What event in your life.... [Archive]

StogusMaximus

28th February 2002, 04:14 PM

I posted it in the My Story.

Basically I have been a Christian all my life. I spent the better part of my teen years doing my own will and not wanting Jesus in my life.

A friend of my wife's invited us to church and I met the best people, I became friends with the kindess most holy pastor I have ever met. I was taught about Jesus and the Trinity and man from our associate pastor who just graduated from Wesley University. At that time I just felt my life do a 180 and I knew I had to start focusing on Jesus more and me less.

AngelAmidala

28th February 2002, 08:54 PM

My event was actually a series of events someone might say was a line of bad luck.

My dad's car got totalled in the parking lot of the school where I was, my dog died, my dad was faced with losing his job...again, and as he was getting a medical checkup for a possible new job, we found out he had cancer.

It was all just too much and I pretty much gave up on God. But then I knew I had to fix my thinking, so I started going to a new Bible study at my church and eventually my faith grew even stronger then it had been ever before.

FOMWatts<><

5th March 2002, 03:25 PM

I think a teenage depression lead me to Christ. I realized that I was truly useless and hopeless without God in my life. I also realized that any time that I had had JOY in my life it was from God, because He is the ONLY true source of JOY ;)

FOMWatts <><

JohnR7

5th March 2002, 03:42 PM

>>What event in your life do think lead you to search for Jesus?

My divorce 20 years ago. Actually, I was hurting and looking for a way to come out of the pain. Also, I knew divorce was a serious thing and I really did want to get myself right with God.

I was not seeking after Jesus, I was seeking after God. The Father introduced me to the Son. Jesus introduced me to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit then lead me back to Jesus, and Jesus pointed me back to the Father.

The Father spoke to me just as plainly before I got saved as after I got saved. Just not daily like He does now. Also, after we get saved, we quit rebelling, and start to DO His will. We start to know for she when it is God talking to us, and when we are being lied to.

tom

5th March 2002, 04:03 PM

i think for me it ws being in a few accidents one that almost took my life. i feel that the lord wants me to draw
closer to him.

hasbeens2000

6th March 2002, 02:20 PM

It was a series of events for me, too. First, I cared for my grandmother who had terminal brain cancer. Then my dad had a stroke. Finally, my wife of two years was diagnosed with a severe form of organ-threatening Lupus and nearly died. It was then that my pride was finally broken and I had no one left to lean on. God had to take away my 'security blankets', so I would look to Him--the Source of strength and comfort who would never fail me.

My experience was almost exactly like yours, John...

Originally posted by JohnR7
I was not seeking after Jesus, I was seeking after God. The Father introduced me to the Son. Jesus introduced me to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit then lead me back to Jesus, and Jesus pointed me back to the Father.

I cried out to God because I knew I couldn't handle life alone anymore. I didn't know Jesus. But God introduced me to Him. Through studying and following Jesus, I learned to recognize the Holy Spirit. Who, just like you said, led me back to Jesus, who in turn pointed me back to the Father. How cool is that? :clap:

Didymus

6th March 2002, 02:24 PM

perhaps your question should be "what made you decide to accept Christ as savior ?" I had been raised in the church so i had a lot of head knowledge but it wasn t until I messed my life up sinning that I realized I needed Jesus.

ZiSunka

6th March 2002, 04:15 PM

When I was 13 I realized that everything I had been taught about God was wrong. I started my journey then.

You wouldn't believe the things my childhood church taught about God, especially Jesus! Let's just say that He isn't at all who I was taught He was!

Of course, if they hadn't lied to me back then, I might not have cared enough to go find out who He really is, huh?

Rob

6th March 2002, 04:52 PM

For me it was a series of things. I pretty much did not set foot in a church or even think about God for around 15 years. I was raised in a Lutheran church and had some knowledge about the gospel and Jesus. My church never taught about relationship or maybe I just didn't hear.

