My Heart is Free!

AARIKA SHEWMAKE | Story of Faith

REPUBLISHED FROM PROCLAMATION!, FALL 2013

I am seventeen and the youngest of four siblings. I grew up attending a Seventh-day Adventist church since I was born and for years never questioned anything I had been taught. I always felt privileged to be part of “the only true religion” and pitied anyone I met who was not an Adventist.

I went to church, attended Pathfinders, and even led the congregation in prayer some Sabbaths. The adults would always come to me after I did something publicly and tell me I was “an inspiration”. 

“I wish all young people would be as dedicated to the Seventh-day Adventist Church as you are,” they would say. 

When I was nine years old I took the step I thought was necessary: I was baptized into the Adventist Church. It was exciting; my grandpa, who was nearly 80 years old and a retired Adventist pastor, performed my baptism. When I came out of the water, however—I felt nothing; the only thing that had changed was that I was soaking wet—and my youth leaders and family were prouder than ever of me.

I wanted to serve God, but something never seemed right. Furthermore, from the time I was very young I would have a recurring nightmare. Something was being calculated, and that something (which I could never define) was getting bigger and bigger. In my dreams, that thing would crush me until I couldn’t breathe anymore, and I would wake up gasping for air and panicking. I never knew the meaning of that terrifying dream. 

By the time I was twelve, a feeling of sadness and shame would come over me when I entered the sanctuary for church. I would sit with my friends, giggling at the pastor’s attempts to engage us, as on the day he went up front wearing a Superman suit and urged us to tithe and to be more generous with offerings so we would be blessed more. 

One Sabbath he announced that an evangelist was coming to our church for a series of meetings. My heart raced. I would go to this series; I wanted to learn whatever I was missing so I could finally feel content! 

The first day of the meetings I gathered my notebook and binder and pencils and sat down in the church well before the meeting started. I would be there every day, and I would learn how to please God! The evangelist began to speak, but the more he talked, the farther I felt from God. His series was on Daniel and Revelation, and it didn’t feel good to hear him say my non-Adventist friends would one day hunt me down because of my Sabbath-keeping. His sermons sounded critical, and instead of teaching me how to please God, I found them tedious and boring.

After the first three nights I gave up. It would be better to sit and home and read my Clear Word Bible and pray by myself than to feel that guilty and bored! I helped prepare and serve the refreshments after that and sneaked out with friends to talk in the parking lot to get away from listening to the evangelist’s evening preaching. Nevertheless, I couldn’t escape him completely; as he preached his sermons each Sabbath during the series, I felt empty and unworthy. 

Shock

One Sunday—March 14, 2009, to be exact—my mom shocked me with a statement I never thought I would hear coming out of her mouth: “Let’s try that community church down the road today!”

“Oh, no, no, no!” I pleaded. “I don’t want to sit in another pew while another pastor tells us we haven’t done enough! I can’t stand more hymns; we did that yesterday! Please, not today!”

I had done my part for the week, and I was not happy with this turn of events. Nevertheless, my mother’s idea prevailed. I packed my bag with great care: mp3 player, books, and a notebook all went into my tote. I was not going to be bored that day!

We arrived at Green Valley Community Church (GVCC), and the first person who greeted me was an older, short, friendly Hispanic man with one arm. 

“Welcome, little sister!” He smiled warmly and handed me a bulletin. 

We walked into the auditorium—and I was startled to find bright orange chairs filling the room. “Well, at least I won’t have to sit on a pew,” I thought. We sat down, wide-eyed, overcome by the surprise of seeing everyone around us smiling, laughing, and acting—well—happy!

The praise band started, and although I cannot remember all the songs they sang, it was perfect. There were drums! And guitars! They played for half an hour—more good music than I had ever heard at our other church.

When the pastor got up, to my shock he was wearing jeans, a short-sleeved plaid shirt, and Converse sneakers. He welcomed us warmly and asked everyone to give a round of applause for the first-time guests. Everyone was clapping—all 600 of them—for us! The title of the teaching that day was “A New Kind of Rest”. I didn’t realize it until later, but that was the very thing I needed to hear. 

“You have never looked into the eyes of someone Jesus didn’t die to save,” the pastor said. That and other words he spoke kept me interested, and to my surprise, they kept me away from my activities bag and touched my heart in a way I didn’t know anything could. When I finally walked out of the hour-long service (which seemed infinitely short in comparison to the one-hour-and-forty-minute services at the Adventist church), I felt as refreshed as if someone had poured cool water over me after a long walk in a desert. I toyed rebelliously with the idea of leaving the Adventist church, but I wrote it off as “ridiculous”. 

…I felt as refreshed as if someone had poured cool water over me after a long walk in a desert. I toyed rebelliously with the idea of leaving the Adventist church, but I wrote it off as “ridiculous”. 

