I made my way past Our Lady of Guadalupe Church and down Chandler Street. The smell of fresh corn dogs, tamales, and beer settled with the fading streams of sunlight on the street. I was managing a booth at the Topeka Fiesta. Long hot hours of talking to strangers (pretending to be upbeat and excited) had sent me in search of a quiet place to smoke a cigarette. A man stopped me. I can’t remember what he said, but he handed me what looked like money. I quickly recognized it as a gospel tract, surprisingly not materials from the Roman Catholics but from a Presbyterian.

I had spent my whole life in churches—nondenominational, Bible churches, evangelical megachurches, Christian churches, and Baptist churches—and I knew a gospel tract when I saw one. But I had never received one from a Presbyterian Church. My mind quickly went to the large Presbyterian Church in town, the one with the giant rainbow flag out front. I kept the tract, but quickly put it out of my mind, not wanting to waste my smoke break talking to another stranger.

Around this time, I was emerging from my obsession with Mark Driscoll sermons, attending a very large evangelical church in Topeka, Kan., with no membership, and trying to commit to the emotional manipulation brand of legalism. I went to the candlelit worship services where they ask you to remove your shoes and where each strum of the guitar is meant to lead you closer to tears and further from the guilt of sin. It was lost on me. I found myself unable to participate or cry on demand or raise my hands and sway in earnest, which in turn caused me to doubt God’s goodness, faithfulness, and maybe, on certain days, His very existence. I was looking for assurance in my own feelings and motives, but it never came. I would often say, “Better fellowship could be found on a barstool than the pews.” I had fully convinced myself this was true and found little value in church at all.

One late night, I sat in the parking lot of my apartment complex chain smoking and talking to a very dear cousin, telling her all my spiritual woes and concerns. So much of my spiritual anxiety came from the doctrine of free will I was taught, the doomsday altar calls to repentance before the rapture, and the discrepancy I saw between the God of the Old Testament and Christ. She told me about a Facebook group for single Reformed people to discuss theology. I joined it that night and was immediately drawn into the conversations between Baptists and Presbyterians. I began hearing the term covenant theology around that group and couldn’t get it out of my head.

Slowly my eyes were opened to a world I didn’t know existed. I thought the whole of Christianity believed in the dispensationalist rapture and end times. Like a fish is so consumed by his underwater existence that he doesn’t even know he is wet, all I had ever been taught was dispensationalism. I didn’t know there was anything beyond its surface. I was convinced that God’s Old Testament believers were saved by animal sacrifices, that there was an age of accountability, and that our Christian hope was in the rapture.

Beginning to feel guilty about using cigarettes in place of God in my life, I prayed that if God didn’t want me to smoke, He would give me not only the ability to quit but first the desire. God faithfully delivered me right away and faithfully kept me from smoking while I hid away, not wanting to go out or drink for fear of temptation overtaking me. I also couldn’t sleep and would wake up at all hours.

This season was miserable at the time but would become a pivotal season in my relationship with God. His compassion for me and His patience with me carried me through those days like a loving father gently rescuing a little kid from harm. All of those lonely days and sleepless nights found me devouring everything I could about Reformed faith and doctrines. Even more than I wanted a cigarette, I wanted to understand covenant theology, whatever it was. The groundbreaking theology, the doctrine, the new terms, the wanting a cigarette, the surprising friendship shifts and losses that came from not smoking, the craving I would temporarily satisfy with nicotine—all that shifted the crosshairs of my mind, finally, onto the right question: who is God? I was starving, parched, and dopamine deprived for God’s love, His assurance, and the peace that can only come from who He is.

The seasons were changing, the days were getting shorter, and God was preparing me for a miracle. I walked across the parking lot of my apartment complex and ran into that same man from the fiesta, only this time he didn’t give me a tract. I found out his name was Ryan Bever, that he lived at my same complex with his family, and that he was an intern at Topeka, Kan., RPC. The words Reformed and Presbyterian now had some context for me, and I was amazed that this church existed in town. The details of that conversation have faded with time, but God’s work through it will endure through eternity.

Only days later, my dearest friend, Micki, and I caught up over giant burritos on all we had missed while I was hidden away. I rambled on and on about Reformed faith, the questions I had, predestination, the Westminster Confession, and, most importantly, covenant theology, whatever that was. I told her I would really like to ask people at this Reformed Presbyterian Church if they know what covenant theology is. By God’s unfailing grace, she told me about a friend from work who went there. Micki and her friend Colin were both math teachers at a public high school in Topeka. She told him about our conversation, and he invited us to come worship with them the following Lord’s Day.

