Don't Deserve to Belong to the Family

Once, in 10th grade, I remember saying to my Mom, "I don't deserve to belong to the family."

After a long pause, she replied, "Maybe you don't." (!!!!!)

But then she followed that up with, "But can ANY of us ever say that we DESERVE to belong in the family of God?"

Of course she continued to tell me that as a mother she still loved me and all, but the most important thing that night was she helped me take my eyes off myself & placed them on the cross. That awful, sinful, life I so abhorred--called June Oshiro--was NAILED to the cross, she helped me see, and CHRIST'S LIFE was what He wanted to live through me! (2 Cor. 5:21, Gal. 2:20)

I can't really pinpoint a turning point in those three years, but if I had to choose one incident, it would be that night. Good personal habits started coming back, my grades improved, & I hope my personality got a bit brighter. I just have to marvel that it was then also that the Lord somehow used me to lead another highschooler to Himself, altho' she'd seen me in my really rotten times, too.