00:00
I thought I could solve everything myself.
00:03
If I ticked all the boxes,
00:04
if I did everything that
I was supposed to do.
00:07
My name is Amanda, and this is my story.
00:12
I separated when I was young as well.
00:15
I was a single parent.
00:17
And I spent a lot of my time
00:19
being very focused on what I needed to do.
00:21
Because I'd had a very controlled life
00:23
prior to being a Christian,
00:25
I think this eventually
takes its toll on you.
00:28
My health deteriorated
00:29
and I needed a lot of
professional support.
00:32
And at that time, I just
started to have a sense
00:36
that there was something bigger.
00:38
Life isn't about the tick-box approach.
00:41
Some people may say it was a breakdown.
00:42
I call it my awakening.
00:44
I worked for an organisation 10 years ago
00:47
and had a very good friend there
00:49
who shared her faith with me.
00:50
It wasn't what she was saying.
00:52
It was how she was saying it,
00:54
and how she was actually living that out.
00:56
And I just started to
question my life, I guess.
01:00
I'd walked past Stirling
Baptist Church one day
01:04
and saw the advert for Alpha
01:08
and I remember my friend
discussing it with me.
01:10
And something inside me
just started to stir,
01:13
so I called my friend,
01:14
asked her to put the wheels in motion.
01:16
She supported me with my child
01:18
whilst I was going to the Alpha,
01:22
and over those 10 weeks, 10-week process,
01:26
I just became more aware -
who Jesus is, who God is -
01:31
and I wanted to know more.
01:33
You knock on the door and He will answer.
01:36
Yeah, I knocked on the
door and He answered,
01:38
but He was always standing there.
01:41
It was me just standing on the other side,
01:44
not taking any notice.
01:46
Since becoming a Christian,
my life is so different.
01:51
Friends and colleagues might not see
01:53
anything changed outwardly,
01:55
but inwardly, I feel completely different.
01:58
I think a lot of the time our worthiness
02:02
is based on our status in society.
02:06
What I believe is that true faith
02:09
and true life comes from
stripping all of that away.
02:12
That's what having a faith does.
02:15
It takes you away from this insular
02:18
behaviour or society
02:21
and just opens up the opportunities
02:24
to experience life and to
share that with other people.
02:27
You want everybody to have the experience
02:29
of what this gives you in life.
02:31
I wouldn't change this for the world
02:33
and I really wish I'd
listened 20, 30 years ago.