SOUND WORDS

Samantha's baptism

My grandparents, aunt, uncle, and cousins on the day of my cousin Bob's baptism.

Believers baptism--  Grace, Mary, Wayne

I was baptized as an infant at St. Paul's Methodist church in Spokane.  I remember claiming John 3:16 as a young child and knowing that I believed.  Then at 15, after attending Confirmation Class at Calvary Presbyterian church in Alexandria, VA., and attending church camp, God began convicting me of my sin. I wrote down the sins I was struggling with.  I  put 2 sheets of what I had written behind the mirror over my dresser in my room. They caught in the paper backing and stayed there all through my parent's moves.  When my dad passed away 45 years later I took the mirror to hang in my home.  The backing tore and the 2 sheets of paper fell out.  I saw what sins I was struggling with then.  They were in line with the sins I struggle with now!

Even with all of this background I was biblically illiterate.  My husband, Chris, challenged me.  He said, "You don't know why you believe what you believe." I asked the Lord to make me love studying the Bible.  He did!  Now, after 40 years of studying the Bible I can defend my faith.  I know "why I believe what I believe."  

The "Sound Words" or the "Good News" is much easier to explain to others now.  I am no longer a sheeple--"People who are meekly submissive or easily swayed.  People who unquestioningly accept as true whatever their political leaders say or who adopt popular opinion as their own without scrutiny."  I check to see how different issues line up with the Word of God.  I read and memorize God's Word so that I can discern good and evil. I pray that every Christian will study the Bible and use the Gospel as a plumb line.