessman), and it changed me. It really wasn't so much the book, as it was Jesus using the book to pluck at my heart strings. It was 5 am, and I wasn't even half way through the book before I was crying, begging Jesus to help me forgive my brother, like Jesus had already done for him. Because, it wasn't until that moment that I realized, I can't have the full and loving relationship with Jesus that I saw in the heroin of A Passion Most Pure (Daughters of Boston, Book 1)A Passion Most Pure, with hate and resentment in my heart, blocking the way in from Jesus. I knew that I had to forgive my brother in spite of everything and see him only with love, not hatred. It was probably the hardest thing I've had to do, but I didn't do it alone, I had Jesus by my side, helping and healing me. He changed me then, and started molding me into His perfect vessel. For that is what I am now, a clay vessel for Jesus to use to show others, and sometimes myself, that He is love.

How has Jesus changed you?