“Sometimes it makes me mad when I hear people saying that they need to go out of the country to be on mission,” said Ashley Marie Eckstein. “There’s a field right here in Dallas. I really view my job as a mission… and that mission is in the classroom.
“I started teaching in 2006, and now teach English as a Second Language. I’ve worked in areas where poverty is a big problem and had the opportunity to teach children of all different backgrounds. Sometimes the kids I teach don’t have a lot of love at home, and I get to serve and care for them.
“As I’ve done free tutoring outside of school for kids who need extra help, I’ve had a chance to build relationships with families outside school. Several families ask questions about who I am and what I believe. That gives me an opportunity to share my faith and plant a seed. I’ve had two students come to church with me, and both have trusted Christ.
“It’s painful for me sometimes to see the big needs of the kids we serve and know that we just can’t help everyone. You see a kid at school who is one of ten siblings, and he’s walking around in jeans that are too small. You know he needs more than he’s got, and it’s heartbreaking. I love these children like they’re my own kids. That’s why, at the end of every school year, I write each child a personal note, and sign every letter with the same phrase: ‘I believe in you! Mrs. Eckstein’.
“There’s actually a little irony in that, because for a long time, I believed a lie. I had a lot of people convinced I was a Christian. In fact, I was devoutly religious, went to daily mass and led a Bible study. But I had no understanding of what salvation was. I didn’t trust that the Bible we had was the real Bible. I’d missed the most important thing: grace.
“I’d always heard that Christ died for my sins. But salvation really seemed dependent on what I did or didn’t do. I went to A&M, a campus where there are a lot of Christians. In college I was a very moral person. But I would pick fights with evangelists or people who would say they were ‘saved’ or ‘born again’. It seemed so wrong for them to say that there was only one way to Heaven.
“I felt the same way when I came to Watermark and heard the pastor say that Christ was the only way. I actually went to Connecting Point, Watermark’s membership class, just to pick a fight. I ended up meeting with Rachel Shelton, who is on staff at Watermark with the Young Adults Ministry. I argued with her and asked a lot of really hard questions. She continued talking to me and didn’t back away. That day, she asked me a question that kind of froze me: ‘If you don’t have to be a Christian to go to Heaven, why are you here?’
“That question was pivotal in my beginning to question and seek. For the first time, I really asked myself why I was here, at a church. Why wasn’t I at a mosque or a synagogue? What if the list of good things I had done was not good enough for God?
“I met with a girl from my Watermark community group and kept talking about my questions. She shared Ephesians 2:8-9 with me. That verse, along with the picture she drew of Christ’s work on the cross bridging the gap between my sin and God, really helped me understand what grace means. I had been reading the Bible for several years, and the crazy part is that I missed grace for so long. I’d heard the gospel hundreds of times and had always rejected it. But finally, it became clear that there was no way for me to earn my way to Heaven. I had to stop trying and start trusting. So on November 7, 2008, I trusted Christ as my Lord and Savior.
“One week later, I discovered some spots on my arm, and I was waiting to find out whether it was cancer. It turned out not to be cancer. But the strange thing is, I wasn’t really scared. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I’ll see God’s face in Heaven. The assurance of salvation rocked my world.
“My life today is very different this side of grace. Before, God was up there and I was down here. I respected Him, as if I was a peasant and He was a king. Now, God’s grace has given me a desire to live in the light… to maintain a pure relationship with Scott (who is now my husband)…and both to be discipled and make disciples. In some ways, life this side of God’s grace is a beautiful curse.
Grace changed my life, and also caused me to start looking at other people as souls for the first time. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wept for those I love who don’t know Christ. It breaks my heart. I’m fully aware of how undeserving I am. And I’m really overwhelmed by God’s grace. He loves me and has blessed me so much. That’s what encourages me to share about Christ with the people in my life.”
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)
