INC Bible Studies Changed My Life

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Cynthia Guevara: It’s just like this feeling is like you’re hungry. You want more, and then it’s done and it’s over with. And it’s like, “Can I listen some more?” You just want to listen to the truth. Because after a while, when you do, your eyes just start opening up.

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Cynthia Guevara: My name is Cynthia Guevara, and I was born in Ventura County, raised in Oxnard, California. My mom brought me up to be very independent. My mom was a single parent—a family of three. I was taught at a very young age to raise my brother, that was special needs. My mom had to work, and that left me to care for him. We would go to church on the Sabbath—part of being a Seventh-day Adventist.

Asking Questions

When I reached the age of 13, I started taking their Bible doctrines that they afforded me through the Seventh-day Adventist Church. There was a series of doctrines that I had to take. That’s when I started asking a lot of questions. So at 13, I got baptized. And then, as you become a teenager, other things in my life happened that I kind of fell apart from the church. So I wasn’t interested in [Seventh-day Adventist]anymore.

At 13, I started working in summer programs at school. And then from the following year, I worked as a secretary and helped the counselors recruit people to work and help them in the office. So that’s how I started getting my administrative background.

Well, life took a turn because, being a freshman in high school, I got a boyfriend at a very young age and had my son at 15. It was rough. But it wasn’t about me anymore. It was about that child. It came to a point in my life, and my kids were growing up. I felt that at the time, I didn’t know anything about God. And I started feeling a little bit guilty that I didn’t bring him up in the church like I was brought up in the Seventh-day [Adventist].

And you know, even though we discipline—a little mouthy here and there—I said they need to. I need to go back to church, go back to my roots, and show my kids who is God. You know who is Christ. So I started taking them to the Seventh-day Adventist.

An Invitation

Around that time, I was looking at Facebook, and one of my best friends, Regina Neri—they were my best friend that I grew up with since childhood. And then we had a little gathering and we went to go eat dinner. It was nice to catch up with them again. And around that time, it was an invitation. So she invited me, the next day was Sunday, if I wanted to go to [worship service].

So I was like, “Okay.” I accepted her invitation. And then that Sunday, I ended up going. And that was my first experience ever going to the Church Of Christ. You walk up to the door, [and] they greet you as soon as you walk in. Your experience is like, wow, you know, the men sit to the left, women sit to the right. The thing that dawned on me was that it was straight from the Bible—straight. No opinion, no testimony, just straight from the Bible—question and answer. And that’s what drew myself. That was very different than what I was raised to, when I went to church.

Bible-Based

At that time, Brother Eric Waterman gave me a call. He introduced himself. He said, “My name is Eric Waterman. I’m the resident minister in Victorville, and I’m inviting you to come to our worship service.” He gave me the days and times at the time, and he also said that they had Bible studies. At that time, I said, “You know, I need to go to this. I really need to go and listen more. I need to take my family and go to this Bible study.”

When Bible study was done, my son got up and looked me straight in the eye and said, “Mom, I understood it all. I got it. It was very clear.” And I just looked at him and I said to him, “I understood it too, son. I did. It was very clear.”

You Want More

This feeling is like, you’re hungry, you want more, and then it’s done and it’s over with. And it’s like, can I listen some more? You know you just want to listen to the truth. Because after a while, when you do, your eyes just start opening up.

The amazing part of that is you can have millions of questions, and the minister will not preach based on his testimony or his opinion. He gets the Bible, and it’s answered. When he gave me that lesson about the Seventh-day Adventists that I was following, boy, was I wrong. Because the Bible does not give permission for a woman to preach. The main pastor at the time that I was going to the Seventh-day Adventist [church] was a woman. And when he gave me that lesson, I just cried. I cried and cried because you were just deceived, and now your eyes opened. And it was a hard lesson. So growing up in the wrong truth, it’s hard. It’s hard, you know, born and raised and baptized to something that wasn’t in the truth. So your eyes opened.

Before that, my husband was teasing me. He said, “Where is it going to be? Is it going to be the Seventh-day Adventist Church? Because you keep going there, and then you keep going to the Church Of Christ.” And then at the time, you know, because it was still in the early stage and all that. And I was like, well, I guess it seems more that I’m going to stay with the Church Of Christ.

Sharing My Faith

It’s so true they say, you’re own family, friends, especially your loved ones, your immediate family are the ones that are going to be against you—the tribulations and everything. And that happened with my mom. My mom was a die-hard Seventh-day Adventist. So when I was starting to listen to more, I started sharing my faith with my mom, and I said, “Mom, you need to listen. You need to come to a Bible study and listen to the Church Of Christ because it’s in truth. It’s not what you think, you know. So my mom got offended, and she looked at me and said, “Who are you to tell me that, I’m your mom? And I raised you to tell me that I’m not in the truth.” So, at the time, my stepdad would say, “Just let her be. Let her be.” So life goes on. It took my stepdad dying, getting into a bad car accident, for my mom to open up her eyes.

And that happened around that time when I was seeking the Church, and it was just, you know, upsetting and sad. And then I said, “Mom, you need God in your life. You need God, you need to come and listen.” So she made the decision to come out and stay with me. And then she started taking the Bible [studies]. It’s been a blessing, you know, to see that. And to see my mom also as well, that got baptized and became a member.

Relationship With God

I wholeheartedly believe the Bible, that’s an instructional book that God left behind for a reason. And it’s not, it’s not easy, you know, it’s not. I have prayed wholeheartedly, with my heart. There’ve been rough times because, you know, life’s not easy. To this day, He has blessed me aboundingly. For me and my family, there’s actually seven of us, and we’re all Church Of Christ members.

The best thing is, you know, to continue serving God 100%, 100%. He will guide you and protect you. I pray every day, “Walk ahead of me, have my back, help me put on my armor, my shield.” And He does every day and takes care of me and my family. And I’ve always taught my kids, to this day, “You need to have a relationship with God, because if you don’t pray and you don’t have a relationship, then how do you expect God to give you the blessings?”

So one of my prayers was to go back to work. That was very important for me to go back to work. I was at home for 12 years raising my kids. The type of job that I do is I work for a federal prison. So I was going as an officer, and I got interviewed for an officer. So it was leaning more towards the officer. And also, I got interviewed to be a unit secretary, which was my old job, but it was leaning more towards the officer at the time. They had announced that the new incoming officers were 12-hour shifts.

I started doing devotional prayers, and I started praying, and I started saying, “God, I don’t know how we’re going to do. My husband works these 12 hours or is going to—he’s an officer, he’s a lieutenant, and I’m coming in as an officer as well. I don’t know what’s going to happen with our kids. They can’t stay home by themselves.”

And I got called into the office of HR, and they sat me down, and they said, “Miss Guevarra, if you want the secretary job, you can have it, but you’re going to lose your [pay] grade.” And I looked at her dead in the eye, and I said, “You know what? It’s not about the money. It’s about the schedule, and it’s about my kids. I will gratefully take it.” So I was blessed. He answered my prayer.

God is everything to me. Everything.

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