The Best Day!

I grew up going to church every Sunday, went through confirmation classes at the age of 12 and became a member of the church.  I received a Methodist "sprinkling" and remember thinking, "I'm going through with this now so that I don't have to attend those confirmation classes again!"  I had few thoughts about God, really, and certainly knew very little about the Bible.  As a teenager I just went to school, tried to fit in, and followed what others were doing to some extent.  Fortunately, I wasn't popular with the boys and I gagged when I tried cigarettes!  In August of 1975, the summer before my junior year in high school, I was invited to attend two weeks of summer camp at Northern PInes Christian Conference in Wisconsin with the Stanislav's.  It was two weeks of being with counselors and other teenagers (no one I knew) having fun, playing volleyball, times of individual reflection and prayer, singing around the campfire, studying the Bible, hiking around Lake Geneva and having discussions.  Two thoughts kept racing through my mind those weeks:  1. I know very little about the Bible.  2.  These people are different from my friends back home.  Whatever these people had I knew I didn't have.  Over that two week period I finally came to understand that God loved me and sent His Son to free me from the penalty of sin and that I could have a relationship with him now and forever.  One day while having our individual "quiet time" I talked to God for the first time in a meaningful way.  I told God that I now knew I was a sinner and needed his forgiveness, that I believe Jesus died, was buried and was resurrected and that I wanted to let him have control of my life.  That was THE BEST DAY!  A few days later when I was in a boat with some of my counselors I told them about  my decision!  They were so happy for me!  My aunt and uncle were happy for me too!


I went home.  I followed the advice of my counselors and began to study the Bible more and pray regularly. I told some friends and family about Jesus. My thinking and attitudes began to change.  My circle of friends began to change and I began attending a Bible study for teenagers. Time has continued on but I'll always remember that Best Day when the Lord began to fill my life with lasting peace and purpose.

1 Peter 1:3-8

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!  In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade--kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.  In this you greatly rejoice, through now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.  These have come so that your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even thought refined by fire--may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.  Though you have not seen him, you love him, and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.