Age 33 - What Happened?

pre-post note:
Okay, I've decided to disable the comments on my blog because, well, if I don't see comments, I feel like nobody's reading, and if I feel like nobody's reading, I'm less motivated to post. But, I do appreciate all the encouraging e-mails that I've gotten and please feel free to e-mail anytime. And I will just keep plugging away and hope that some of you will tune in from time to time and be blessed (even if it's just my own kids. hehe).

Okay, what happened at age 33? Well, as I said below, I may have been a bonafide Christian, but if so, my faith was very very weak. Because in the year 2000, I went through a very dark time that left me feeling pretty scared and hopeless. Shortly after we moved to a new home, I experienced the worst insomnia I had ever had before in my life, (I had problems with this in the past) that left me unable to sleep for approx. 2 1/2 months. It is quite a long story actually, too long to post here, but basically what happened is, after trying everything I could think of to make myself fall asleep, (books, friends, relaxation techniques, doctors, sleeping pills) I ended up with severe anxiety and depression (who wouldn't be depressed after not sleeping for 75 days?)

When I look back, I see the grace of God at work. Because even though I prayed and cried out to Him during this time (all night sometimes), my real faith was in "me" finding the right cure for my insomnia. It wasn't that I had no faith that God "could" take this away, but I didn't really believe in my heart of hearts that He was really that in tune to what was going on with me and my puny life, and that He cared so much that He would intervene. But He did, BIG TIME. As I said, it's too long to explain it all, but when I finally got to the end of my options (because nothing was working), and had no where else to turn to but God, He showed up and began to show me how much He really did care and how all-powerful He really is. And I came out of this experience with faith like I'd never had before, and this faith has continued to grow over the past 10 years.

Now some people have told me they thought this was my point of conversion because this was also the point where I really began to understand that God's grace and love, (through what Christ accomplished at the cross) were free and unconditional. Before this, I so often felt like God was angry with me much of the time. But this experience left me feeling very free from this (though God has shown me very clearly that He also loves me too much to let me remain in sin and will discipline when necessary). Others have thought that I was a believer before age 33 but that I was probably just a baby Christian with very weak faith. I don't know. But I do know that I am sooo incredibly thankful to God for allowing this experience to bring about faith or to grow my faith deeply, because I have never been the same since.