Detour

Part 2, maybe
Throughout junior high and high school, I attended the First United Presbyterian Church in Albuquerque, a beautiful elegant church in downtown Albuquerque with one of the largest pipe organs in the state of New Mexico. The music was amazing especially when Goodsell Slocum, the main organist, played.
The youth group was a strange hodge podge of popular and whatever the other group is called, although we all got along okay - it was never a close personal or spiritual experience. I disliked going most of the time, but stuck around for youth choir and often stayed for "youth group" - the only explanation is that the Lord intended for me to stay with that youth group because I have almost no memory of the group just the feeling that it was a task and obligation.
So when I graduated high school and left for Las Cruces' New Mexico State University, I gratefully exited from church as well. I never thought God was dead - a popular debate in the 60s, but I sure didn't want Him around much to mess with my college life!

There was always this vague feeling that God was an important part of my life, but it was very vague and I kept it well buried most of the time. It was all a surface performance and I loved the beauty of "my" home church, so it was good to go back to First Pres when I was home. Because I was very involved in Rainbow Girls (Grand Charity my Freshman year), the "religious thing" was still a part of my life but I made sure it didn't interfere much. After all, I was a university scholar now, and God was just way too simple, plus you just didn't want to confess that part of your being (I still have trouble with that at times - sigh!).
And so the college years continued.
Mike and I married in 1973 in the church in Albuquerque - there was never any question in my mind that I had to be married in the church, by the minister, in the eyes of the Lord - hmmmm looking back - that faith step way back in 5th grade was still an influence.
Then - in graduate school, after I was married - two people became very central to the Lord's work. One of my best friends, Kim Greenhaw, became an avid Jesus freak - whoa now, what was going on? And a fellow grad student began to talk to me about a close relationship with Jesus - ANOTHER Jesus freak..... well I had made that commitment years ago in 5th grade.......
It seemed that my life was about to change.

The early years

I need to just "do this" - so here is my story, part one - as related to my walk of faith.
Born of a mixed marriage, my Father was a Presbyterian and my Mother was a Baptist, I obviously had a mostly somewhat traditional "Christian" upbringing. It was pretty clear to me by the time I was about 5 years old that the flavor and intensity varied greatly between the First Baptist Church and the First Presbyterian Church.

As a whole, the Presbyterians seemed to me to enjoy each other and life a whole lot more than the Baptists did. However I also noted that there was a peace and gentleness among certain selected Baptists and a few Presbyterians. At home, we attended the Presbyterian church and when I visited my maternal grandmother I went to church and Sunday School with the Baptists. Of course in a small town in the 1950s there was no such thing as "children's church" and I was expected to BEHAVE and act like a lady in both places - something that I have never done well.

My Father seldom went to church after we moved from our home town to New Mexico, but my Mother insisted on carting me to Sunday School - which I must say I enjoyed most of the time. In 5th grade in Clovis, NM - I joined the confirmation class taught by our senior pastor who I realized when I was much older had a firm and gentle faith that was deeper than that of many in the church. He led me gently to a firm commitment to the Lord that has kept me in His love - with some notable detours since 5th grade.

My best friend in 5th grade attended Church of Christ and was also in a confirmation class. Our major difference of opinion was over my "salvation". She kept telling me that if I did not go to her church I would not be saved. Even at the tender age of 10 or 11 that made absolutely NO SENSE to me - even then I understood that the Bible and Jesus predated the Church of Christ although I probably could not have quite articulated that fact.

So I made a decision to ask Jesus into my life while I was in late grade school and then thought very little about it for the next several years. Chapter II to come