I have always been very grateful that I was brought up on a strong foundation of Biblical truths taught by my family, church, school, and many friends. I was literally raised on the truths found in God’s Word and taught that it was to be our guide for living life.
Here’s some of my story! I grew up in a conservative evangelical holiness denomination and for 12 years, I attended one of their holiness Christian Schools. One of my grandpas was a holiness minister. Then I married the grandson of 2 holiness ministers. I’ve loved Jesus since I was saved in a children’s service at a holiness camp meeting when I was 6 years old. I still love Him even more at 69 years of age.
I was happily married for 44 years, then became a widow in 2016. During my lifetime, I have watched many church denominations all around me change outwardly, including the one I grew up in.
As I grew up, married, and traveled, I saw other people whom God had created in other places of this world, and met many diverse people who dressed differently from the people with whom I grew up. As I listened to God’s Word coming from a lot of those people, I started to comprehend that many of the rules, especially some of the outward appearance rules I had lived under, especially for girls, just didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Particularly if God happened to move you to live in another part of the world and to live in another culture, as we did.
It seemed that many of them were manmade rules that hadn’t been around that many decades in the realm of human history.
So many of the outward appearance rules had been stressed so much, scrutinized, preached on, and taught as being requirements to live a holy life. I do still believe much of that was done with genuinely good intentions.
But, the manmade list of should nots was very long and heavy, and many youths steadily sought to find a way to be at peace and still live in this real world.
My husband also went through a similar spiritual battle, although not as much, mainly because he was a male. As a woman, I can say, without a doubt, that boys had it personally much easier than girls, when it came to growing up with legalistic manmade rules.
Sadly, it took me years to truly work through my salvation as God’s Word says we each must do. I’ve always been a compliant, God loving, people pleasing person, who wanted to make God, and everyone else who loved me, feel proud of me.
I wanted to be a witness of God’s enduring love to the people around me. But, I was often too concerned with trying to live up to everybody’s outward standards of dress. Sometimes, I lived with intimidation, embarrassment, and anxiety while trying to make sure that all my people knew I was still a Christian, even though I frequently looked a little different from many of the people who knew me in my youth.
Through much studying, praying, observing, living, and TIME, lots of TIME, I finally saw how I needed to just serve God. I could live in this world, love all of its people, and still live the blameless holy life that GOD wanted ME to live. I just needed to keep my focus on Him.
I had to let go of all my bitterness towards people who I felt had looked down on me because of some manmade rules. What’s been interesting is to see how many of those people have now changed their outward appearance to look pretty much like I did way back in the 70s and 80s. I still dress and look pretty much the same even now!
We tried to raise our own children to base their rules for life on God’s Word. They were raised in another evangelical holiness denomination, too. I am thankful that all three of them are serving God, and raising our precious grandchildren to serve Him.
I’m still a member of that same denomination and I pray it will stay firmly grounded in God’s Word. I hope it will not become legalistic. But, I also pray it won’t swing too far the other way and succumb to liberalism. Only God can help us keep our eyes and hearts focused on Him and what He desires for us.
Holiness is a good word, a good thing, and a sacred goal in life that I don’t want to ever lose sight of. I truly treasure all of the eternal wonderful qualities of my holiness upbringing. I feel very blessed to have been raised by people with an earnest desire for me to know Jesus, to serve Him, and to make heaven my home. I believe that was the real objective. I have tried to do the same for my own children and grandchildren.
I want to always remember that Jesus is coming back soon, and then we will all know what was truly important in this life!
