Laine Wilder

I was raised Roman Catholic and spent my younger years serving as an altar boy. I always wanted to know God better and thought that one day I might like to become a priest.

Shortly after graduating high school, I joined the Marines and was stationed in Maryland. While there, a local ministry called “The Serviceman’s Christian Center” contacted me. Missionaries would come onto the base to personally invite the GIs to attend their fellowship. For two months, I declined until they found me alone one day, and after a meaningful conversation, I agreed to accompany them.

After being served a home-cooked meal, I and the other attendees heard a bible centered message about man’s sinfulness and need for forgiveness and God’s Grace. Being raised Roman Catholic, I had never heard the Bible preached this way. I was immediately convicted, and when the alter call was given, I hopped out of my chair with a pounding heart, knowing that I needed to be saved. After my conversion, I bought and carried a large bible everywhere and began inviting other GIs to the center daily.

After returning home, I returned to the Catholic Church I had grown up in and asked the Priest why he had never taken the Bible and showed me verse by verse how to know for sure that when I die, I will go to heaven. He replied, “It is the church that is the authority, not the Bible.” I walked away very sad, for that man had religion. He did not have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ; he trusted in his church, not Jesus Christ, who is the living word of God!

“One thing I desire, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold His beauty and to seek Him in His temple.” It’s all about relationships, not religion. Praise the Lord!”