New Life. Jehovah-Shalom: The Lord who fills and fulfills me

From the age of about 10 I began to wonder about what was beyond beyond, if there was a God and what happened after we died. Did we just become nothing again like before we were born?
It was 1968. I had shifted to Australia and most weekends my father took us to some interesting new place. One day I got stuck up a rocky cliff. I thought no-one would find me there and I couldn't get down. I thought, "I will believe in you God if you help me to get down.". But then I thought, "No I won't". So I jumped. I landed safely and was suddenly filled with happiness. I found myself saying thank you to God even though I did not believe in Him.

In the middle of that year I shifted with my family to Mt. Isa. I wrote a short story raising some of these questions. It was published in the Sunday Truth 15.9.68. A Christian wrote back to me. Click to view.

My athletics coach was a Christian too and used to take crowds of young people out to the dam and to the youth group that he ran. I asked him about the truth of what the Christian had written to me. He said it was true. One lunch time a Christian band arrived and played. I was one of the many who went to listen. A preacher - Phillips Tudor spoke as well and invited anyone who had questions to see him later. I loved a good argument so off I went. I argued all afternoon and felt quite pleased with myself as I thought I had won all the arguments. It was getting late - around 5 pm and the preacher at last said, "Do you want to know God or not?". I was rather taken aback as I did not know that you could know God. I asked him how you got to know Him. He said, "You need to ask God to forgive your sins". I had no idea what that meant, but I went away with the "formula".

All weekend I felt a nagging to say the "formula". Finally I did. I said "If you are out there God, forgive my sins". I waited but nothing happened, nothing except that the nagging stopped, which was disappointing because I had come to like that nag. The next time I saw the preacher I told him that I had done what he said but that nothing had happened when I said the words. He told me that something had happened and he was right. I no longer wanted to argue for one! It wasn't the "formula" - the words that did it. It takes two to make a new life. It was the combination of my yielding to the Holy spirit - to the nag or call of God's desire. Something miraculous had happened inside. The new life had begun as small and humanly invisible as conception often is. I wanted to know God and the journey had started.

John, my athletics coach invited me to go to the youth group and although my first reaction was no, I ended up going. During one of the meetings he asked the group if they thought it was important to read the bible. No-one answered except me and I said "No!". He didn't say anything and so I went away wondering if it was important or not. I decided to try. I started with the Old Testament and found it hard going after the first "chapter" or two, so I turned to the New Testament. This reading had a dramatic effect on me and the new life became noticeable. With another girl, we began an Inter School Christian Fellowship, which became so big that the adults decided that it needed adult leaders and we were displaced. This annoyed me so much that I did not go back.

In 1969, my parents became anxious and afraid that my "becoming religious" would result in insanity. They were worried because of the amount of time I spent singing Christian songs including ones that I made up to well known tunes....so they invited the local Anglican minister to come and talk to me. He tried to convince me that miracles didn't happen and that Mary was not a virgin when she conceived Jesus. To him Jesus had been humanly conceived and was not miraculous at all. My parents insisted that I stop going to the Baptist church because I wouldn't go to the Anglican church, where he ministered. This made me quite angry and argumentative, which I always regretted afterwards. After one very judgmental argument with my sister I felt a burden to apologize. I struggled with this idea and finally gave in and said I was sorry. The burden lifted and I found myself silently singing the song, "How Great Thou Art" and meaning it. Well it just so happened not long after, that someone told me about a new Anglican church that was opening in one of the new suburbs. I went to visit and found that the minister and his wife were evangelical and just lovely. They needed a musician and invited me to help with the music. There was a way around what had seemed to be an impasse.

In 1970 one of the members of the Baptist Church came and lent me a box of Christian books to read. They also impacted on my life, especially In His Step by C. M. Sheldon. This book encouraged me to think about what Jesus did and how I should live. I devoured the box of 26 books and even my art suddenly blossomed as I endeavored to visually express my new life. The money from my first sale (Living Waters) went to help with ministry to the underground church in China, as a result of the impact of Richard Wurmbrand's books "Tortured For Christ" and "The Underground Church" (which may not have sold at all if the buyer had thought the money would be going to a less worthy cause....at least this is what I thought at the time).

We shifted to Brisbane to be near my brother who was in hospital, miraculously recovering from a brain hemorrhage. I became the Interschool Christian Fellowship leader almost immediately. About six months later my mother said that I had to choose between schooling and athletics. I had been invited to join the Australian Olympic training squad in the past but my coach and mother had declined the invitation, although I did not know about the invitation at the time. My mother strongly advised me to choose education, although she said that they would pay for whichever I chose. So I did what my mother wanted and my parents sent me back to New Zealand to finish the last half year of my secondary schooling. A few days before I was to leave, two Finnish girl friends from Mt. Isa, were in Brisbane and invited me to a church meeting. It was very different from what I was used to. They suggested that I stay behind for prayer. I did. The leader prayed for me. I did not see or feel the cloud that the leader saw disappear, but afterwards I could hear wolves howling in the distance. I asked my friends if they could hear them, but they couldn't. Three days later as I was hanging out the washing I was suddenly filled with joy and for the first time felt love for God. I found myself singing a love song to God. I was my first experience of being full of the Holy Spirit.

When I arrived in New Zealand I immediately took on the leadership of the Interschool Christian Fellowship as there were no volunteers for the role at that time. I decided to honour my parents and do what they would have wanted me to do and so went to the nearest Anglican Church. Well it just so happened that they had the biggest group of young people around, with a wonderful bible teacher.....and the university Chaplain at that time was Anglican as well. One of the young people came around immediately and invited me to join. I went to the University Interdenominational Church service in the morning at his invitation (I was allowed to go because I was planning to go to University the following year) and the Anglican Church in the evening. Later that year I was confirmed in the Anglican church and a year or so later I was baptized at an independent Baptist church, that was baptizing by immersion many people from the local churches. Most of the young people also went to a Friday night "cell group" meeting that was held in the home of one of the adults. It was always packed out. We sang to guitars (including mine) and I felt the warm love, fellowship and bonding of a very homogenous group.