My Commitment

I was just six years old. Too young many would say to know what I was really doing. But I knew.

Growing up in a family that attended church every Sunday and where my parents practiced what they preached on Monday through Saturday also, I understood that Jesus loved everyone – even “sinners.”

I wasn’t totally sure what all being a sinner included, but I knew I was not one.

Until one evening at church, I recognized I was.

I was coloring during the sermon on a Sunday night when I heard the speaker say

We put sins into a “big” and a “small” category. But sin is sin regardless of how big or how small it seems.

He then mentioned what we call “small” sin – like lying or disobeying our parents. Now he had my attention. Just that week I had disobeyed my mother – and then lied to keep from getting in trouble.

I was a sinner!

Now many may laugh at this or even say how terrible to make a six-year-old feel she was a sinner.

But for me, it was one of the most important times in my life. Because I knew that Jesus loved sinners – and that He loved me. I also knew what I needed to do.

So – I went back to coloring and waited until the end of the sermon. When the message was over, I put my colors and my coloring book aside and walked to the front of the church where I asked Jesus not only to forgive me, but I also committed my life to His service.

Yes, I was only six, but yes I knew what I was doing.

Shortly after that I was baptized as an outward sign of what had taken place in my life. Our church did not have a baptismal so we went to a farm pond where I, with several others, was baptized.