When did I become a Christian?

It's funny, I was at the grocery store yesterday and I went up to a man in a shirt and tie, (thinking he was the manager - he looked manager(ly)) to ask him a question about produce (btw: sweet potatoes are not the same as yams in case you were wondering), and he said he wasn't the manager, but he was a pastor of a local church and he gave me a tract. We talked briefly and he asked me how long I had been a Christian. And this segues nicely into my next topic...

I told him I wasn't 100% sure when, but I know for sure that I have been saved from age 33. I may have been saved when I was younger. I made many professions of faith. I even had an episode at age 19 after living in blatant sin for a long time, where I cried out to the Lord and repented of my sin. It changed my life big time for about one year. I look back on that and think that it's very possible that my heart was like the rocky or thorny soil that Jesus talked about in the Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13). I fell away and didn't bear any lasting fruit.

But in 2000, a life-changing experience happened to me that forever changed my relationship with God. And since then I have steadily grown in my desire and love for Christ (though sometimes it has felt like 3 steps forward and 2 steps back). But whenever it was that I was born again and truly trusted in Christ, one thing is for sure: It is He who pursued me, not the other way around. I am amazed as I look back at my life to see His sovereign hand directing circumstances in my life, and bringing me to know Him as the supreme treaure that He is.

So, I don't know for sure when I became a Christian. But I praise God that I am, and that He opened my eyes, as He did my mom's, to see the truth and beauty of Jesus Christ and all that He accomplished for me at the cross.