Remember The Joy? What Happened to the Spark?

I've heard numerous times from people, and often from sermons, "Remember the joy you experienced upon your conversion to Christ? Remember how you could hardly contain yourself, and you had to go out and tell everybody you knew about your new faith? Remember how you witnessed the gospel to everybody? How you couldn't stop praising God? How you couldn't stop reading your bible? What happened since then? What happened to that spark? You need to have that spark renewed in your life."

It is amazing how many people take this view of converting to Christ. To them, it's as if this is the only way it does ever happen. But for me, it didn't happen anything like this at all. Far from it. My conversion was one of much confusion. Fear. I heard the gospel, yes, and realized the need to repent from my sins, but I saw God as a figure of terror, not so much as a loving Father. I was terrified to tell others about my experience. My first group of religious leaders were legalists and they really twisted the meaning of Christianity. I heard about Christianity for years, then my conversion didn't happen in a single moment, but somewhere within a period of eight or nine months.

One troublesome thing for me is in just how often people have a narrow idea of what Christianity, and all of its smaller pieces, looks like for other people. I think next time I hear something like this, I'll try to inform the one who is speaking that life isn't like his/her expectations.