How I Began My Journey as a Christian

With Harold Camping's misguided doomsday prediction looming over us, this week I have noticed an increase in interest in spiritual things, however in most cases it has been mainly for ridicule and not for reason or rationalization. To be fair, I cannot say that I blame people for wagging their fingers and laughing, or mocking at the notion of doomsday coming today, May 21, 2011.
   This has led me to write this morning concerning what is true and right in light of what is misguided; and the best way to begin this writing is to simply state how my journey as a Christian began.
    Yes, my journey as a Christian as a beginning. I was not 'born' a Christian. I was not raised in a Christian family or anything like that. It dates back to 1979, when I was 13 years old. It was a bright August morning and I was visiting with my grandparents in Perry, Maine; who were also visiting from Westbrook, Maine. They would come down two times each summer, once for the week of the 4th of July, and once for a week in August, usually on the week of my birthday. I would look forward to their visits and for my Aunt Winnie's visits, who was more like an older sister to me than an aunt as she was only three years older than me.
   On this particular day in August I was upstairs in my great grandfather's house in Perry reading from Mark Twain's book Huckleberry Finn. Winnie and my younger sister Michelle came up the stairs and Winnie was talking to Michelle about Jesus and asked me if I wanted to come and listen. I told her that I didn't want anything to do with that. However they went in to the room next to mine and I ended up listening anyway. Winnie was talking about things that I had read about earlier in the week in some small comic books my grandfather had brought with him. The one thing that stood out to me that day was the concept that Jesus said 'I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no one can come to the Father but by Me'.
   After they talked for a few minutes my sister prayed with Winnie to ask Jesus to forgive her of her sins and to be her Lord and Savior.
   I remember after they had gone down stairs sitting there on the bed and thinking for what seemed like an hour about this. I knew that this was serious stuff and that if I made a decision to accept Christ that my life would be different, I did not know how or in what way at the time but some how I just knew it would be different. In the end though, I knew that I am a sinner, that I have done things wrong and that after this life is over, I would much rather be in heaven than hell. If Christ says I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; and no one can come to the Father but by Me, then I need to give my life to Him.
   By that time I had forgotten what my sister and Winnie had prayed but I had remembered that these little comic books that my grandfather had in his room contained a sample prayer in the back that sounded like what they had prayed. So I went to my grandfather's room and found one of those comic books.
    I remember praying and asking Christ to forgive me for my sins, to come into my life and become my Lord and Savior. I thanked God for sending Jesus to die for my sins and that he raised him from the dead. I then thanked him for forgiving my sins. That moment in time was the beginning of my walk as a Christian. The following verse is the evidence for this.
    "that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation." Romans 10:9-10
   There is no baptism, tongues of fire, catechism, sacred ritual, or membership class that one needs to attend to become a Christian. Sometimes the reality of true Christianity becomes marred by humanity and its myopic and misguided self-interests. True Christianity is about re-establishing a right relationship that was broken in an idyllic garden in the beginning, it is restoring our relationship with the living God. It is nothing more, nothing less. 
   If anyone has any questions about my faith, I am more than happy to address those questions. One of the approaches I have always had in life is to be fair, firm and consistent with all my friends and family.