When I was seventeen and in my final year at school, I was at one of those superficial, rather boring teenage parties when I met a guy who invited me to church.

The Round Church, Cambridge

This seemed like a very strange date and I laughed with my family about it. I sat through an unmemorable service in another beautiful medieval church followed by a more memorable lunch. Jonathan’s invitation suggested that he valued church, but at this time in my life I did not understand why anyone would choose to talk about Jesus beyond the formal prayers that we all prayed in church. He gave me a pamphlet about sin, featuring passages from the book of Romans in the Bible. I failed to understand it. Even though my goals at the time had nothing to do with God, I felt that I was relatively good, compared to other teenagers that I knew. My goals were to get into a good college, to be nice, and to kiss the occasional boy at a party to feel reassured that one day I would get married: a further goal!

Despite my negative attitude, God had other plans for me. Shortly after this encounter, I went to Cambridge. I had already received a college scarf for my birthday but I would not hear whether I had been admitted to the college until five weeks before term started. As you can imagine, My mood was thoughtful as I walked round that beautiful city. I went into the Round Church, which is circular and, of course, medieval. I was tense enough to pray. I only prayed very occasionally as I thought that God was only interested in the big stuff. Getting into a Cambridge college was not something that I could assume, so a prayer seemed appropriate. I prayed that if I got into Homerton College, I would go to that church. I knew nothing about the Round Church except that it looked interesting and my father had been there sometimes when he was at Cambridge University in the fifties. He rarely spoke about God, so I was not expecting a dynamic church. I thought nothing more about my prayer, as I did not have much faith in Jesus or in his ability to answer prayers.

Do you believe that God does respond to us? I didn’t at the time but my life since then has given me much encouragement that he does. I even believe that Jesus put my prayer into my heart so that he could answer it!

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