Backslider’s Dawn — Chapter 1: The Conversion – 1983.
Welcome to the first chapter of my upcoming book, Backslider’s Dawn. Over the coming weeks, I will be sharing this spiritual journey with you chapter by chapter before compiling it into a final e-book. Thank you for walking this path with me.
From my earliest years in Castries, St. Lucia, the name of Jesus was already part of my life. I heard it in the Catholic church we attended and in the prayers my mother taught us at home. As a child, I was drawn to the beauty of the church, the coloured glass, the paintings, the hush that seemed to settle over everything. But there were darker images too, and those stayed with me differently.
I remember looking at the crucifix and seeing Jesus hanging there, blood flowing from His hands and feet, the nails large and merciless. I never looked for long. I felt sorry for Him. Even then, something in me recoiled. I did not understand why such suffering had to be displayed so openly, why He had to remain there before us like an exhibit. All I knew was that it made me uneasy.
My family was not deeply rooted in a life of holiness, and the Catholicism of my childhood did not teach me much about a personal walk with God. Faith was present, but it remained distant, something practiced as a tradition more than personally known. It was not until my teenage years at Ave Maria, an all-girls Catholic school, that Jesus began to feel real to me in a new way. That awakening came through a dear friend.
One scorching midday, as we walked home for lunch, she spoke to me about Jesus with a quiet seriousness I have never forgotten. She spoke of His love, His return, and the day He would judge the living and the dead. Her words carried a weight that unsettled and drew me at the same time.
As I listened, my imagination lifted toward the sky, and I could almost see a great white throne shining with unbearable brightness. Heaven and hell no longer felt like general religious ideas. They became startlingly real. Somewhere along that walk, something opened in me. I received Jesus as my Saviour, not with eloquence, but with the simple, trembling sincerity of a young heart that wanted to belong to Him and to the promise of heaven.
The following Friday, that same friend took me to Bethel Tabernacle Church. I still remember the pastor preaching about the love of Jesus in a way that reached me more deeply than anything I had heard before. When the altar call came, I went forward. What had begun quietly on the road home became something fuller there. I surrendered my heart to the Saviour of the world, and without fully understanding what lay ahead, I stepped into a new journey, one my friend had gently led me toward.
She left this world just days before her forty-sixth birthday, but her life continues to speak to me. The faith she gently helped awaken in me became one of the ultimate gifts of my journey, and her witness lives on, guiding the very path I walk today.
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