God Changed My Mind

I became a Christian 31 years ago at the age of 33. I sat in the pews at church for 2 years because my daughter wanted to go to church. At that point, I believed in God but just wasn’t convinced it was for me. I had many doubts, so I sat in the pew, enjoyed the music and listened to the sermons. It was the music that eventually moved me to accept Jesus. Although I had been to church occasionally, I had never been regularly in my whole life. So God changed my mind. I jumped in with both feet determined to figure out how to become a good Christian. I totally relied on the church to give me that knowledge.

I suppose that was a good beginning. I became heavily involved in Children’s Ministries. It was interesting how much I learned teaching the children. They would ask a question I didn’t have an answer for and I would go on a hunt for an answer for them. I truly loved working with the kids and it did help me to start developing my understanding of doctrine. The more I got involved in the church, the more I became steeped in their doctrine and religious traditions. I eventually developed a hard-line of right and wrong. Defining things as “religious” and “not religious”.

Eventually I changed churches and learned how much I didn’t know. I got even more involved in the church and trying to learn more about what God wanted in my life. It was very much a growing experience under the guidance of a wonderful pastor. One of the important things I learned there was that there are different interpretations of the Bible and even if I didn’t agree, I could understand. Believe it or not, a new notion for me. It started helping me be more open-minded in my studies, my dealings with other people, and my world view. One of the things Pastor Holley always said was, “Know what you believe and why you believe it”. I sat in his ministry class for a few years and learned how to dig deeper in the Bible to decide what god was actually trying to say. So God changed my mind. But I was still very self-righteous in my way of thinking and evaluating any given situation.

Around 2000, I started having issues with my brain…headaches, memory problems and confusion mostly. It turned out I had an arachnoid cyst in my right temporal lobe. Also about that time, my grandson was born. He was sick a lot but we didn’t know what was wrong until he was 4 years old. It turned out he was not only Autistic but had Bone Marrow Failure. It mostly effected the shape of his platelets and formation of white cells. The shortage of white cells caused the many infections he was getting. As you can imagine, doctor’s and hospital visits filled the following years. Until I eventually found myself so busy I couldn’t even stop to think. I was on the church board, still doing ministry classes, Director of Children’s ministry, homeschooling CJ because he got sick too much in public school, helping my brother with his bookkeeping, working full-time, and still getting CJ and myself to all our doctor’s appointments. It left little time for personal Bible study and prayer. If God tries to tell you something but you refuse to listen, He will eventually put you in a situation where you have to reassess. I got so busy, I stopped going to get my MRI to check my cyst every year. In 2013, my world did not only get shook up…it came crashing down.

I had a heart attack on August 30, 2013. In September, I was back in the hospital with kidney failure. In November, I finally had another MRI and they found a small tumor near the cyst. They couldn’t do anything with it then because of the blood thinners I was on because of the heart attack. So in June of 2014, I had brain surgery. No malignancy at least. So needless to say, suddenly I had a lot of time on my hands. It was a long recovery and during that recovery time, I lost my job. I had to go on disability. During that time, I was a wreck. My thinking was not fully recovering and the docs didn’t know why. I had periods of time when I would get better, and convinced it would be fine. I was very happy for a time when I thought I would just start over, make a brand new life…for many reasons. But as time wore on, I realized I would not be able to start over and do the things I wanted because I was having trouble driving again. So God changed my mind. Just recently, in 2019, I was diagnosed with the beginning stages of vascular dementia. This was a drastic change in my mind.

One of the things that I found out with all the testing is that I had a very high IQ. I always knew that I relied heavily on my mind in life, but until then, I didn’t know that I relied more on my mind than I did God. When I think back, I never truly relied on God for everything because there was always a backup plan. If things didn’t go the way I wanted, I always could think my way through things myself instead of leaning on God. And, of course, that usually sent me off running in the wrong direction. Now that my mind was a little more open, God started showing me how to live a better life even though I had lost so much. So God began to change my mind even more.

For one thing, He showed me that a less affluent life is not necessarily a worse life. Living on disability is not easy, but God has never let me go without my needs. He has become my provider because I am not in a place for being too proud to accept God’s help. Trust me, disability is not enough to live on so I am not as stubbornly independent anymore. Second, the years that I spent in recovery, I had a lot of time to think, pray and study my Bible. God began opening His heart to me and show me a new way to worship Him. Oh, I still sing and praise, but I also worship Him with my life. I am looking deeper to get to know Him more fully so I can learn and live the life I should. The third thing He showed me was that someone else’s path may not look like mine. He opened my eyes to how hurtful it is when you reject someone because of their beliefs. Yes, I believe in the Trinity and know that Jesus is necessary for our salvation. Sometimes when we are trying to navigate this maze called life, we take many wrong turns. But if we seek diligently, we will find our way because God will call us out by name. I have faith that He will show Himself to anyone who is truly seeking, even if they are searching in the wrong direction. Sometimes I think some Christians get a feeling of superiority because we have found the one true way. I hate to differ, but God showed me that we have not found the way. Without Him calling to each of us personally, we never would have found Him. We’re just not that smart, folks. So God changed my mind.

And then God gave me another wonderful gift. Instead of changing my mind, He brought me back to a very old idea. When I was a teenager, trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, I knew what I loved and what I could do. What I loved was horses and art. I knew how to do math. So my choices were find a horse ranch that was willing to teach me or go to art, engineering, or accounting school. I had this wonderful, logical brain and little self-confidence. Horses were out because I felt stupid to even ask someone to teach me and let me work on their ranch. I had no confidence that I was  talented enough to make it in art school. I didn’t think I was smart enough for engineering, so off to business school I went to study accounting. Ugh! Worst decision ever! So now I’m faced with a huge empty life ahead with nothing to fill my time. God’s answer for that is to go back to music, writing and art. I have very little skill in any of these things, but they make me happy and offer a ministry opportunity while I continue on this journey to find God’s heart. I’m so glad God changed my mind.