The next Sabbath we went to the Adventist church in the morning—but that evening we attended GVCC’s Saturday night service. I could work with this, I thought—striving for salvation in the morning, living in joy in the evening. I felt content; I couldn’t wait for Saturdays to come! 

We continued in this pattern for six months for the sake of my still-Adventist grandparents, and to give us a chance to finish our church commitments. As the weeks passed, we were praying to get through those duties so we could go to GVCC. During that time the worship leader at GVCC returned from his honeymoon, and for me the deal was sealed. I had never heard such a voice or such joy and love for Jesus in my life. 

By the end of six months we decided enough was enough. We began attending GVCC on Sundays, and we enjoyed going to church in the morning again and carrying that blessing with us all day long—and all week long.

There was one thing at the Adventist church, however, that still had me connected to it: Pathfinders. I had one more speech to give—one I didn’t want to give. I was to talk about how we should make sure the foods we ate would please God instead of drawing us away from Him. 

“But I drink milk; I’m in trouble!” I joked as I decided to rewrite the speech. I changed the talk from focussing on food to being excited to go to heaven. I wrote that it didn’t matter what we had done because Jesus loved us and wanted to take us home! 

The Pathfinder leaders trusted me; no one read the speech before I stood up to deliver it. Taking my place at the podium, I held my head high and watched as the people squirmed nervously in their seats as I read my new words. I smiled; the last piece of work I had in this church was done. 

Leaving

My nightmares were becoming fewer and fewer, but they tended to recur when I let myself think of what we had just left. Nobody asked where we had gone when we stopped attending, not the proud Sabbath School leaders or the friendly pastors—not even my friends. Nobody. The grape vine said we had apostatized. 

Eventually I came to learn that if I wasn’t perfect, my sins did not remove me from salvation and from being God’s child. Once for all Jesus had taken away my sins, past, present, and future! I cried for joy when I found out this truth, and I cried even harder when I leaned about how much He loved me. As time passed, I smiled more often, and I had fewer fears. I started going to the junior high class on Sundays and to the midweek service on Wednesdays.

That next January my parents, brother, and I sent our letter requesting that our names be removed from the membership rolls of the Adventist church. The pastor asked to meet with us and talked about how he wanted this to be like “a good divorce”. I was unnerved when I learned that they had to vote us out; did we really need their permission to leave? What if they said “No”?

In spite of my fears, the vote passed without further word, and we were finally free. 

Baptized into Christ

August 29, 2010, was the date of the river baptism conducted by GVCC. Our family discussed it and excitedly signed up to be baptized.

The night before the baptism, I got a fever, and my nightmare returned in full force, longer and worse than ever. Meanwhile, my parents and my brother were experiencing similar battles. It wasn’t easy working through discouragements, nightmares, and doubts, but I prayed to Jesus and asked Him to let me do this thing the next day. I wanted to be baptized in His name, not in the name of and into membership of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

I awoke the next morning well and completely ready to go. 

When the two pastors dunked the four of us into the freezing river water, my heart immediately changed. As I like to say, “We went from drowning in religion to being immersed in love.” My sins were already nailed to the cross, and my old life was left there at the bottom of the river as were my troubles—and, as I would later discover, my nightmares were buried there as well. 

Since that day my life has changed. I’m joyful, more content, and far more thankful. I’ve long since stopped worrying about my salvation or the number of sins I have.

Since that day my life has changed. I’m joyful, more content, and far more thankful. I’ve long since stopped worrying about my salvation or the number of sins I have. I attend the high school group before church on Sundays and have never been happier in my life! 

The man who called me “little sister” that first day is named Chuck. I see him at church from time to time, and I always give him a great big hug. If he hadn’t welcomed me, I don’t know if I would have felt so at home. We have a new life now. My sister has started attending with us, and although my grandparents are in despair that we are “no longer saved”, it doesn’t pain us as much as it did in the past. 

A few months ago, I was praying to understand what that old recurring nightmare was about. I realized that the dream represented my Adventist understanding that my sins were being added up, and the pile of my sins was getting bigger and bigger until it would crush me. Jesus also helped me understand that when I was baptized in His name, I publicly acknowledged leaving all my sins behind, past, present, and future. I had declared that I was His. 

I haven’t had that nightmare in the three and a half years since that day we went down to the river. 

Now, every morning when I wake up, the words of my favorite song go through my head:

“Through You I’m not afraid/Through You the price is paid/through You there’s victory/Because of You my heart screams, I am free!”

And I know I am truly free! †

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Aarika Shewmake, 17, graduated from home school this year and will be attending The Art Institute for Baking and Pastry Arts—Sacramento in January. She enjoys vintage movies and music. Her parents are Tom and Judy Shewmake, and she is the youngest of four siblings: Melissa, Thomas and Timothy. Aarika and her parents still attend Green Valley Community Church in Placerville, California. You may read her parent’s story HERE.

PHOTO © KARLY V PHOTOGRAPHY, USED BY PERMISSION.