The Before I Forget

By Annette Jones

The Before I Forget captures what I believe most Christians endure before and after they are saved—or at least what I have endured. It captures what I want to forget and what I hope to remember and how to intertwine the two peaceably while trying to figure out how to live the new life God has given me—one He has made known to me with the ever-increasing joy of His presence and a peace I can now count on. In an attempt to put the past where it belongs, rely to live guided by the Holy Spirit, and remain committed to a future in Christ Jesus, I arrived at my destination of salvation with the hope of seeing the world with new eyes. Only when I did, I hadn’t planned on the struggle that would blindside me afterward: the requirement to love one another, my neighbor, and my enemies, let alone the part about forgiveness. My redemptive reflection back and forth—both before I wanted to love God and after I did—will surely resonate with most of you as you continue your own battle of balance; to be set apart as Christ representatives and extend grace to those who have yet to receive Him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Dec 18, 2015
• ISBN: 9781512721577

Annette Jones

Annette has had a career in both the secular and nonsecular sides of business: management of sales, marketing, and fundraising for the homeless. Her transforming faith journey has allowed her to minister to women by teaching biblical studies and meeting the needs of the inner-city impoverished through benevolent service. Annette and her husband travel about the states, tiny-homing it for now, and continuing to ignite the spark illuminating God’s love along the way in hope of blessing the wanderers.

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Copyright © 2015 Annette Jones.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are from the Holy Bible New International Version. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society.

Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotation marked RSV is found on website http://Biblegateway.com

Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from The Holy Bible, New Living Translation, Copyright 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois, 60188. All rights reserved.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN: 978-1-5127-2158-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-2159-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-2157-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015919514

WestBow Press rev. date:  01/16/2020

Contents

Introduction

Acknowledgments

1. Maiden Mind

2. Please Hang Up and Try Again

3. Promise Me

4. Forgiving You

5. Do Tell

6. Love Your Neighbor

7. Love Others

8. Stepping In and Out

9. Love One Another

10. Love Your Enemies

11. To Sin or Not to Sin

12. The Choice

13. The Cross

14. Hey! Where’d You Go?

Bibliography

Introduction

I believe our lives are books with many chapters and each page tells our stories. I’m sharing mine with you.

If you are a believer, know that I am a sinner saved by God’s grace just as you are. If you have yet to invite Christ into your life, maybe this book will help you do that. It’s my prayer that those of you who know and love the Lord Jesus will extend that love to those who have yet to receive Him.

Acknowledgments

Steve Suttor—for always telling me the truth out of love, just like Jesus; If I thought I was appreciated, I wouldn’t be here.

Minister Craig Williams—for helping me realize that my zealous personality was like Paul’s and that greater things are yet to be.

Pastor Bedell—when conflict arises, for seeing the bigger picture and keeping my focus. Jesus came for the whole world but was accepted by few.

Melissa Bowden (Pumpkin)—for rebuking me without hesitation and reminding me whom I serve: Yes, and Jesus loves them too.

Miss Dorothy—for redeeming advice when it was time to kick the dust from my feet and walk on. You’re saved, and I’m saved. I’ll see you in heaven.

Pastor Frank Winfrey—for your wisdom in eagerly assisting me to understand Scripture.

My loving children—for showing me what it means to be forgiven seven times seventy and loving me anyway.

Scott, my dear husband, who has the patience of Job—for always reminding me how very much I am loved. Thank you, darling.

Immeasurable gratitude to all of you.

And this is his command; to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commands us.

—1 John 3:23

For those I love and have yet to.

Chapter 1

Maiden Mind

In Between

Many believe God exists and that Jesus is the Son of God, but the Scriptures tell us to believe in Him, not just believe He exists. Even the Devil believes Christ exists.

Some who claim to be Christians do so with the belief that their faith was handed down to them through the generations as an inheritance. I come from a Catholic family, so I’m a Catholic. Or My family is Baptist, so I’m a Baptist. Hailed as common knowledge in the household they grew up in, their faith may also be perceived as an entitlement they received through baptism. I was baptized as an infant, so that makes me a Christian. Those who are without certainty of where they are going after death hope their family religion will get them to heaven, but they may lack the knowledge of or not acknowledge who Christ is—Jesus, God’s plan of salvation for us, sent to save all humanity from sin and separation from God (John 3:18).

