(My spirited baby sister is currently at Bible College in Austria. After a week of gender discussions, and even more gender stereotypes, she anonymously posted this on the school bulletin board. I love her.)

“ALL MY SINGLE LADIES:

Here’s some food for thought after a week full of gender-centered discussion. I propose we quit asking ourselves what our role is in relation to men, and start asking ourselves who we are and who we want to be in relation to God and to the world. While we are leading young and single lives, why don’t we step into our intellect, our ambitions, and our talents? Let’s cross the dating/marriage bridge when we come to it. Let’s not live as though marriage is the ultimate goal. Let’s be quirky and weird and let God handle the rest.

I think that ‘LABELS ARE FOR JARS, NOT FOR PEOPLE’, and it’s time to quit worrying, to start loving yourself, to be different, to go barefoot, to think about bigger things, to make your dreams reality, to do something drastic, to be loud, to surprise yourself, to put an end to tragic stereotypes, TO SPREAD YOUR ARMS WIDE AND LOOK TO THE STARS AND SMILE BIG AT GOD, to rip off the labels that are holding you down and jump into the river.”

(My kid sister sure does have a way with words. Enjoy.)

By Kate Schwartz

I’ve always believed in God. I am biologically programmed to believe in something bigger than what I see—something mystical, something with meaning and truth. And I’ve always known about Jesus. I first learned about him when I was 6, at a Christian elementary school. I believed in his life, teaching, death, and resurrection for my entire childhood and teenage years. But I cannot think of any specific time that I sat down and formally asked for God’s forgiveness or for him to be the core of my life. I cannot remember ever becoming a Christian in the technical sense.

Looking back, I think I know why I avoided “praying the prayer” that was supposed to secure my place in the Kingdom of God. Initially it was because I assumed that God understood that I believed he was there, so I didn’t need to officially tell him. But as I got older and heard the gospel more and more, it became clear that this was something everyone who wants to have eternal life after death should do. Still, I avoided it—this time because I liked God and Jesus and the idea that someone created me for something meaningful; but I didn’t like the exclusivity and uniformity of Christianity. The word “Christian” made me cringe. I think I subconsciously feared that, if I gave in and officially “became a Christian”, I would lose my personality and I would have to start telling people who believed other things that they were wrong. I didn’t want either of those things.

So I believed in God and talked to God and experienced God’s guidance (because I am biologically programmed to do these things), but I avoided calling myself a Christian as inconspicuously as I could.

Then, one day, God guided me to Capernwray Bible School, and over a period of six months, these issues were forced to the front of my mind. Listening to lectures, reading books, reading the Bible, and attempting to write out my testimony all made me reevaluate and think critically about God and my life.

When Capernwray ended I spent part of Spring Break with my grandparents who are atheists. The conversations we had were fascinating. I was intrigued to hear about their worldview. Along with these discussions came questions and doubts about my beliefs. I found myself deciding to start over, in a sense. I came to the conclusion to quit looking for God and to let him find me if he wanted to, if he was out there. I didn’t voice this decision; I just decided it. Since I still had 8 weeks of Bible School ahead of me (to be spent at the campus in Austria) I knew I couldn’t just toss my Bible aside and start fresh, so I told myself that these two months would be objective research. And that’s what the first three weeks were.

Until a gloomy Saturday afternoon.  

I was sitting by a tree reading a short story that Anne Frank wrote. Two of the characters in her story had a conversation about God, and it struck me. So I sought out a friend from Capernwray who had also transferred to the Austrian campus for Spring School, and who seems solid in his faith. I asked to hear his testimony. (More research, I thought). But his words affected me more than I expected. My chest started to feel heavy as he spoke, as if Jesus was closing in on me. I got upset and swore a little bit because this was not what I was looking for, and the last thing I wanted to do was cry.

Then one of the staff members came up to us, and he ended up sharing his testimony as well. I barely held it together while he talked—his testimony was eerily similar to mine—and as soon as he walked away I broke down, eventually admitting that I thought I needed to pray to God and ask him to forgive me and to take over my life for real. I admitted that I’d been avoiding doing this for a long time and explained why.

My friend listened to me, and suggested that we pray right then. I said I didn’t want to because I was still skeptical and embarrassed. But he told me that I didn’t need to be, and he was quite frank in pointing out that some of my thoughts were just me being overly critical of myself. (I often need people to tell me these things). After some time I prayed what was probably the most genuine prayer of my life, made complete with tears and snot.

I don’t think I wasn’t saved before I said that prayer; I just think that now when I am dubious of or confused by this faith in Jesus Christ, I don’t have to give up and wait for God to prove himself to me. Now I can revert back to childlike faith and be at peace with being a mystic, which is what I believe someone has to be if they believe in love.

And the next time I have doubts, which I know I will, I will pray for God to remind me of the time he overwhelmed me on that gloomy afternoon. I will pray for God to remind me of the hopeless, sinking feeling I got when I contemplated taking on my grandparents’ godless perspective. I will pray for God to make the Bible an electric read whenever I open it. And I will pray for God to make my heart beat synonymously with his, pulsing with the same love that conquered death.