Welcome to Christianity.com. My name is Tiffany Robbins. I'm an editor here at Salem Web Network, and I'm a Christian. That will never change, and I'll explain why. So, I was fortunate enough to grow up in a Christian household with Christian parents who took my sister and me to church every Sunday.
I received Christ into my heart at the ripe age of five years old. My mom one night asked me if I wanted to be saved and ask Jesus into my heart, and I was like, yeah, of course, because I knew that everyone around me that I loved was Christian, and so it just felt right to me. So the norm growing up was being around other Christians, learning more about God every day, and just seeing this faith all around me, which I'm extremely grateful to have had that upbringing.
But with that being the only thing I knew, most of my childhood years were more about just going along with what everyone else was doing rather than following God every day. I attended a Christian school up until eighth grade and then went to public school for high school. Many of my friends at public school were also Christians. Regardless, going from a Christian school to a public school kind of felt like my first time out in the world where non-Christians were surrounding me daily, and it started to click with me that having faith and being a Christian means consciously choosing to follow God every single day.
It was kind of the first time I took the car out of cruise control and actually started driving and taking more ownership of my faith. That summer at church camp, when I was around 14 years old, I decided to rededicate my life to Christ and get baptized. Ever since then, it has been a journey of choosing to follow God and growing into a more personal faith and a personal relationship with Him.
There have certainly been trials that have seriously tested that faith, but as they say, you know, hindsight 20-20, and it's incredible to be able to look back at every trial and see now how God had provided and showed up even in the moments where I didn't feel it or see it. I can look back now and know that He was always right there with me, which I hold on to now when hard times come because I can remember that God was with me through those hard times in the past. Most recently, I lost my amazing grandma to cancer, and as I was looking through all of the cards that she had sent me because she was a prolific card sender, so many of them had the simple phrase, Jesus loves you, inscribed in them.
Back to the question, why am I a Christian, and why will that never change? I think the most simple but most powerful answer I can give is just because Jesus loves me. He's consistently shown me that love throughout my whole life. I've seen this love in the lives of my loved ones who are believers. I've seen how God has provided hope in situations where it feels like there can't possibly be any hope.
Even though I know that in this lifetime, there will be way more hardships because we live in a fallen world, I know that God won't run from my pain. He's going to sit with me in it, walk right alongside me, and be the source of comfort and peace when those times come. So be blessed today because God is not finished with my story, and He's not finished with your story, either.
Photo Credit: SWN Design