Amanda's Story

I thought I could solve everything myself
If I ticked all the boxes, if I did everything that I was supposed to do
My name is Amanda, and this is my story
I married young
I separated when I was young as well
I was a single parent
And I spent a lot of my time being very focused on what I needed to do
Because I'd had a very controlled life prior to being a Christian, I think this eventually takes its toll on you
My health deteriorated and I needed a lot of professional support
And at that time, I just started to have a sense that there was something bigger
Life isn't about the tick
box approach
Some people may say it was a breakdown
I call it my awakening
I worked for an organisation 10 years ago and had a very good friend there who shared her faith with me
It wasn't what she was saying
It was how she was saying it, and how she was actually living that out
And I just started to question my life, I guess
I'd walked past Stirling Baptist Church one day and saw the advert for Alpha and I remember my friend discussing it with me
And something inside me just started to stir, so I called my friend, asked her to put the wheels in motion
She supported me with my child whilst I was going to the Alpha, and over those 10 weeks, 10
week process, I just became more aware
who Jesus is, who God is
and I wanted to know more
You knock on the door and He will answer
Yeah, I knocked on the door and He answered, but He was always standing there
It was me just standing on the other side, not taking any notice
Since becoming a Christian, my life is so different
Friends and colleagues might not see anything changed outwardly, but inwardly, I feel completely different
I think a lot of the time our worthiness is based on our status in society
What I believe is that true faith and true life comes from stripping all of that away
That's what having a faith does
It takes you away from this insular behaviour or society and just opens up the opportunities to experience life and to share that with other people
You want everybody to have the experience of what this gives you in life
I wouldn't change this for the world and I really wish I'd listened 20, 30 years ago