Looking up as I walk up the stairs to the youth room, I feel a sense of peace as I hear the sounds of friendly conversation and joyful laughs surround me. As I reach the top of the stairs there is an area with three couches, each seat filled with a person beaming with a smile. Looking around, I decide this is where I belong.
When I chose to live my life through Christ, I was never prepared for the joyful people nor experiences it would bring me. In a society surrounded by sinful natures, joining a church was like a breath of fresh air in a sinking ship slipping further toward the ocean floor.
I still remember my first day going to church when I decided it was time for a change. Although I was nervous, every single person I was introduced to was full of this radiating energy that gave me comfort and made me want to involve them in my everyday life. I cannot describe the emotions that came over me, I just had never experienced something so uplifting.
Since that day, I have been baptized and have gone to church at every opportunity possible. It has been five months since I first joined the church, and it is now something I look forward to every Wednesday and Sunday. The valuable lessons it brings me are like no other lessons I have ever learned. It is so wonderful, the things you can learn and the moments you can enjoy in a church. I will never say I regret becoming a follower of Christ because that relationship has picked me up and put me together when everything else of this world has torn me apart.
I know for most people changing everything for a better purpose can be hard to understand because why would you choose to uproot everything in your life for something that may not be real, but to them I would say, you have not experienced the true presence of God, because once you have, it is so wonderful and full of joy that you will want to give up everything because that feeling you have is real, and you get to experience that because of God. That is not to say it will be easy, but it is a choice you will never regret making.
I know that church has brought me to such amazing people and has allowed me to connect with people who I have always aspired to be like, and that is why it is truly special to me. It is truly outstanding the way people in a church smile with ease when they talk, as if nothing can touch them, it is so illuminating and it draws you in, you can never utterly understand how graceful it is until you see it for yourself. I know it changed me when I experienced it.
Ultimately, even in a world mixed with believers and unbelievers, Christ is the one thing that has pushed me forward. I know even if every other person refuses to hear me out or take the opportunity to understand the peace my heavenly father has brought me, it will not matter one difference to me. They have not walked in my shoes, so I do not expect them to fully understand, but I can only hope one day others can join a church and experience the same things I have and not be discouraged by those who falsely represent themselves as Christians, or even those who have chosen to live separate from God.
