Getting lost and Getting Saved all Within a few Feet and a few Years

I'm blessed to be living in the house that my father built. My grandfather and my uncle also worked on this house, so it's a blessing to be living in the home that has three generations of Breaker's involved in its construction. (As I'm continually working on the house trying to keep it in good shape).

The other day I was in the kitchen of this house, and I broke down in tears as I looked at the kitchen counter, as I realized I'd been eating off this counter most of my life. I also realized that counter was were I got lost, and also where I got saved!

I used to eat breakfast at the end of that counter on a little stool every morning, right under a small plaque with the following Bible verses on it:

5 Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.

6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. (Prov. 3:5,6)

It was at this table that I distinctly remember at the age of five years old thinking about death for the very first time. I didn’t think about heaven or hell, or that I was a Sinner. I only remember thinking that I would one day die, and then cease to exist. The thought scared me that I would not be alive anymore, and I worried about it greatly. My Mom then came over and asked, “What’s wrong?” I answered, “I’m going to not exisit one day and then I won’t be anymore.”

My Mom told me I just needed to ask Jesus into my heart, which I did following her in prayer. But I was NOT saved that day. That I know for sure. I didn’t even know who Jesus was! I thought he was some guy who sat in the back of the church or something.

But that day my Mom counted as my day of salvation. And she told me many times after that I was saved because I did that, i.e., I repeated the prayer.

As I got older, I read Chick tracts, and I would follow the prayer at the end those tracts time and again. I must have prayed that prayer conservatively over 3000 times, as I’d pray it every night before bed. (Starting from age 8 till age 18 makes ten years, and ten times 365 equals 3,650 times I prayed that prayer at least!)

But I was not saved by doing that. In fact, I was trusting in my PRAYER instead of trusting in Jesus Christ. Although I knew who he was and what he did for me, I wasn’t trusting that alone. I was trusting the “formula” at the end of the tract and the prayer it told me to pray to be saved. I was confused. I was deceived. I was lost.

Later my Mom divorced my Dad in 1988 and moved my sister and I to Oklahoma, where I lived for the next four years. I spent that time in a Pentecostal church, and I can honestly say I never heard the Gospel one time in that denomination. All they said was, “Speak in tongues, get filled with the Holy Spirit, and do your best not to lose it!” Once again I was deceived, for you can’t earn your salvation by what you do, and you can’t keep it by what you do. And since I didn’t have it to begin with, I kept trying to get it, and hoping if I did (cause I didn’t ever know if I did or not), that I didn’t lose it! I was in constant turmoil day and night hoping I was saved, but never knowing if I was. I was trusting in what I did (I prayed the prayer, I spoke in tongues, I tried to live a good life, etc).

It wasn’t until July 22, 1992 that I left Oklahoma and went home to live with my Dad. I’d just graduated High School, and I decided I’d go to college at the University of West Florida in Pensacola, and I would live with my Dad while there.

My father accepted me with open arms, and a week later (the 29^th) he sat me down and asked me some questions. I answered the best I could, but I knew my answers were lies. I knew I was a Sinner. But my Dad then told me the Gospel, and I can honestly say that even though I’d been in church every day of my life since I was born, I never heard it before. This was the very first time.

Not only did I hear it, but I understood it, and I accepted it. That was July 29^th, 1992, and it was right there in the kitchen as I sat on the counter top, not three feet away from where I used to eat as a child, and where I repeated a prayer as a child.

I like to say it this way, in 1979 I got lost and deceived, but in 1992 I got saved, and knew it!

I still can’t walk by that kitchen counter without stopping and looking at both spots. How it thrills my heart that God gave me the Gospel and allowed me to get saved, even though it took 13 years (I was 5 when I prayed the prayer, but 18 when I trusted Christ as my Saviour). How short a distance (only three feet), but how long a time (13 years).

It’s amazing to me to still be able to sit down in the dining room in the house I was saved in and just look over at the counter where I was born again. I feel so blessed to have been able to have been born again at the very same spot in which I got lost, even though it was years later. And I’m thankful that I had a Dad who loved me enough and cared enough about me to take me through the scriptures and show me Christ crucified. Without him, I’d probably still be lost and in agony, wandering through the motions of a religious denomination, but never having that blessed assurance in my heart of knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that I’m saved and on my way to heaven.

I think about it sometimes, knowing the rapture is soon, and I think to myself, “Wouldn’t it be cool to be sitting on that same kitchen counter with the rapture comes?” Then I could go out of here the same place I got saved! That’d be so cool! Until then, I’m going to keep preaching the Gospel and hoping others will get saved, for there are countless millions of people out there like I was – religious but lost. I pray they too will see the light and come to Jesus alone for salvation, giving up trusting in anything and everything they’ve ever done, and rely completely upon what Jesus did for them.