HEATHER (life story)

RELIGION DIDN'T HAVE THE ANSWERS - JESUS DID!

Heather always wanted to work on a farm when she grew up. She attended church believing in the God who made everything. However, as time progressed, religion seemed to no longer hold the answers and Heather started to doubt if God existed. Finally, Heather came to understand what it means to know God and have her sins forgiven.

Wanting to be a farm girl

"Heather, what do you want to be when you grow up?" Throughout my childhood, when this question was asked of me, I always answered that I wanted to be a farmer, although I had to say a farmer's wife since I was a girl! On my fifth birthday, I received a card that had a picture of a young girl dressed in working dungarees, feeding the chickens in a farmyard with a haystack in the background. In my heart I longed to be that girl! Another early memory was of a song we sang at school, which was about a bird in a tree singing that God made us all. At the public school I attended, we had assembly in the mornings with prayers, hymn singing and Bible readings. We even prayed together with the teacher each afternoon before leaving the school for home.

Loving the beauty of the woods

I grew up in Essex in England, very close to woodland, which I loved. When asked by my father at weekends if I wanted to go to the woods or the seaside, I always chose the woods. I enjoyed the quietness, rather than the beach crowds. I loved the beauty of the trees, flowers, animals and birds, and I believed in the God who created them all. I adored my cat. When a dog joined our household, I took her daily into the woods. Whenever the school bell rang to go home, I was usually first out of the school gate. When I arrived home I would set off into the woods with my dog. On Saturdays I went horse riding. I longed for the day when I could leave school and go and work on a farm. Having the same love for the countryside, my mother took me on farm holidays every summer.

Questioning whether God really existed

Even at a young age I remember attending church regularly on my own, knowing that this was 'the right thing' to do on Sundays. At age twelve, I went through the ceremony of 'confirmation' in the church. It was a very 'holy' experience as the bishop laid his hands on my head. However, in my teenage years, I had questions that seemed to have no answers, and I began to have doubts about religion, even wondering whether God really existed at all. The repetition and ritual in the church services started to seem futile.

Crying out to God to show me purpose for my life

Upon leaving school, I left home and moved to the west of England to fulfill my dream of working on a farm. I loved it, and soon learned how to milk the cows, look after the calves, poultry, and horses, and even drive the tractor. Yet after a while, even though loving my work, I couldn't understand why I was feeling so desolate. "Was this really the reason for my existence on this earth?" I wondered. It seemed that life was only to work, sleep, eat, grow old and die. "What was it all for, after all?" There seemed to be no real purpose to life. I had also heard about the existence of hell and wondered whether that was true. If it was true, I wondered how one could be sure of not ending up there! One day in a field I cried out to God in tears, believing that if God really existed, then He must know the answers to life, and why we are here. In desperation I pleaded with God to reveal Himself to me.

Seeing an enthusiastic Church in action

After a year on the farm, I entered agricultural college. There was a Bible study group meeting regularly, but I didn't join them for it seemed to me that 'religion' didn't have the answers to life. One student tried to persuade me to go to the Billy Graham Crusade in London, but I would not go! The following year, at a different college, a student invited me to the church she was attending. I really didn't want to go, but she was so nice that I couldn't refuse her. The inside of the church seemed very plain without a priest in his gowns, or altar and candles, or stained glass windows. Yet, I was amazed that every pew was full, even with an upper gallery! The preacher was a very dynamic speaker and preached like I had never heard preaching before. He even prayed from his heart without using a conventional prayer book. I could see that these people were enthusiastic about God! I didn't need to be invited again, for I had decided to attend every Sunday.

Finding purpose

A few months later, aged nineteen, I was travelling alone around North America with a rucksack and sleeping bag on my back. As I travelled, I met many Christians, and was continually hearing words that I didn't understand. It puzzled me to hear people talking about 'receiving Christ into your heart'. Whatever did this mean? Eventually, when in California staying with a Christian family, the fourteen-year-old daughter told me the 'Good News' from the Bible. She explained how I needed to believe in Jesus Christ, and accept Him as my Lord and Saviour. That night I prayed, telling God that I wanted to make sure right then by accepting the Lord Jesus Christ into my life as my personal Saviour. From that time, my life became purposeful. Through trusting in Jesus Christ, who died that we might have life, I was brought into a right relationship with God as my loving Father.

Telling others about Jesus

My longing to see the wide-open spaces of Australia led me to emigrate a year later. I worked on farms and cattle stations in Queensland and, as I travelled across the north of Australia, I saw the work of Christians among the Australian Aborigines. Eventually I reached a farm in Western Australia where I remained for almost four years, caring for a home of 17 Aboriginal boys. I loved my time there, but the Lord led me to Bible College where I was further challenged about reaching people in countries where they had no opportunity to hear the Good News of Jesus Christ. I studied linguistics in order to do Bible translation in West Papua, but was redirected to the Philippines where for twenty years I have been involved in telling others about Jesus and starting new churches. The Lord also led me to visit prisons and lead Bible studies with the inmates.

Receive forgiveness and eternal life

God is so good! He drew me as a child, and knew my longing for Him. At one time my life had seemed to be without purpose but He made it purposeful! For me, there is no higher purpose in life than that of getting to know Jesus more and telling His message to others that they might know Him too, and experience His love, mercy and grace.

Only one way to fill the void inside us

We all need something to live for, something to give meaning to our existence, something to "seek", something on which to set our hearts and our minds. We long for security and significance. Our longings awaken the desire for something more than anything this world can offer. Only God can truly satisfy these longings, for we were built for a relationship with Him. It is sin that separated us. Without God, we search to fill the void that sin and separation from Him have created within.

Religion didn't have answers - Jesus did!

The answer is not in following a religion, but in accepting and trusting God's own provision for the forgiveness of our sins, the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus said, "My purpose is to give life in all its fullness" (John 10:10). Coming to Jesus Christ is the start of a new life of discovering all that God has for us, not only for this temporal life on earth, but also for eternity. Jesus Christ died in our place, paying the penalty for our sin, thereby providing forgiveness and eternal life to all who will believe in Him. This is how great God's love is for us!

Heather

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son (Jesus) so that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16).


Outback Christians is a website to encourage those who live in the outback.