I still remember the people singing psalms. I can’t quite explain what that was like, but I remember thinking how amazing it would be to know that you are singing God’s words and that He is pleased with it, never having to question the theology of your worship songs. Most churches I had been in had argued over which types of songs or hymns to sing. I remember thinking how beautiful it would be to raise a family in this church. As we left, Pastor Brad Johnston greeted us, and I immediately and perhaps forcefully begged him to explain covenant theology to me. As someone used to having little to no access to the leadership at church and certainly not used to the idea of elders shepherding individuals, I was surprised when he offered a weekly study of the subject.

In the warm glow of the Johnstons’ dining room table, with their kids hanging around, Micki and I sat with Pastor Brad and Colin singing psalms and devouring the book Jesus On Every Page. We prayed, read, and discussed, and the wounds of spiritual depression began to heal. The puzzle pieces came together, and for the first time I saw God’s whole Word proclaiming the Messiah as one cohesive message, not a different God between the Old and New Testaments.

At last I was seeking assurance in the person and work of Christ, not the emotions I experienced. I was amazed to find a hope in Christ and not a dispensationalist rapture, shocked to see from Scripture that the blood of bulls contributed nothing to the salvation of any but that Christ’s blood from the fall to today is the only hope for sinners. The Old Testament became a rich tapestry of the coming Messiah, the Westminster Confession became my study partner, and the Psalms became like breath in a man’s lungs, animating and giving life to all of Scripture.

What began as connections of necessity quickly became meaningful, lasting relationships with people. The Topeka session went from a group of men who could help me grasp covenant theology to a group of men I trusted to shepherd my very soul. The Johnstons’ home was no longer just a place to meet but a place where I saw glimpses of covenant children growing up. The church became the theater where I saw covenant theology at work. And my friendship with Micki transformed into a sisterhood and a place to learn and grow. People invested in me and spent time enduring with me.

During this time, God was working yet another miracle. A man in Seattle was studying through the Westminster Confession of Faith with a group of men. In the same Facebook group, David and I found ourselves in many similar discussions about covenant theology. We had both miraculously become Presbyterian at the same time. What started as discussions on a common interest soon became more of friendship rooted deeply in the pursuit of knowledge of who God is. Soon we met, and, months later, we held hands and dove off a cliff together, our fates entirely in God’s hands. Shortly afterwards we were married so we could pursue the knowledge of who God is together for the rest of our lives. David found a deep love for singing the Psalms and the regulative principle of God’s worship.

Now David and I are raising our four kids at Denison, Kan., RPC. We’ve been blessed beyond my wildest imagination to see our beautiful congregation grow from the inside and the outside. Our pews are bursting with life—the cries of baptized members, the shouts of delight as the kids play before fellowship lunch. This noisy background is the background of our kid’s childhood and the fulfillment of my dream of raising a family in the RPCNA. Micki met her husband, Robert, not long after we joined Topeka RPC, where they are members today, and she continues to be one of my best friends for eternity. What a faithful God we serve!

Covenant theology has changed my life, led me into marriage, influenced how we are raising our family and where we worship, and even guided me on what I do when I’m feeling depressed or anxious. The faith I now have in God’s Word through a seemingly small but actually huge hermeneutic shift reaches into every facet of my life, and I will forever be grateful to God. I didn’t have a special heart; I wasn’t less rebellious or less self-seeking than any other Christian on the planet. I did absolutely nothing to earn or seek out God’s favor in understanding His Word. I contributed my failing heart, weak mind, and hopeless sin; but God faithfully put just the right people in my path at just the right time.

What was so attractive to a wandering, single, Christian girl? No one did anything beyond their duty to Christ. Not one of the instruments God used in my story is sinless. None of them have obtained glory for themselves or financial gain or status because a Kansas girl joined the RPCNA. But now my full-time job is discipling my four kids and loving the people in our community. What will the ripple effect be of a few faithful laborers? Only God knows.

That is my testimony: despite sin in me and others, fallen people, and all the wrong choices on my part, God just worked. My Savior worked through others and in me to bring about His perfect will. This is the testimony of all evangelism and the hope we have as laborers for Christ. Our labor will never return void or fruitless, because the bringing forth of increase is never our burden. We don’t work toward fruit as an end in itself. Rather, we labor patiently in love, sharing of the perfect Savior who first loved us.

I think tracts are wonderful. The preached Word is a gift from God. Studying together around dining room tables with the whole family is a foretaste of heaven. God has given us so many ways to be faithful laborers! We don’t need to seek out the most “effective” methods or “five steps” to pack the pews. We need only to be faithful to God in the duties that He has put before us. He will do it all.