Child-like Faith

Christian Testimony of Shirley Porritt

Shirley 2005

“Verily I say unto you, whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.” [Mark 10:15]

The above title says it all really. I first heard about God as a little child and immediately believed in Him. I was brought up in a nice, loving family (although not a Christian one) and was considered to be a good, quiet child never giving my parents any concern. As I grew this changed little. I had no vices. I was a home bird. However, I am going ahead of myself.

It was while I was at Junior School that I first heard about God. My friend and I were cupboard monitors and it was our job to keep the cupboard tidy. We had just spent a long time tidying the cupboard only to find a day or so later that someone had messed it up, my reaction was to say “Oh God! look at this mess…..” My friend, whose father was a Methodist minister, told me that I should not say this as God was a real person and it was not His fault that the cupboard was untidy. I went home, and that night prayed for the first time to God, and told Him that I was sorry for what I had said. It was simple child-like faith, from that moment on I believed God to be real, and at difficult times would go to my room, kneel and pray and asked God to help, which He always seemed to do. Two examples of this are: one Christmas day, I went into the kitchen to give our dog his present only to find a pool of blood. My Mum and Dad rushed him to the vets. He had Parvovirus, which can be fatal. I rushed to my bedroom and prayed, prayer was answered and Simba, our dog, recovered. The second example is, when my Mum had an accident in our old Mini Traveller. She was told that the car would be a write-off. We couldn’t afford to buy a new one. Again I prayed and again God answered and someone was able to repair it for us. I didn’t go to Church or even pray every day only in moments of crisis. God gave me simple faith to trust Him.

As I became a teenager I started to worry about nuclear wars, death, of myself or of my family, and became depressed. I couldn’t sleep very well at night because of my worries. However, I did believe that I would go to heaven because I believed in God, but my family didn’t. Soon my Mother took me to see the doctor and I was given tablets to try and help, but they didn’t. One thing kept speaking into my heart time and time again, “it will be alright if I go to Church.” I didn’t want to say anything to my parents as I thought they would laugh at me but this saying wouldn’t go away. In the end I plucked up the courage to tell my mum and she replied, “we will see what the doctor says.” The doctor thought it was an excellent idea – Praise God! I found out later that she was a Believer. Well that was it, as it was approved by the doctor, my Mum duly packed me of to the C of E church that she had been married in. My depression and fears did subside and I felt ‘lighter’.

I carried on going to this church for a couple of years but something seemed missing. At first I could not take communion and so I got confirmed thinking that once I could partake in communion everything would make sense – it didn’t, something was still missing. By this time I had left school and started work. I remember praying at my desk at work one day, “please Lord may I have some Christian friends (there were not many young people my age at the C of E) and could I go on holiday abroad please.” Shortly after this prayer I was talking to a lady whose playgroup I used to help out in whilst at school. She suggested that her son take me along to the church youth group he attended, which he duly did. On my first visit there I met some wonderful young people who were planning a holiday abroad. I was a very shy person but suddenly went up to the leader of the group who had never met me before and said, “can I come on holiday with you?” They said I could – God had answered prayer again.

It was whilst I attended this youth group and subsequently the church (an independent fellowship) that ran it, that I began to realise that I needed more than to believe in God, I needed a personal relationship with him. I needed to repent of all my sins. As I previously said I had no outward vices by the world’s standards but every wrong thought, feeling etc had to be repented of. I needed to ask Jesus to come and live in my heart and be born again of His Holy Spirit. Praise God at last I had found that which was missing. AND THAT WAS THE BEGINNING…