I am three years old when my parents take me up the stairs to my new Sunday School classroom and say goodbye. Uncertain, I survey the room. I see a familiar face playing with blocks and run over to her. Despite the new surroundings, I am now settled. After playing for a bit, the teacher, who dons a long, denim skirt and wears her long, gray hair in a simple braid, beckons us over to a small sitting area. My legs dangle off the orange plastic chair. The teacher angles her own seat to face us and the large flannelgraph board displayed on an easel. She begins telling the story of Lazarus and the rich man. One suffers in his life, but is faithful to God. She places a bedraggled man covered in sores on the board. The other enjoys the pleasures of this world. She smooths out the flannel piece of a man dressed in purple and adorned with gold. The beggar dies, but! She pauses, pulling out the next image to display. Angels come down to bring him to heaven. She moves him up into the blue felt sky among white robed men with wings. She continues; the rich man also dies. My heart sinks as she pulls the green grass off the board and replaces it with a dark and fiery picture of the rich man suffering. His face drips with sweat and contorts into a painful expression. I am frightened. He looks up at Lazarus and begs Abraham to help him. No! It is too late. I hear her say as I study the tormented scene. He asks him to help his brothers. I have a brother. No! I am filled with fear and cannot hear her well-meaning conclusion of the story — that Christ died for us because He loves us. We need to accept Him over riches and pleasures before it is too late. The flannelgraph is peeled away, but I am left with the image of eternal suffering. We are then ushered to the other side of the room for a snack of graham crackers and water.

I am six years old when I, like usual, sit in the sanctuary of our children’s ministry on a Sunday morning. The walls are decorated like a movie theatre and posters line the wall. Instead of the newest feature films, they advertise the simplistic liturgy of an evangelical kid in the early 2000s. I need to make the wise choice! I should treat others the way I want to be treated! I can trust God no matter what! I listen to the lesson as I feel the black circle carpet grains underneath me with my small hands. The teacher explains why we can trust Him no matter what. The death and resurrection of Christ is real and true, done to save me from a life of sin and eternal separation from Him. I left church believing it to be true. I stepped into the framework of faith given to me willingly. This is what I knew, and where I belonged.

I am eight years old when I sink into my soft pink pillow and close my eyes. I think about recess that day, surrounded by my classmates as we bragged about the age we were saved underneath the shade of a tree. I have always said three since this was the age most of my friends touted. I realize that I can’t remember a “moment,” and my eyes flutter open in concern. If I died tonight, would I go to heaven if I couldn’t recall the exact time I had accepted Christ into my heart? I called my mom into the room. With tears of joy and relief, she explained the gospel I knew and believed already. I reassured her that I already knew it to be true but wanted to be sure. We prayed the sinner’s prayer together and I received the ultimate affirmation: I had my “moment.” While my bragging rights decreased as I had to claim I was saved at eight, I at least knew I was a Christian once and for all. Nothing could separate me from the love of Christ. I knew, too, that this act pleased my parents. My faith narrative and my sense of belonging were complete, or so I thought.

I am grown now. My belief in God at times in my life has been tested. I could describe to you the moment I dedicated my life to Christ in the summer of the seventh grade after a week of summer camp, and again in the twelfth at that very same property. I could tell you about the time a childhood wound that was buried deeply inside resurfaced during college and I became agnostic for a weekend before the gentle care of other believers steered me back to His loving embrace. I could recount to you the time I lost my home in a house fire just three months before I was about to give birth and share the way He provided for all our needs. Our testimonies are not a singular moment; they are a collage of instances of His grace and mercy that we choose to believe in daily. As I consider these encounters with the gospel from my childhood, I can see where the gaps in my understanding then and the wounds that have been inflicted on me from the weight of this fallen world have shaded the story He is telling through my life. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:11–13 that “When I was a child, I talked like a child. I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” Now that I am a mother of two daughters, God is inviting me to put the ways of childhood behind me. There will be no more fear of rejection. My faith will be motivated not only by a sense of belonging but from a greater understanding of His love for me and others, and pride has no place in my story. I can look at the reflection of my life and clear out any dust that hinders the image He is showing me in part, trusting that one day I will behold the picture He is creating in full. I think it will be of a little girl, swinging her legs as she sits and waits to hear the story of her life as Christ himself tells it.

---

Danielle Page is a truth-teller, educator, and writer currently hailing from rural Maryland. She strives to live wholeheartedly in her endeavors alongside her husband and daughters. When she’s not scribbling in her Moleskine journal, she’s tackling her To Be Read list, baking banana bread, or serving in camp ministry.

---

Are you searching for God?