My 5 year son wanted us to take him to church. He had been going with his grandparents while my wife and I went to NFL football games on Sundays. We visited a church that let you wear jeans, played rock music used drama and a message that related to day to day life. They were also bible believing and Christ centered. Many seeker oriented churches are seeker centered and they water down the message so as not to offend anyone. This place was not that way.

I was having a really rough time at work with lots of extra job responsibilities place on me without any compensation. At about the same time my assistant who I have worked with for 18 years was diagnosed with Cancer. The combination of grief, being exhausted physically, and the Spirit I could feel in the worship service caused me to give my life to Christ one Sunday morning about 2.5 years ago.

LouisBooth

7th March 2002, 12:40 AM

My mom making a 180 degree turn and totally changing who she was when she was saved....I literally thought she was a different person.

Blessed-one

10th March 2002, 11:27 PM

like many others, i've been a "Christian" all my life, and not knowing exactly how to be saved, how to have a closer relationship with God, how to obey His words...
until i went into highschool and clung to God because of so many subtle rejections i received there.
He has done lots of miracles for me, and until last year, through a very unexpected circumstance, i came across (or really, God led me) the Left Behind books, and they just sort of threw me back to the path of God. He hasn't given up on me, and i've got to stop turning away from Him.

amie

11th March 2002, 10:42 PM

It was when I was in a car accident when I was 19. I was in a coma and i was not expected to survive. I defied the laws of medicine...I died and it changed my life and I began searching for meaning. It was a horrible time for me, all of my friends that were in my car were killed, I broke almost everybone including both arms, both legs, all my ribs, my vertabrae, my skull was fractured in 4 places and my brain swelled. I was given my last rites and they waited, my funeral was planned and I was 6 months pregnant at the time. The accident caused me to go into labor, my son was 1 pound and he was too tiny to live. He died. since I was in a coma, I never saw him, but he came into me, he came into my heart, into my soul and he taught me how to love and then he left. I look frward to the day I will see him again. Recovery was painful and at the time I was given no counseling...just released out into the world. I was so massively depressed, all my friends were dead and my breasts leaked of milk that I had no child to feed. That night at 19, I took an entire bottle of pills as a suicide attempt. Miraculously, I woke up 3 days later lying in my own vomit. It was then that I finally realized I had work to do and it was not my time. In my desperation, I tried to die and when I didn't I realized what a horrible mistake for even trying to take my life! I had a purpose and for the first time, I felt God's presence and I learned, I was given a second chance to make things right, above all else, I learned to love. so thats what I'll do, for the rest of my life, I will love...
love and blessings
Amie

fieldmouse3

12th March 2002, 07:50 PM

Like some of the others that have posted, it was a series of events.

I was sent to Sunday school and church when I was younger, but my immediate family was never very serious about Christianity. Still, I knew who God was, and who Jesus was, and prayed every so often, but usually just when I was in trouble or I needed something.
During this past year and a half, I did a lot of exploration of my faith, and what it meant to me. I'd make great strides, but I'd always slip back, and allow myself to be distracted.
This fall was when I really got serious. Bad things just kept happening to me: car accidents (yes, more than one), job problems, school problems, and to top it off, my friends were nowhere to be found during this time. I was alone, and I had nothing. Nothing, that is, except God. I turned to Him in full force during this time. I prayed endlessly, I studied the Bible, and I worked my way through devotionals. It wasn;t long before I realized that all the bad stuff that had happened to me was God's way of getting my attention. I couldn't get rid of the distractions in my life that were keeping from a strong relationship with Him, so He did it for me.
Things weren't necessarily perfect after that; I still found myself straying, and letting myself get distracted again. I soon learned to recognize the signs that that was happening, and I leanred how to pray my way through it. Now, my faith is stronger than ever, and so is my relationship with God!

soulsisterclaire

13th March 2002, 11:49 AM

fieldmouse3, I can totally relate!

