Bleepholes

The title of this post is censored, of course, and I will use the censored version of this word throughout this post. (The actual word rhymes with massholes.) I'm going to use this post to solidify something in writing that I've been processing in my head for a while. It might get pretty emo, but I hope to be as civil as possible (hence my self-censoring). I may also repeat some things that I've mentioned in previous posts, but I'll try to repackage it here and keep it interesting. If this is the type of thing that you'd rather not read, I understand, and I look forward to seeing you next time. Otherwise, thanks in advance for reading.

I've noticed that almost every time a pastor explains during a sermon how to get saved, I go through a mini faith crisis. This past weekend, my pastor shared part of his testimony (e.g., his story of how he became a Christian), and I'm glad he did. It's an awesome story. In his case, he prayed a salvation prayer when he was a little boy, but he really didn't get saved until he was an adult. I think one reason why he's very deliberate about sharing his testimony in church is just in case there are many other people like him who think they're saved, they prayed a prayer when they were kids and now they go to church a lot, but they're really not saved. His sermons are wonderful opportunities for people to get right with God, even though they thought they already were.

I usually double-check, triple-check, quadruple-check, infinity-check with God. I ask Jesus to be my Lord, to take control, to save me, etc., and He snickers because I already have. I hound Him until He assures me yet again that I really did get saved when I did. Then I'm at peace again. I think during each mini faith crisis, He strips away more and more junk from inside and helps me see things a bit more clearly. Each time, He tells me to not doubt my salvation anymore. Each time, it gets easier. I hope to not go through this again, but if I do, I know He won't slap me away.

I heard one pastor give a great analogy to this. Doubting your salvation can be like looking down at your wedding ring and asking your spouse, who you've been married to for years, "Honey, did we get married?" In that instance, one thing that would probably chase the doubt away would be all the witnesses who showed up at your ceremony and cheered you on.

I think that's a huge part of my problem. I didn't have witnesses during my ceremony. I had bleepholes who didn't show up when they were supposed to.

I grew up in a hyper-religious Pharisaical pastor's household. We attended a Baptist church every week, so I heard the plan of salvation numerous times. It finally clicked for me one evening when an evangelist explained a matter of life or death. I don't remember his exact words (they may have been in Spanish), but he said that anyone who isn't saved, anyone who doesn't give his or her life to Jesus, will go to hell.

I was 8 years old when I marched up to the altar one evening in response to this evangelist's message. I knelt at the altar and closed my eyes. Then my birth father (who was the pastor) approached me. He asked, "Where is Jesus now?" Perhaps it was because of my religious background, or perhaps it was because I was taught that lying was OK, or perhaps it was the fact that I was a snot-nosed little 8-year-old bleephole. I'm not sure exactly which reason drove me to reply this, but I replied falsely, "In my heart."

I didn't pray anything. I didn't believe anything. I didn't submit anything. I didn't yield anything. Nothing happened except that I knelt, I pointed to my heart, and I knew exactly how I was supposed to respond. I was still lost.

But I was presented to the church as somebody who had gotten saved.

I think it may have been at this point that I kept hearing this really annoying nudge telling me that everyone needed to get saved except me. (I'm pretty sure this was a demonic nudge.)

The next morning, my birth mother explained that now I needed to get baptized and that I could partake in the Lord's Supper. Um... excuse me? Baptized? I didn't know how to swim, and I was deathly afraid of water.

So, during the next two years, my birth parents mounted a fierce baptism campaign. Every time there was an altar call at church, I would avoid it. During one service in August, the pastor (my birth father) told all the children who would be starting school again to come to the altar for prayer. Of course, my baptismphobia kept me glued to my seat until the pastor called me by name on the microphone and told me to come to the altar.

When I was 10 years old, my birth parents pressured me to finally make a decision to get baptized. So, I they escorted me to the altar. Soon after that, a children's counselor from my church made an appointment to meet with me at my house on a Thursday night.

That Thursday night, I knew she would be coming, and I knew I wasn't saved. Meanwhile, my birth mother was at work, and my birth father was looking after us. I think perhaps my younger sibling was occupied somewhere at home.

