I have been in church for most of my life, even before my parents started going.  In fact, my husband Jim and I met in church while in our early teens, and became very active in the youth department.  I enjoyed what we were doing; attending services, passing out tracts, and even singing with our youth director on the radio. We went to youth rallies, and youth camp and all the activities.  We dated through our High School years and married in the fall, the year we graduated at eighteen years of age.  This was in 1966.
    Immediately after graduating from High School, I got a job as a telephone operator, and my husband was hired at the Ford Motor Company.  We had two sons by the time we were twenty-one and between our work and our family, we began to drift away from church.  When my husband got a second job working at the local race track on Sundays, he quit going to church at all in the summer.  I would take our two boys myself, once in a while, but that was it.  Eventually, (by the early seventies), we all quit going altogether.  During the time we were out of church, however, my parents began to attend.  My mother would always invite us to anything special going on at the church.  In April, 1977, she invited us to go to a meeting where Bro. Percy Ray was preaching, and persisted until my husband finally agreed to go 'just one' night.  My husband's heart was stirred by the message which was 'clean out your wells,' and he realized the responsibility he had to our boys, ages 8 and 7.  He was concerned for their souls.  Jim had made a profession of faith at youth camp as a teen-ager and from the preaching we had always heard, assumed he was just backslidden.  So, he went forward and 'rededicated' his life to God.  We subsequently got back in church and began serving faithfully.  I don't believe I ever even gave a thought to having to rededicate my life, I just followed my husband back into serving God.  Everyone seemed comfortable with our salvation, so we were too.
    The church we went to had begun holding a camp meeting annually, and we got involved in the putting on of that meeting.  My husband led the choir and I worked in the kitchen.  Those of us who worked in the kitchen, didn't get to hear the preaching in the daytime at all, just the evening preaching.  Bro. Charles Shipman had been traditionally the morning speaker and there was usually someone else in the evening who was the main preacher.  However, the first or second year, after our return to church, Bro. Shipman preached an evening service that I was there to hear.  I don't recall the message title, except that it dealt with salvation.  Bro. Charles was saying that your salvation experience would be something you would definitely know when it happened and would be something you remembered.  By the end of that service, I had examined what I had and found the only thing I remembered, was being baptized.  I even had a Bible that was given to me by the church where I was baptized with the date in it.  I assumed if I was baptized, I had done what I was supposed to do to get there.  I went home that night, and prayed, "Lord if I'm not saved, save me."  Needless to say, that didn't work.  You see, no one had ever questioned my testimony before nor told me to examine it, so I really had no idea of what to do to get the issue settled.
    I struggled with this for a long time, but would not tell anyone.  I have always had a problem talking freely to others.  Further down the road, I finally got the nerve to ask my husband about my being able to only remember being baptized and nothing else.  (At that time he was lost, but did not know it, even though he was the assistant pastor by then.)    He said there was no way he could tell me whether I was saved or not, and that God would have to show me.  Yet I never had conviction and sure knowledge that I was lost, just questions and doubts about being saved.  I now know that one cannot be saved until they have become lost.
    It might have been the same year that we first attended Mississippi Delta Camp Meeting.  As a result, I had heard many peoples' testimonies a number of times and heard that you're going to know when salvation happened.  Still, this was not enough to get me to admit that there was no way I could be saved since I didn't know what, when, or where anything had happened to me.  This is how great the sin of unbelief is.  Even when told what salvation is, and knowing that you don't measure up to it, you cannot believe and admit that you are an unbeliever!  I continued to struggle with this problem, by now as a pastor's wife.
    Then, in January, 1987, Bro. Rob Pelkey was preaching a meeting at our church.  The title of one of his messages was 'Who Am I?'  My heart started pounding about half way through the message, and it was like the Lord was saying, "This is for you."  By the time Bro. Rob got to the end  of the message, I knew just who I was.  A sinner lost and going to hell.  I was so sorry for sinning against my God, and wanted him to control my very being.  After praying and pouring my heart out to Him and asking for His saving grace, I stepped out in the aisle to go to the altar.  As soon as I did, I felt as light as a feather, like I would just float right up in the air.  You see, a load of sin had been lifted off me.  God had forgiven me and saved my soul, but I didn't realize it until later.  (Probably because we have been taught for so long that one must be shown some scripture and then pray a certain prayer to be saved.)  I don't know what Bro. Rob said as I knelt at the altar.  I know my husband was there at the altar with me too, but I don't know if he said anything.  I knew what needed to be done by that time.  I couldn't remember what I said either, but my husband told me later that I kept saying, "Jesus save me, Jesus save me."  The only explanation I can figure for that is, that my head hadn't caught up with my heart yet.  There was so much going on inside of me.  Later, when I looked back on what had happened I realized as soon as I took the first step toward Jesus, He saved me.
    I thank God that He showed such patience and kept me in a place where the truth was continually presented until it finally worked in me what needed to be worked.  I thank Him too, that He brought the individuals that I needed to help me get the assurance of forgiveness and peace that comes with salvation.  I want to serve Him and help others find real salvation.