A prayer of thanksgiving to the great shepherd by Emily Rose Massey, read by Lea Martin.

Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion

until the day of Christ Jesus.

Philippians 1-6.

Recently I was asked, so Emily, how long have you known the Lord?

I wanted to be as concise as possible, but also transparent.

So I explained that I've been coming to grips recently with the fact that I was most likely

a false convert when I was a teen and into my early 20s.

I didn't truly start following Christ until around 2008, the summer I graduated from

college.

It's the only way I can seem to make sense of the mess I lived in for six years after

my profession of faith, after responding to an altar call at a youth conference.

As I walked the aisle at that church, I responded to the news that Jesus died for my sins to

be forgiven.

Then eventually ran right back into that same ditch, like a dumb sheep thinking I could rely

on my own works and not Christ's finished work on the cross.

God allowed me to fall, to fail, and create a home in my pit of self-righteousness and

sin for six years, but thanks be to God that wasn't the end of my story.

The Lord didn't leave me in that pit because one day I was rescued.

We must remember that we cannot rescue ourselves out of a pit of sin.

Jesus is the great shepherd who rescues his sheep.

This God who begins the work in our hearts, turning them from a heart of stone to a heart

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