So, if memory serves correctly, I curled up in my favorite chair in front of the TV where a rerun of One Day at a Time was being broadcast. Being the multitasker that I am, while I was watching TV and waiting for the church counselor to arrive, I prayed the salvation prayer that I knew I was supposed to pray. (The demonic nudge finally stopped.)

The counselor arrived around 7 p.m. that night and asked me when I got saved. I was like, "Just a few minutes ago," to the surprise of my birth father, who thought I got saved two years previously. Then he baptized me the following Saturday.

I think a couple of huge things in my life indicated that I really did get saved in that chair when I was 10 years old. 1) When I was in the 4th grade, I used to cheat on tests and cover my tracks. But when I was in the 5th grade, after I got saved, I stopped cheating, and I aimed to be as honest as possible. 2) I'm pretty sure the devil began to target me for attack even when I was a little girl, even with depression that early. When I was in the 5th grade, I remember sitting around one day and saying aloud, "I'm not good for anything except feeling sorry for myself." I'm sure God heard me yammering that nonsense, because the next day, my class spontaneously had a spelling bee, and I won with the word s-u-c-c-e-s-s.

Then after I went off to college at age 18, I got baptized in the Holy Spirit and I started learning how to worship with music and how to hear God's voice, and the changes in my life were so dramatic that it was as if I had gotten saved all over again. (I told my birth parents that I had "rededicated my life" because it's kindasorta what had happened and also because I didn't want them to freak out.)

Then after I disowned/disinherited myself from my birth parents 3 years ago, my obedience opened the floodgates to even more dramatic changes in my life which made it seem as if I had gotten saved all over yet again. (Keith Green had similar mega-dramatic life moments. Is this just a hyper-sensitive artsy-fartsy thing?)

So, after this weekend's sermon when I was working through the inevitable "Am I really saved?" storm, which happened to be tonight, Jesus nailed down for me yet again that He met me for the first time when I was 10 years old, while I was curled up in that chair on a Thursday night. On August 14, 1986, I decided that I needed to be honest, and Jesus was like, "It's about time."

I still own that chair. I shared a photo of it a few paragraphs up. It's an incredibly old, surprisingly still-in-one-piece chair where my cats nap in my living room, so there isn't anything special about that chair. Except that it's the place that I happened to be sitting where I finally told Jesus OK.

"And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart." (Jeremiah 29:13)

"Then, six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus was who had been dead, whom He had raised from the dead. There they made Him a supper; and Martha served, but Lazarus was one of those who sat at the table with Him. Then Mary took a pound of very costly oil of spikenard, anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil. But one of His disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, who would betray Him, said, 'Why was this fragrant oil not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?' This he said, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief, and had the money box; and he used to take what was put in it." (John 12:1-6)

Sigh. It's hard to find Jesus when you're surrounded by bleepholes who are blocking your efforts and who don't understand what you're trying to do.

As my birth parents, who also happened to be the pastors, these people had an extremely important responsibility to shepherd me into Jesus' arms for the first time. At the very least, they could have double-checked, triple-checked, quadruple-checked, infinity-checked with me to make sure I knew what I was doing -- so that I wouldn't have to do it myself decades later. They spent their lives sharing the gospel with people, but they completely missed many chances to share the gospel (and I don't just mean read a tract) with their child and make sure she understood the importance of its message. Instead, they were bleepholes, and I got saved in spite of them.

I was a neglected, uncherished little girl who got saved in the same way that she lived most of her life: alone, unassisted, taken for granted. So, the Lion of Judah snuck in that way and snatched me away into His arms forever. Yeah, He knew what He was doing. He always does.

I guess I can't be too hard on my birth parents. I'm honestly not convinced that my birth mother is saved. And my birth father is in such tremendous bondage to religion that it's a miracle he's still breathing. So, they truly didn't know what they were doing, and I forgive them.

Lately while I've been looking for a job, I've applied at a couple of churches/ministries. (Their application processes are very vigorous, I might add.) When they get to the "How did you get saved?" portion of the application, I briefly explain that I got saved when I was 10 years old while I was watching a TV sitcom. If anyone asks me how I know I'm saved, I reply something to the effect of, "Because I know Him. He's my Friend."

Yeah, that's right. Lonely Little Bleephole Rescued By Lion. Film at 11.