A girl & her father

I was 5 years old the first time I remember thinking about God. I was in the bath tub, "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" was playing on my boom box while I played with my hundreds of Polly Pockets. My mom and I had always talked about God and how he loves me, and how if I wanted something I can just pray to him. I recited "Now I Lay Me, Down to Sleep" every night asking God if he could maybe resurrect my kitten that had recently got run over, but it wasn't until that moment that I really wondered just who God really was.

To a kid, trying to imagine a guy in the sky with a map of the world in his hand, including itty bitty me chilling in my bathtub, was a difficult thing to do. And honestly today as an adult, it still is! The biggest question I had amongst the bubbles and lukewarm water was, "why?"

"Why God? Why does he love me? Why is he so big? Why does he hear all my thoughts but I can't hear him?" And most importantly, "Is the tooth fairy one of his angels?" A million questions flooded through my mind that day but little did I know it'd take years for me to find some answers.

Flash forward to 8 years old. Picture pigtails, big cheeks, and an even bigger attitude. It was a hot summer’s day, I was sitting in the back seat of a SUV, and for the first time I heard Revelation, or at least a convoluted version of it. And boy did I have questions. My first being, "What?" As a kid whose biggest fear was the Grinch, hearing how God would destroy the earth and wipe out anyone who didn't say a specific prayer word for word, became my biggest nightmare. I ended that day by bawling my eyes out for hours and the questions came back. "Why would he do this? Why doesn't he love me? Why can't I go to heaven?" I kept asking my mom why she would even tell me about God in the first place, if he didn't even love me enough to keep me around. I ended up resenting God for the next couple of years and became too afraid to pray to him before bed. I'd roll my eyes at the mention of his name and toss and turn for hours at night, thinking about how all at once all my family would be gone and I'd be left behind because God didn't want me.

What I needed to hear was the truth. I didn't know what being saved meant, I didn't understand why Jesus had died on the cross, and I definitely had no idea what Revelation was, except that evidently it was all supposed to happen in 2012 and I'd be lucky to make it to high school.

I was 13 when my questions were answered. Sitting in the back of a smelly junior high youth group with overgrown bangs and an open heart, I chose to trust and follow the Lord with all my life. I was 17 when I got baptized and dedicated my life to serving him and to carry out his mission. I'm 19 now, and while I don't have all the answers, I do have the most important one.

God is the almighty Lord and the creator of all. God loves me because I am His daughter, His beautiful and perfect creation; worthy and full of purpose. If I choose to listen, he is always speaking to me through his word, his people, and prayer. His mission is to find all his lost children and bring them home. His purposes and His character are perfect, holy, righteous, and just. When I trusted him as my Savior, he gave me eternity with him. And yes, the tooth fairy is an angel. She's also my mom.