Testimony of Conversion

I was born in Paris, France in 1990. My parents are not Christians but I have a godly grandmother who always shared the gospel with me when I would see her. However, I did not pay much attention to what she said even though I believe the Lord used her words and prayers later on in my life. My parents did not have a good marriage and divorced when I was thirteen years old. Later on, I started having hostile thoughts toward all religion and told myself that only weak people needed to believe in a god. When I was fifteen years old I traveled to Fort Worth, Texas, for a year as an exchange student. In my Spanish class there were two Christian girls. They did not share their faith at first but became my close friends. They were different from all the other teenage girls I knew.

A few months before I had to go back home, they invited me to their church. At the time I lied in order to avoid going, but they persisted in inviting me and I thought that if I went they would leave me alone. They were part of a Baptist church and the day I went was a Wednesday evening for the younger people. I remember being quite judgmental in my thoughts toward most of the people there. I just wanted to be back home. They sang songs and I was hard as a rock, determined that nothing would impact me that evening. Then the pastor gave a gospel presentation. I listened but did not pay much attention. Then he said, “A lot of you in this room need Jesus Christ.” And in my heart, I said to him: “You need Jesus, I don’t need Jesus.” But in a way I cannot explain, only a few moments later I found myself on my knees asking God to forgive me and confessing that I needed a Savior. It is as if the Holy Spirit opened my eyes to see that there were two Elisas: the Elisa that I portray to others, and then the real Elisa, the one who God sees in all my sins and secrets that only He knows. That thought put genuine fear in my heart. After that day I was not the same girl anymore. I had a desire to live for God and read His Word. He gave me a heart of flesh in place of a heart of stone. Unfortunately, even though I attended many churches after my conversion I did not find a biblical church until I was twenty-one. In that challenging period, the Lord sustained my faith through Christian fellowship at school, good books, and sermons online.