For no purpose other than building each other up and glorifying God, how/when were you saved?
I grew up in a home with one slightly older brother and an older half sister, with no church involvement at all, in a single parent home on welfare and food stamps and lived in housing projects and apartments and trailer parks. Weekends were spent stepping over passed out drunk men and women of various ages in the floor of wherever we lived. I compensated by being on my best behavior and trying hard in school and I did well.
When I was 16 and a junior in high school, I met my future wife when she joined the school newspaper. I was editor. We started dating the January after I'd graduated. She was a PK. A condition of my dating her was that I had to go to church somewhere. Her dad said, "You don't have to go to church with her, but if you are going to see her here or go on a date, you'll be in church that Sunday." I was thrilled because I wanted to be made to go to church, frankly. I said, "Well, I may as well go with her." So I did. That was 1986.
My wife's mother was an old-school holiness woman who was full of the Holy Ghost. If there were ever a crayon made in the color of the love of God, the name of it would be "Audrey". She was the sweetest soul who ever lived. She would gently but firmly preach to me about the Lord, His goodness, His holiness, His grace, His provision. She would tell me all the time of stories of her younger years (she was 42 when my wife was born, so she had a lot of life behind her by the time I got to know her) in ministry with my wife's dad, all their adventurous giving of themselves to others to win them to Jesus. I'd like to say I took it all in and loved it all the time, but I was an 18, 19, 20 year old who was NOT yet in love with Jesus. But, in time, it took a toll on me.
The pastor was a solid, expositional type of teacher who was so clear to me. (That wasn't my future father in law. He'd retired by the time I came into the picture, for health reasons. He died 4 months after we married, in Sept. 1988.) I didn't understand everything, of course, as a carnal kid but I was drawn by the preaching. I'll never forget the one Sunday where I'd read something in the bible earlier in the week and he actually QUOTED it in his sermon that day! I was blown away and even started talking to my girlfriend in church, "Hey, I just READ that!" :)
By spring of 1987, the Lord was dealing with me. I'd found a local AM station that had just changed its format to CCM. I was working as a 20 year old manager of a rent-to-own store. In the office, I snuck the radio to that station and listened. Margaret Becker's song "Never for Nothing" came on the radio. (She sounded SO much like Annie Wilson of Heart.) There was a lyric in that song that grabbed me, man. "Hold on to that holy promise that says/No labor of love is in vain." I didn't know it was from a bible verse, but the idea seized me. I asked the Lord to save me to that promise, to save me period, right there in my office. I wanted to live what that verse was about. I still do, brothers. I teared up for a minute in my office, wiped my face and went on working. But I was born again.
Soon, I was baptized and became a member of that church. Later that year, my wife and I were engaged and we married in April, 1988. One night late in 1987, I was praying at church and I started speaking in tongues. In the spring of 1988, not long after my wife and I married, I had a series of times in prayer, a deep conviction and sense of calling, comments from others, and even a series of dreams that lead me to conclude I was being called to the ministry. I started preaching in our local church and submitted myself to the credentialing process of that time. My wife and I moved to Cleveland, TN in 1990 to go to our church college and that same year I was licensed as a minister. Years later, I surrendered those credentials and went down a path of disobedience that still has repercussions, mainly my choice to go to law school and become an attorney.
God has been faithful to us. After two miscarriages early in our marriage, in 1996 my wife was told she would never be able to bear a child. We were deeply hurt. We formed a friendship with a fellow who volunteered at the agency where my wife was a social worker and we started going to his SS class and church while I was finishing law school. He was instrumental in setting us on a path to reconciliation with God, and I treasure his friendship to this day, 19 years later. (He has since retired from his line of work, went on to pastor 3 churches himself from Oregon to S. Carolina and is on sabbatical after his wife and he have both fought cancer diagnoses.) In 2003, my wife told me she thought she might be pregnant. By God's merciful grace, He gave to us a beautiful, bright daughter that same year. God was right, doctors were wrong, and we had been reconciled with the Lord.
This past April, 2014, my sweet mother in law passed away after a four year losing battle with Alzheimer's. And, the Lord not only has sustained but gave my wife peace that passes all understanding. His goodness continues to us.