I used to think of people who called themselves "born again Christians" as being pretentious impostors. Being a Christian in my opinion was only being moral and believing in God. I did not understand that a person could actually have a life changing relationship with God even though he seemed to be so invisible and faraway until I actually was born again in January 2001. For almost an entire decade I had suffered from varying degrees of depression. I was first misdiagnosed as have schizoaffective disorder a mild form of schizophrenia. Unlike some schizophrenics I was very high functioning, never heard any voices or hallucinated. I was very much aware of reality. I knew my doctor had to be wrong. Later I was diagnosed as being bipolar. To me, that seemed more like my dilemma I experienced emotional highs and lows frequently. But still I did not have the knowledge to realize that most of what I was having were spiritual problems. I had tried to fight life's battles on my own.
My parents, especially my dad, raised me in a sheltered way. He himself could not deal very well or logically with life's conflicts. He grew up in a highly dysfunctional family. Dad never really accepted his mother's death until he was well into his 50s. She died when he was 18 in 1961. He could not comprehend his mother and father in-law who lived and not just talked the Christian life. His parents had been very different from this. My maternal grandparents were not rich people by any means, but they were always opening up their home to others less fortunate. Some children who had neglectful parents would have gone hungry if not for my grandparent's generosity. People knew that if they came by their house they would automatically experience my grandparent's hospitality. My dad was influenced by psychology and human thought. He believed a person, if he or she were good, should just sail through life. Everything should be easy, not confrontation or conflict. If a bad incident happened to him, he would either flew into a rage or become depressed, often trying to heal himself through overeating. I witnessed my father's behavior and my grandparent's. I was influenced by both for good and ill.
By 2000 I knew I must find a solution to my life. I had not worked in years because the doctors told me I would never be able to stand the stress of a job. However, I was an ambitious person with a masters degree. From a little girl I had had big dreams. To just sit and let my life atrophy was an intolerable thought to me. I felt I was nothing without work. Off and on for years I had experienced thoughts of suicide. In the nick of time, I learned about a small store front church from one of the pastors at my aunt's church, I went there and found my answer. One evening not long after I started visiting this church, I was asked by the pastor had I been born again. I asked her what was that. I had heard the term, but what it entailed was never clear to me. She told me the meaning, and that night, I accepted Jesus Christ as my savior. If I had not, I would probably not be here typing this.
From that evening forward, my battle with depression lessen. I went back to work taking jobs both here in the US and in Turkey. In April of this year I was evaluated so a decision could be made as to whether I was eligible to continue to receive Worker's Compensation. The doctor who did the evalution told me that I was cured and that he saw no reason why I should not able to rebuild my life and my career. The years of medication and counseling had not done it. The only thing that had cured me was my acceptance of Jesus Christ as my saviour.
Read this article: The Born Again Experience and it will explain more of what being born again means.