After I announced I was a Christian, I discovered that some of my habits were hard to break. My separation from God by sin (condemnation) was still prevalent, and I had not yet developed my relationship with Christ. Much like an infant, I had no idea what was going on.

Funny how some people are so adamant about the designation of family titles. For instance, stepchildren. My husband and I have a blended family. I come from a blended family; my siblings and I have the same mother. My brothers and sister have the same father, so I guess we are technically referred to as half-brothers and half-sisters. Although I don’t like the term, I never thought about it unless I had to refer to our last names when someone asked why they were different.

Somehow, the word half suggests we aren’t whole. I always refer to my stepchildren as our children when I introduce them to anyone. Some have asked whether they are my children or my husband’s children. I think that’s because of their different facial features. The question implies a separation, a boundary. I’m fortunate that we exist as we are, without titles, and have relationships birthed by our choice to love one another.

When you accept Christ as your personal Savior, you’ve made the decision to eliminate the boundary line. There is no more separation between you and God. You become part of His family—a body of believers who are born-again children who belong to God.

For My Terms Only

When I was 30, I decided it was time to take faith more seriously, so I started attending a church to find out what being a Christian was all about. I didn’t go crazy and go every Sunday, just whenever I felt like it.

The pastor would instruct everyone to read and follow along in their Bibles as he gave the message. If I found the content interesting, I would read about it further in my study Bible when I got home. (I would have taken it with me, but if you have one, you know they’re honking huge.) It always helped explain the Scripture better so I could understand it and could take my time to ponder it. Some of the commands, the oughts and shoulds, didn’t agree with me, so I ignored them. They cramped my style, and frankly, I thought the way I handled my life was all right. My intuition told me if I tried to live life for God through Christ, I would have to give up my personality, likes and dislikes, sense of humor, desire for adventure, independent thinking, and impulsiveness (which probably would have been a good thing)—basically, my identity.

Freedom is a breath of fresh air. You get to run the show, set your own rules, and be responsible only to and for yourself. I find the definition of the word independence freeing: not subject to others. I couldn’t wait to be on my own, which was why I had left home at age fifteen to chase after a boy I thought I couldn’t live without (my aspiration for the storybook life complete with that white house surrounded by a picket fence). I was always thinking ahead, living for the future, and ignoring the present. I had worked hard since I was a teenager to get where I was and have what I’d accumulated. My life was a neat package that worked for me the way I liked it, at least for the moment.

I wasn’t much for school; my attention span was about the size of a pea. I would listen to the teacher’s instruction for only so long and think, Okay, I got this! I’d then move forward without catching the rest of the assignment. I aced some of the classes simply because I liked them. Those I didn’t like were more difficult. This resulted in my barely scoring a passing grade.

As I entered adulthood, though, my ability in the area of Okay, I got this, my one-step-ahead mentality, didn’t serve me so well. I believed there was a structured pattern to everything, or it couldn’t function properly, especially without me. I had to be in control of every situation. If someone had a problem, I would do what I could to help fix it and hopefully the person too; I thought I knew what was best for them all the time. This affected my ability to relate to friends and family and maintain relationships with them. I know this, because the relationships didn’t last.

A dead end gets tiring after a while, and pride is exhausting. Picking and choosing what I agreed with in God’s Word to satisfy my life plan didn’t work. I still basked in the comfort of my rules designed to please only me. My I got this attitude eventually failed, and I plummeted from my pedestal of self-reliance. I found that to follow Christ, I had to be in all the way or not at all. The promise of if you follow Christ you shall be blessed¹ doesn’t hold true if you don’t. And the blessings weren’t coming.

You’ll never receive the blessings of the Bible until you put yourself under its authority. You have to face the music even if the concert doesn’t appeal to you. Because I thought what I already knew was good enough, I didn’t care to learn more. I had followed my own religious rules for so long that I closed my mind to anything that