Happy Easter! Here's Why I'm Celebrating

Dear friend,

Happy Easter!

I hope you enjoy a wonderful day filled with lots of delicious food, fun and family!

A year ago this holiday held an extra special meaning to me, as I was baptized and shared my testimony in front of my church congregation.

You see, about five and a half years ago I came to a point where I felt I needed to make a decision about what I believed. I didn’t know what I believed about God, though I had always felt that if God were real, He was like a “guy in the sky” who looked down on me because of my sins.

Except, I was healed of my terminal sickness, and I knew I didn’t deserve it. I had prayed for a miracle and gotten one, even though I had lived a self-centered, lackadaisical life, and there were others much more deserving of a second chance than I. I didn’t understand the grace I had received with my healing, and I felt that there must be a purpose for my life.

I really wanted to know if God were real.

I started reading from the Bible at meetings for a faith-based fellowship for athletes at my school, and learned that Jesus was a historical figure who performed miracles and said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father (in heaven) except through Me.” I also learned that, according to God’s Word (the Bible), if I put my trust in Jesus, my sins would be forgiven and I’d be right with God; that when God looked at me He would no longer see my sin, but would see me covered with Jesus’ righteousness, and He would be pleased with me.

Though the promises in the Bible were amazing – an abundant life, peace, protection, provision, forgiveness, and eternal life, I had doubts that the God of the Bible really existed. However, I was reassured that even professing Christians sometimes have doubts.

Even though we can’t see, hear or feel Him, I considered that maybe God communicated to us through people, that coincidences were divinely orchestrated, and that Jesus had something in common with my cancer treatments. Before I was forced to search for alternative treatment options, I really didn’t believe that they existed, because my “world’s best” doctors told me so. The world told me that my treatments were quackery; and the world told me that Jesus wasn’t really God.

Well, I believed in my treatments, because they had worked. But what about Jesus? After much deliberation, one day as I sat at my desk in the fall of 2011, I made an educated decision to put my trust in Jesus as my Savior and live my life for Him.

It’s been the best decision of my life! I feel secure about where I’m going when I die (eternity is a long time); I am free from making a lot of the bad decisions I used to make that made me miserable; my relationships are improved; I feel whole; I have a sense of direction; I have passion and gratitude to live and make a difference; and I believe that I am loved and that there is a great plan for my life.

I trust that God has a great and special plan for you, too…

So now I humbly ask you to consider, what do you believe? Do you believe that Jesus rose from the grave?

May you find the answers you seek!

Sincerely,

Bailey