God does indeed chastise us when we stray so that we will come back to Him.

It is so hard to NOT stray sometimes. :help: This world is so tempting and it just seems to be getting worse and harder not to get "worldly"!

I am struggling with that now. Actually I have been since the day I got saved about 15 years ago!

It seems to me that Satan just wants me to turn my back on God so he is messing with me to make that happen. Kinda like in the Book of Job! Course, Job was much better than me. I really respect him. I mean God let Satan take everything from him and still Job did not curse God! Whew!

Just a thought...

fieldmouse3

13th March 2002, 05:39 PM

For a long time, I thought something was wrong with me because I struggled so much with my relationship with God. It seemed like I was always hearing stories of people who invite God into their lives in one incredible moment, then live a great Christian life from then on out. I had no idea why it was such a fight for me to even pray successfully! I talked to Christian friends about that, and they shared that they'd gone through similar stuff in their spiritual journeys.
Another note to my story: I don't think that bringing me closer to Him was God's only reason for having me go through everything that I went through this past fall and winter. That was a big part of it, yes, but lately, I've started to see my friends going through the same things I did. Since I've been there, I'm more able to understand and sympathize with them. So, I'm wondering if maybe God wanted me to be able to be there for my friends, and to do that, He had to show me what they were going through.

Hishandmaiden

15th March 2002, 05:22 AM

I messed with spirits and is very very disappointed with the world. I wondered, what is the meaning of living. Why am I born? And thus, I searched for the one that create me. That leads me to Jesus.

ZiSunka

15th March 2002, 06:20 PM

Beautiful, rpgal!

patriarch

22nd March 2002, 04:31 PM

Well, though raised a Catholic by wonderful parents, by age 18 I was living a bad life. I left the Church, did not believe in God, and went from worse to worse. In January of 1964 I had marijuana for the one and only time in my life, but way too much, or it was bad stuff, but anyway I had a very,very bad trip. Two weeks later I began having terrifying flashbacks. It came to the point where I could not sleep... I decided one evening at dinner to commit suicide later that night by taking my car out and crashing it against a tree at high speed. After everyone went to bed, and before I went out, I decided only *as a kind of blasphemy against myself* to kneel down and pray. It was a kind of joke. I knelt down and said to the empty void, "God, I need help." Then I realized that if there was a God, I should pray to him with reverence and faith, and so I tried again, with the same words, "God, if there is a God,I need help."

Suddenly there was a pinprick of light in the darkness. I don't know how to describe it otherwise, and I KNEW there is a God.

The weeks went by with my secretly growing in my faith, and finally without telling my parents, I went to Confession and Mass in another town on Holy Saturday, but coming out of our parish church that same evening, they looked at one another and KNEW that I had come back.

About 2 AM that morning, I felt myself awakened by God. I lay staring at the ceiling trying to figure it out. Then I realized that my father was kneeling at the foot of my bed thanking God for my return to the faith, and that God was saying to me, "If it hadn't been for the prayers of this man, you would be in hell right now."

Please understand, I am an ecclesial Christian. Coming back to the Church, the Body of Christ, confessing my sins to Him in Confession, and receiving Him in the Eucharist was as clear a return to the Lord as possible.

Such were the events of Holy Saturday, 1964, for which May His Name Be Praised Forever!

