You actually start a completely new life.
From this moment, You are the one who will decide, God.
Here, from this moment on, You take over.
I can't create my own joy.
Now You have to help me. You take over from here.
Maria Skogsrud grew up in a Christian family in Stockholm.
She received faith as a child at home, but as a teenager it wasn't easy to believe.
I believed in God and wanted to believe in God,
but so many thoughts came up; thoughts of doubt like:
"What if God doesn't exist? What if everything is just...? Those kind of thoughts.
But then I remember that I became upset. I didn't want to think like that; I wanted to believe.
So I prayed to God. I don't remember what I prayed for, but I prayed to God.
Then I started to think about God-fearing people I knew.
The most God-fearing people I knew, who were great examples for me.
Then doubt disappeared. Then I was really convinced. Because I saw that,
even if God didn't exist, that life there will make me happy.
So I want to live that life in any case.
But Maria's friends weren't Christians,
and in many ways Maria felt like an outsider in her group of friends.
A whole lot of things that they could do so easily,
that they could have fun with,
I felt that I couldn't enjoy.
I tried to be part of the group and tried to join in
but I couldn't enjoy it. I felt that I wasn't at home among them.
I wasn't like them. I had something else inside me.
I did many things that I felt in my conscience were wrong.
I felt that I was restless inside and that many of the things I did were wrong.
Every time I opened the Bible I felt I just got a bad conscience.
I had to make a choice, began to struglle and felt judged.
But I didn't have a hope to come out of it, so I almost stopped reading the Bible.
But on the day that I gave my heart completely to God, that day the Bible became a completely new book.
Because then I had a good conscience.
I had put those things that weighed om my conscience in order.
I had a good conscience, a clean conscience, and had a good relationship with God.
I could start reading and I felt everything that was there was for me.
Of course there were very many ups and downs in the beginning,
Even though I held fast to what I'd decided: that I would live for God the rest of my life.
But it was like a roller coaster in the beginning, in my feelings.
It's like learning to walk. There were a lot of ups and downs in the beginning.
I just had to hold on, and then it went step by step.
You have to give your heart to God.
He wants to have it. "My son and my daughter, give Me your heart." He wants to have your heart.
And after that, my life has really become rich and interesting.
I can look forward to the future.