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Who am I and why do I need to share this stuff with you?
Let me start at (or near) the beginning. My name is Richelle Ross. I am the oldest of 5 children born to my parents in Manitoba, Canada. To maintain their privacy, this is all I will say on here about them.
I am a self-professed school "nut". I love learning. I began reading at age 3 and never stopped. I completed high school and, at 18 years old, went on to spend 2 years at Briercrest Bible College in Caronport, Saskatchewan. (Someday I will return there to finish the degree I started.) When I came back to Manitoba (at age 20), I met and married my husband, a guy named "Dan." I then obtained an accounting diploma from a correspondence school and am currently in the middle of my third year of a four year Bachelor of Science in Nursing program. I will graduate in 2005. My household now consists of my husband, myself, and our pets (a cat, a rabbit, and a hamster).
My experience with God began at birth – I was born into a Christian family – but my biggest experiences started happening at age 16. I was initially shown the goodness of God, and how much I "needed" Him, by a friend of mine. However, nothing was really clear to me at this point. I didn’t ask questions so I didn’t really know what they meant. I thought that loving God and believing in Him was all you had to do to be a child of Him. My error was never explained to me. Yes, I WAS wrong. I prayed the "sinner’s prayer" because I felt that I would lose the friendship of my friend if I didn’t. This is not a good way to begin a lifelong commitment!
It is quite easy to see how much I valued God’s presence in my life after that somewhat faulty start, too. I believed that God was a fluffy, love-y God who would take you back into His arms whenever you did something wrong, no questions asked. This made me free, in my thinking, to do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. Because I felt that God was just LOVE, I could "party it up" the summer I was 18 and expect to go to Bible College with His full blessing when summer was over.
God does not work this way, however. Within 2 years, I KNEW that I wasn’t where I needed to be. My boyfriend, whose spiritual life I managed to wreck for a time while I "played Christian", dumped me and saw me just for what I was – an ungodly, sad little girl. I ended up very abruptly leaving school and work, and returning home a sick girl who needed help. You see, I became so depressed, because I just couldn’t FEEL God anymore, that I became anorexic. I just didn’t feel I deserved to eat and live if people hated me so much and God wouldn’t talk to me. In reality, though, people didn’t hate me and God did want to show me His truth – I just didn’t understand or know how to listen.
When I came back home, my joy returned (as did my appetite). I still didn’t know what was missing in my spiritual life, but I didn’t care because things just felt RIGHT. I became healthy again, and I met (and married) a man who made me WANT to be a Christian. We did wonderful things together – we took food to homeless people, we slid money anonymously under the doors of local charities, and we fervently worshipped. However, I had a problem with reading the Bible. I just didn’t do it. Ever. I also never prayed…and when I sang to God in church, I continually compared myself to others singing.
The good things my husband and I did were just not enough for me. We slowly became aware of hypocrisy in the church (but I never bothered to look at myself, so I became bitter). We also noticed how unfriendly "Christians" could be to people who didn’t know how to talk to them. We perceived intentional insults where none were even given, and we drew away from the people. Dan didn’t draw away from God, however. I did. I began searching for something, anything, to take my mind away from God and fill the void I had where spirituality once tried to grow.
I eventually settled on Wicca as the path I would take. I began digging deeply into lessons that these people offered, and taking to heart their teachings. Wicca taught me that I had a connection with the "Goddess" (yes, the "Goddess") because I was part of her. Everything, and everyone, was a part of her. I liked this. I studied, and in one year I received enough education to become a First Degree Priestess (the lowest degree of Priestess). I could take almost any role in their rituals and perform many smaller rituals on my own. The only problem with this was that I knew no one who would be interested in this. So, I was all alone in my beliefs, which I hated. I did not like knowing my family would not condone or support this decision. These experiences did show me something about myself though. I learned that I can be a disciplined person and can study on my own…so now I had no more excuses for not reading my Bible or praying when I had been attending church. I knew then that my problem was that I just didn’t want to.
I started to become very suspicious of what I was learning as I began my Second Degree priestess studies. I don’t know what I was wary of, but I knew that something was wrong. So, I stopped the studies. Simple as that, right? Wrong. I still had their beliefs embedded in my head, tainting anything I looked at. I became even more bitter because nothing seemed beautiful or good anymore. My depression of old came back with a vengeance. I ended up with not only depression, but also high blood pressure at age 22 as a reward for my torment and disbelief. I knew I needed help, so I started searching. I didn’t know what for, but I searched.
One day I thought that I should, perhaps, look at my old belief system and see if Christianity would be a good idea. I started reading my Bible and other online resources (I came across a great site – ChristianAnswers.net ). The web resource that I found was something I read a LOT, and it had answers for all of my questions and misconceptions. Finally, things were starting to make sense! I knew I was still missing some pieces, and my curiosity wouldn’t be satisfied until I knew what I needed, but it was a start. I continued to dig daily, and lights went on in my head. It was great!
The final piece of the puzzle fell into place when I came across the teachings of Ray Comfort, an evangelist featured on the Christian Answers web site. His words showed me that, if it was so easy to turn my back on God, how could I ever really have believed in Him? I couldn’t have. His words showed me that there was NOT ONE SINGLE command of God that I had kept – so how could I be a REALLY good person, let alone a Christian? Even having broken ONE commandment guarantees us a front row seat in Hell, because without obeying God TO THE LETTER, we are doomed to an eternity of suffering. This floored me – AND, to my dismay, he backed up everything he said with the direct Word found in the Bible. I felt SO doomed. I blew it, and I knew it. Big time.
Ray then made it clear just how much God’s perfect Son, Jesus Christ, did for ME when He was crucified. He took MY place, dying worse than a sinner’s death and paying MY price to God…HE TOOK MY PUNISHMENT SO THAT I WOULD NEVER HAVE TO BE PUNISHED!!! Wow. Those words STILL awe me. I knew then what I had to do. I needed to confess to God (even though He already knew) every sin I did, EVER. I needed to REALLY accept that Jesus did such a big thing for ME when He was crucified, and I needed to accept Jesus as my Savior, renouncing all things except God and Jesus His perfect Son – and the sooner I did this, the better. So, I did. Right then and there, one month ago, after about 6 months of searching.
I have NEVER felt such joy. My depression has totally turned around. My heart now beats regularly and strongly, and my blood pressure is normal. I feel strong. Now, in my heart, there is a burning desire to make sure that YOU, the reader, understand what I am saying. I pray that you do!
Once again, you have a choice. You can laugh at what I’ve said here, and surf away…OR you can read more on the next page. It is up to you!
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