Nick_Loves_Abba

22nd March 2002, 06:07 PM

I'm truely blessed. I dunno what happened! I was 13, and I was listeneing to the band Poison. The song "Something to Believe In" it's a beautiful song really. And I just started crying. Crying out to GOD to save me, and not let me slip into hell. I'm thankful that life hadn't hurt me as much as it had some other people. But things happen for a reason, and I'm thankful that those rotten things did happen to some of those people, for if they didn't, they probably wouldn't be where they are now. GOd does things in mysterious ways. The Devil was pestering my like a disease when I was 13. I would relentlessly say F*** G-D in my mind. It destroyed me, I felt like I had no control over my mind. I felt like I was possessed, or severly disturbed. I knew what I was saying was wrong, but I couldn't stop. I didn't WANt to say F*** G-D, Not at all, I HATED saying it. And I would always say I was soo sorry, I asked GOD to make me stop saying it in my mind. I thought I was doomed becasue I remembered hearing about the Unforgivable sin. I thought I committed it! I thought I was going to hell and there was nothing I could do! Then, like I said, I was listening to my Poison tape while cleaning my room. Then the song "Something to Believe In" came up, and I just started bawling on my bed. I Just said "God, I love you, I want you, please take me to you when I die. I don't want to go to hell, I want Jesus" I fell asleep crying and praying at the same time, I woke upand been saved ever sense. Its scary, everyone once in a long while, the F*** G-D comes into my mind, but I push it aside, and just say, Satan, get AWAY from me I have Jesus. Then it stops....

PRAISE GOD!

ThienAn

22nd March 2002, 06:26 PM

I had dropped out of college. Worked at a dead end job. Falling into debt faster than I can breath. I felt like I was standing on disappearing ground with no where to go. So, I prayed knowing that He is the only one that can help me. And He revealed Himself to me by letting me see a miracle - a miracle that only I saw; a miracle that I cannot deny. So, I submitted to Him.

ThienAn

22nd March 2002, 06:28 PM

Originally posted by Nick_Loves_Abba
I'm truely blessed. I dunno what happened! I was 13, and I was listeneing to the band Poison. The song "Something to Believe In" it's a beautiful song really. And I just started crying. Crying out to GOD to save me, and not let me slip into hell. I'm thankful that life hadn't hurt me as much as it had some other people. But things happen for a reason, and I'm thankful that those rotten things did happen to some of those people, for if they didn't, they probably wouldn't be where they are now. GOd does things in mysterious ways. The Devil was pestering my like a disease when I was 13. I would relentlessly say F*** G-D in my mind. It destroyed me, I felt like I had no control over my mind. I felt like I was possessed, or severly disturbed. I knew what I was saying was wrong, but I couldn't stop. I didn't WANt to say F*** G-D, Not at all, I HATED saying it. And I would always say I was soo sorry, I asked GOD to make me stop saying it in my mind. I thought I was doomed becasue I remembered hearing about the Unforgivable sin. I thought I committed it! I thought I was going to hell and there was nothing I could do! Then, like I said, I was listening to my Poison tape while cleaning my room. Then the song "Something to Believe In" came up, and I just started bawling on my bed. I Just said "God, I love you, I want you, please take me to you when I die. I don't want to go to hell, I want Jesus" I fell asleep crying and praying at the same time, I woke upand been saved ever sense. Its scary, everyone once in a long while, the F*** G-D comes into my mind, but I push it aside, and just say, Satan, get AWAY from me I have Jesus. Then it stops....

PRAISE GOD!

Amen.

ThienAn

22nd March 2002, 06:38 PM

This has yet to be the most touching thread I have ever read. Every single story in this thread was very touching. No matter where one person has been, or what that person has done, when God touched him/her, from then on, it's a new beginning.

Praise God! :clap:

laine

28th March 2002, 01:40 AM

I don't remember ever not knowing him. I think as a small child my dad told me about him, and I have always known he was there.....
sometimes I just don't listen to him and it gets me in trouble

