Sheila’s Story Part 1

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Sheila’s Story Part 1

Part One:

Although church was part of my school life, and both my parents had had a ‘religious’ background, we never attended as a family. My Grandma was a real born-again Christian, though, and made sure I knew all about Jesus as a child! I knew Jesus was my Saviour, but he wasn’t my ‘Lord’. My real religion was pubs, clubs and astrology; I lived my life and even judged my friends and boyfriends according to their star signs!

But when life went badly wrong, astrology couldn’t help me. My parents split up, then a good friend died, the company I worked for relocated, my dad remarried and then my fledgling business failed! I was jobless and found these failures and changes difficult to cope with in such a breathtakingly short space of time. My nerves were shot, my confidence gone. I wondered – what’s the point of living?

And then Granny came to stay! She wanted to go to a Christian bookstore so I drove her to the book shop in Colchester. Whilst she browsed, I found an interesting book called I Dared to Call Him Father by Bilquis Sheikh. I was attracted to this testimony because it was by a woman who was divorced and we had just had a divorce in our family. As I read the book, I was astonished. Bilquis knew Jesus in reality. If it was possible to know him like this, I decided, I wanted to. So, when life really did seem bleak, I got down on my knees beside my bed and said ‘Jesus, if you’re really there, you handle my life because I can’t handle it any more.’ I got up a different person. 

If you would like to know more about what it means to be a Christian, please click here.