On March 3, 1998 my dad passed away during a routine sinus operation from which he never woke up. My mom, whose marriage suddenly ended after less than two years, decided to stay living with her mother (her father passed away about 13 years earlier) to raise me, who was 11 months old at the time. To this day the same home is occupied by my grandma, my mom, and myself.
Although my grandma grew up Baptist, she became Catholic when she married and raised my mom and her two sisters in the Catholic faith. As my mom and one of her sisters grew up, they began to search for authentic discipleship, but by the time it came for me to go to school, my mom followed the ways of my grandma, and I was brought up Catholic. I became very familiar with Catholicism, as it was an integral part of my K-12 schooling.
During my junior year of high school, I began to deviate from Catholicism, although I wasn’t searching for anything else at the time either. I graduated from high school in 2015 and moved on to college at the University of Northern Colorado. I soon dropped out in 2016, started working full-time, and lost any sense of a greater purpose. I started going to school again at the University of Colorado on the Auraria campus in 2017. I did not know what God had in store for me there!
In the Spring semester of 2018, I found myself walking to Subway and on my way I was stopped by someone asking if I wanted to study the Bible! I wasn’t looking for an opportunity like this, and I had wandered far from God’s path. But I wrote my name down and circled everything I was interested in, except one thing: sports. I talked with others there and exchanged phone numbers. I went to Subway, thought for a bit, then went back to circle “sports” to make sure that I would be invited to all the events with these people.
After a night of dodge ball and attending the Spring 2018 RMR retreat, I was ready to pursue God fervently. I studied the Bible for about a month and was baptized April 10, 2018! God was not finished working with my family though. During the previous two years my mom had been looking for churches for us to attend, one of which was the Denver Church of Christ. After my baptism, she began to attend more frequently, got plugged in with a family group, and began to study God’s Word herself. Shortly after on December 2, 2018 she was also baptized into God’s Kingdom!!
My mom and I had since considered my grandma and her salvation. She was baptized when she was younger and did not want to go under the water again. We made efforts to confirm her doctrine and for a while we were under the impression that she had been right with God. Recently, however, she had been in and out of the hospital and our concern for her salvation resurfaced. Grandma began to express her desire to know Jesus more and be baptized in accordance with Biblical teachings. The team studying the Bible with her was my mom, my aunt, and myself. She was baptized on October 13, 2020!
God has been hard at work in our three-generational home. Through the past few years it has been inspiring to see God care for the people close to me, both young and old, and from so many backgrounds. God truly desires each of us to take part in His legacy!