Redeemed1

28th March 2002, 12:38 PM

I lived a life of drugs, alcohol, and...running around shall we say, from the age of 12. I never knew anything about God other than "He's going to punish you", so needless to say I had no desire to know Him. By the time I was 25, I was in deep depression, on Prozac, and had absolutely no hope. My marriage was a wreck, and I had two small children. However, my husband had been raised in a Christian home (his dad was a pastor) and had seriously backslidden. But he knew the truth and constantly kept telling me "we need to get right with God." The only religious background I had at all was for two years my mom put me in catholic high school to try to straighten me out. I learned really quick the only difference between there and public school was the quality of drugs! They had more money to spend! Anyway...I only knew God as a punishing, distant God and I continually told my husband to quit talking about that stuff because I didn't want to hear it. But finally, in 1989, my depression and my marriage had almost gotten to the point of no return. My sister-in-law and her family were in a terrible car accident. Her husband and 4 year old daughter died. When we went to the hospital, and were in the cafeteria getting coffee, my father-in-law (the former pastor) sat us both down and asked us if we were ready to give our lives to Christ and stop living the way we had been. I said yes, because even though I knew nothing about God or Jesus, I knew that if He was real, He was my abosolute last hope. So I prayed and gave my life over to Christ. I've never looked back. Since that point in time, Jesus has proven Himself to be faithful time and time again. His Word has been life to me. He has set me free from so many things, shown me mercy and grace at every turn, and caused me to delight in Him. People wonder sometimes, about my love for Christ, my passion for Him. I guess all I can say is that I know where I was, and I know where I was headed. For me, the salvation moment is a distinct line that was drawn in the sand of my life. I was rescued by my Savior!

Mandy

28th March 2002, 01:00 PM

Awesome testimony Redeemed1!!!

Redeemed1

28th March 2002, 01:31 PM

Originally posted by Mandy
Awesome testimony Redeemed1!!!

Sometimes I look back and I get stunned all over again by what He did. The cry of my heart will forever be, "I've been rescued!" But, in actuality, we have all been rescued. It may be just harder for some to define the moment than others.

Mandy

28th March 2002, 05:08 PM

I agree.

Harmony

28th March 2002, 05:41 PM

I have always felt Jesus was a part of my life, but the actual turning point for me was when another person used Jesus and the words of God to manipulate me and a now close friend. I listened to this person and believed only half of what I was told and decided to go seeking some of the answers my self. That is when I really "met" Jesus. It was hard to come out of that deep pit but just knowing the Lord was with me gave me the strength to do it.

Kristen

30th April 2002, 01:14 PM

Being seperated from my family at 7 years old. The Lord was with me, church was my home and haven.

SpiritPsalmist

14th June 2002, 01:42 PM

I don't remember ever not knowing Him. From a baby, my grandparents would take me to church and somewhere around 3 or 4 I accepted Jesus into my heart. I've never backslid, although I have made a few really bad decisions.

My mother was very abusive and Jesus got me through it. I clung to Him with all my being and He was faithful.

I'm 48 years old now and love God more than ever. He just gets gooder and gooder :-)

Quaffer

Wookie

17th June 2002, 08:15 AM

The initial start on my journey was a motorcycle accident and my Dad. Having escaped with my life (the doctor said I should have died but all I had was two busted up wrists and a crushed finger). At that point my Dad said someone must have been looking out for me. Now he's never been religious and I know he had his tongue in his cheek when he said it but it did make me wonder about it - thus finally opening my mind to the faint possibilty.

The real step onto the path that led me to Christ was a BBC two-part play about Merlin (y'know, King Arthur etc). I decided to pop onto the internet to see if there was anything behind the names of the Celtic deities involved in the play. I came across some links about Wicca. I had no idea what that was and after some reading this bomb went off around my heart area and I realised there really was 'something' out there. I could feel it.

Four years later, after many different journies looking for the truth I wake up about 8 weeks ago knowing Christ is it. I did nothing specifically to choose Christianity - it chose me I guess.

I may have studied Wicca, Rosicrusianism, the Tarot and Ritual Magic but here I am. I dabbled in magic spells early on but soon realised there is no need for them. I don't think I have done anything wrong by that path as I always knew 'something' was leading me to where I needed to be.

Bingo - Jesus walks into my life and I have never felt so complete a person as I do now.

Just an abridged version of my story - so I really have a dangerous driver, my Dad and the BBC to thank.

Wookie