My husband Rudy says that he thinks I was a Christian in utero. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I do know that all of my life I believed in the power of God. When I was a little girl at my grandmother’s house, she would tuck us in at night in this huge bed, and she would lead us in prayer. There, I began to establish a sense of the fact there is a God out there.
Because of the kind of kid I was—very compliant—I assumed that I had found God. I found God in Vacation Bible School with the rules that said, “Don’t chew gum in here.” I found God when I wanted to join the choir, and they said, “You’ve got to be baptized first; that’s the rule.” And then, of course, ultimately, I found God in the big rules—the Ten Commandments. Real rules of what it means to be a Christian. This God was crafted around rules that filled the imagination of a little girl who wanted to be a “good” girl, who wanted not to break rules. I lived for quite a while with that God that I found. I shared that God with my husband, who married me in 1985. In 1990, he accepted Christ. He says he was a late bloomer. In 1991, he accepted his call to ministry. And I accepted mine.
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My addiction didn’t flare up until around that time: this addiction I have to rules, to performance, to needing other people’s approval and acceptance. It really kind of flared up in a major way—like fireworks on the 4th of July. I remember waking up one morning, August 27, 1999; I’ll never forget it.
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 Juanita Campbell Rasmus is an inspirational speaker, motivational teacher, author, and founding board member of the Bread of Life Homeless Project. Juanita and her husband Rudy co-pastor Saint John’s United Methodist Church in Houston, Texas.
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