A few hours after the shortest day and the longest night of the darkest moon, the sun rose, and I was born — a premie, a month too early, because I wanted to see my first Christmas.

When I was very young, I became aware of God’s existence and that He was watching over me. Sometimes I wonder if I knew Him even before they put me in a Christmas stocking. Around age three, I would play in our driveway, afraid to look up because God was so great. Even then, I knew He cared for me, protected me, and loved me.

At some point, I realized that if He chose to love me, then He must be safe to talk to. So by age four, I began speaking to Him.

I was a little boy, overwhelmed by God's greatness, yet drawn to His warmth and hiding in His shadow. I whispered my secrets to Him because I knew He was listening. Soon I began giving Him my small cares, and eventually my concerns.

And what concerns they were. Because of the way people talked about God, I wondered if anyone truly knew who He was. Surely, if they knew Him, they would speak of Him differently.

So when others talked about God, I listened to see if they understood who He was. Then I would pray for them and others with a heavy heart. Over time, those prayers grew more intense.

Not long after my fifth birthday, our church held a New Year’s Eve gathering. Near midnight, the auditorium was almost empty; most people were downstairs eating cake and drinking punch. But I was playing under the pews.

A man who wanted to be a preacher stepped up to the podium to practice a sermon. He chose to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I listened enough to follow along.

He preached about how everyone was lost in their sins and needed to be holy, perfect in order to come to God. The only Way to be Saved Eternally is to come to God and accept His Gift of love for us.

He spoke of how all people are lost in sin and must be holy to come to God. The only way to be saved is to accept God’s gift of love. He preached that Jesus is God manifested as a perfect man — lived a sinless life because no one else could. He said Jesus willingly died on the cross, taking upon Himself the sins of the world because He loved us.

Somehow, I knew everything he said was true. That was my God he was describing. This was exactly what He would do. This gift of love was what my God would offer to anyone who would receive it.

But while the man preached, I was listening to Someone higher. God’s Spirit was reaching down to comfort a lost little boy who had just been found.

If I remember correctly, I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior before the man gave an invitation. I repented of my sins — as much as a child could understand — knowing that sin meant disobeying God and not listening to Him.

Many would say I was a Christian at that moment, but I knew something was missing. The Spirit told me that to be a true Christian, I needed to give my life to Christ — all of it.

I thought about it for a few minutes. Did I really want to do that? I was thinking in terms of forever: past, present, and future. I didn’t know if it was possible, but I believed God could make it possible. So I trusted Him and gave Him my life.

I was just a small child crying, “Here I am, Lord; save me.”

At that moment, my spirit came to life. The Lord’s Spirit entered me and comforted me, answering every question I had about salvation.

I wanted to tell someone, but the man had left. So I ran out of the auditorium and found a man in a suit. I told him I had accepted Christ and given my life to Him. He wasn’t sure whether to believe me, so he began asking questions and explaining salvation. I listened to see if he understood what God had done.

He told me I needed to be baptized and explained what baptism represented. I didn’t want to be baptized because I felt I already had been — baptized into the Spirit of God, the only true baptism. But he said God commanded it, so I obeyed. They baptized me the next week.

As I learned to read, I began reading the Bible. The small dictionary in the back wasn’t enough, so I kept a large Webster’s dictionary beside me. When I reached Isaiah — and especially Jeremiah — I was startled. Their words echoed the very prayers I had been praying. Not always word‑for‑word, but the same heart, the same meaning.

Then I reached Lamentations, and in some places the prayers matched exactly. Other times the wording differed only because I didn’t pray in King James English, and I wasn’t praying for Jerusalem or Israel specifically, but for what one might call true Israel — God’s people as He sees them.

From then on, I read the bible with a 1942 Webster’s Dictionary on one side and a Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance on the other.

This is how my life in Christ began. I wasn’t perfect, and I didn’t have good examples to follow. The road ahead would be rough.

~ Shawn Driscoll

Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen.