I’ve never attended church regularly. For many years I had known that there is God, but I didn’t know who He is, what He did for me, or what Jesus did for me. I didn’t know Him. I didn’t think I needed Him in my life.
I thought I was good on my own. I’ve made a lot of bad things that I feel shame and embarrassment now. I was lying, I was hurting other people (including close ones), and I was selfish. I didn’t like that, but I couldn’t stop.
One day at school, one of my teachers had a private conversation with me. It was something related to the subject she taught. At the end of that conversation, she said one thing that I still remember. She said “you wear a cross around your neck, but you don’t behave according to the cross. Think about that” (in orthodox, it’s common to wear a crucifix around a neck. It’s usually given when we get baptized as children).
I felt so embarrassed. I started to think about my behavior. It didn’t change immediately. I would say I continued to do many of the same bad things I was doing before. But I felt that I needed to change, that I had to change, I wanted to change. At some point, I started to feel as if I was driven. I can’t explain that feeling. It was a kind of feeling that someone started to lead me (or had always been leading me, and it was me who was resisting all the time before). But this time I wasn’t that resistant.
And I started to change. It wasn’t a sudden change in one moment. It started to happen gradually (and it’s still happening).
It felt like I got the ability to feel what is wrong and what is right. Or that my eyes had been closed on such things before that moment.
I started to pray occasionally thanking God for the good things happening in my life. But looking back to this time, I understand that I still didn’t really know God and wasn’t fully conscious of what I was doing then.
Then the war came to my town in 2014. I started to think more about God. I was feeling like something was missing in my life. And that had always been like that before, I just didn’t see that.
I like someone’s saying that we all have a hole in our hearts. This hole has the shape of Jesus. And no one and nothing can close this hole except for Jesus, no one and nothing can fill the emptiness in that hole except for Jesus.
In a local chat, a group of people suggested praying for peace at a certain time. Like everyone on their one at their homes. And I joined them. I started praying almost every day. I didn’t know what to say, so I was asking for what was worrying me the most then - I was asking God to stop the war and to bring peace to our country.
I know He heard me even though I wasn’t close to Him. And He helped me to go through that difficult time.
I think it was 2016 when I was feeling lonely and a little depressed. This emptiness in my heart felt heavier than it had been before. And one evening I saw a video on YouTube with a blogger doing a review of apps installed on his smartphone. He mentioned that he was using the Bible app (from YouVersion as I got to know later) and it was the first app he would install on his every smartphone. I wanted to know more about God and it seemed to be a perfect moment to do that.
I found the app the same evening, installed it, and started reading the Bible in chronological order that the app had. I started from the Old Testament. I hadn’t ever read the Bible before that moment. At first, I was a little confused as there were no stories and people I was aware of. But I had a feeling that I need to continue. And I read both the Old Testament and the New Testament. Even though I didn’t understand most of what I read, many things became clear to me. I like Michael’s comparison to the state I had before that moment. It was like walking in a dark forest alone, not knowing the direction, the purpose, and any hope.
But after I started reading the Bible, after I started to know more about Jesus and God, everything changed forever for me.
I’ve been reading verses from the Bible almost every day since then.
I’ve got an understanding of who God is, and who Jesus is. That we’ve all sinned. I sinned. That sin means death and separation from God. And I also learned that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, Jesus, to save every one of us. That Jesus paid the price for our sins, for my sins. The price that no one would ever be able to pay, except for Him. God offered us a way through Jesus and His sacrifice to be saved from our sins. All we need is to repent of our sins (from the whole heart!) and surrender our lives to Him.
And I did that. It happened after the MGI offline course that took place in Zaporizhia in 2018.
I opened my heart to Jesus, I repented of my sins, and I declared Jesus as my LORD and Savior.
My life has changed since then. God has changed my life, and my perception, He changed my view on what is really important in my life. Who is important.
I’m still learning a lot about God through His Word and through the people He surrounded me with. And I’m so grateful that He changed my life, turned me to Him, and showed me who He is despite who I was and who I am!
I want to serve Him all my life and use everything He gave me to do that.